Since the summer, I have been in a friendly argument with colleagues from the world of primary science – especially … More
Category: Literacy
Convincing Evidence that Teacher Centred Instruction is More Effective Than Hands-On Pupil Centered Lessons.
This is a very short summary of a research paper published by Nature last December: A RCT for assessment of … More
Why Primary Science Education is So Important
This is a 6 minute video describing the outcomes of a twelve year longitudinal study by Novak in the states. … More
Does It Matter What We Teach in Primary Science?
Does it matter what we choose to teach in primary science, or is it more important that teachers teach what … More
First Thoughts on The ASE Enquiry Panel Discussion Jan21
Yesterday I took part in a panel discussion at the ASE conference on enquiry in science. Chris Harrison and Jane … More
Retrieval and Transfer: It’s Not Just ‘Can They or Can’t They?”
When you check whether pupils in your class can do something they either can or they can’t. Then you decide … More
“Didn’t You Learn This Last Year?
A class of year 7 pupils stare blankly at a teacher who has asked a question they could all answer … More
Entitled to Know
I’ve been arguing about the content of the primary science curriculum; not so much with primary teachers, but with secondary … More
England’s Primary Science Performance (2018).
This post is my response to reading the STAs 2018 Key Stage Two science monitoring report (here). We were due … More
The Problem Solving Methods Learners Use – and How to Develop Them
Solving problems, especially in physics, has been well studied (e.g. Larkin, McDermott, Simon and Simon 1980: here and Chi, Glaser … More
