odeneal.blog

Author: aeodeneal

  • Lessons from Pilot 2

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    aeodeneal
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    In a previous post, I wrote about what I learned from running a pilot study for my EdD, before the main study starts in September 2022. In a nutshell: it went terribly, and that was the best outcome I could’ve hoped for. You can read about this in a post I wrote about the first…

  • Making life easier as a teacher

    Making life easier as a teacher

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    aeodeneal
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    There are a few things that I routinely do at work that make my life inside the classroom just that bit easier. In this post I’ll outline a couple of these. Hopefully they’ll be useful for a new ITT or ECT! Lesson templates I know that there’s debate on Twitter about whether using PowerPoints are…

  • Scientific literacy 3: writing about science

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    This post is the third in a series about improving the scientific literacy of our pupils. So far I’ve written about use of vocabulary and embedding additional reading into the curriculum for KS3. Why is scientific writing important? As I’ve said before, literacy is important beyond any one school subject’s curriculum. It can have a…

  • Student motivation study: pilot number 1

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    aeodeneal
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    In this post I’m going to outline the process I’ve been through to run a pilot of my research. This includes why I’m doing it in the first place, what I planned to do, what I did, and how it went. Purpose of the pilot Since my Master’s research consisted solely of questionnaire data, I…

  • Ethics update: approval!

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    aeodeneal
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    In my last post about this, I had just submitted my ethics application. In this post I’ll talk about the feedback I received, and how I have addressed those issues. Administrative points Some of the information that was required for the ethics proposal was missing. Rookie. This meant that I’d forgotten to put in some…

  • Scientific literacy 2: reading in science

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    aeodeneal
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    This post is the second in a series about methods of embedding scientific literacy into our curriculum, so it becomes a more well-practised skill for our students. Whilst my focus is primarily on KS3, I have also created a wider reading list for our KS5 Physics pupils, and have started setting the odd literacy-related task…

  • Strategies for improving scientific literacy

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    aeodeneal
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    In January I was appointed as the KS3 Science Coordinator at my school on a maternity cover basis, as part of the cover for our Second in Science who’s on maternity leave. This means I have until Christmas 2022 to make an impact, so I want to make sure I’m successful. My focus for the…

  • Using metacognition in the classroom

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    aeodeneal
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    A couple of months ago I ran a workshop for the staff at my school on using metacognition in the classroom. The big thing to take away from it was that it’s not something we can teach once, and then leave. We need to embed strategies in our lessons that work because of metacognition. It…

  • The ethics process so far

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    aeodeneal
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    I have just filled out the application for ethical approval for my research, and am waiting for the results from the committee. I’ve found that writing about the aims of the research, including what I want to get out of it wasn’t too difficult. I used the proposal as a chance to work out where…

  • Leading the implementation of a new KS3 curriculum

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    aeodeneal
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    I think we’d be hard pushed to find a science teacher that disagrees about the importance of KS3. Whilst there aren’t any public exams like in KS4 or KS5, one could argue the most successful students in those later stages are those who had the best foundation in science. This means not only simply knowledge…