ARTICLES
Getting Social with Science (continued)
The reality is there are several approaches to the teaching of the
new Stage 6 Science courses being adopted by current teachers
of these new curricula. For ease of clarification, they have been
described under the alliterative titles of skim, shape and share.
by”. Lasting memories from pre-service practical experiences
and stories from fellow teachers confirm that heavy schedules,
increased reporting demands, and the blurring lines of parental
communication, mean that programming and planning are often
neglected. Compounding these concerns, many teachers must
work within less supportive workplace environments with limited
or absent mentorship, which is an area where the value of the
professional social media groups really shines through. The
opportunity to ask questions, propose ideas and seek guidance
is invaluable, allowing teachers to promote new, creative and
collaborative learning experiences without the fear of failure. This
brings us to the final approach.
Skim
It is the depth of coverage that seems to be one of the most
common causes of consternation. When “exploring the changes
in definitions and models of an acid and a base over time to
explain the limitations of each model, including but not limited to
Arrhenius’ theory and Bronsted-Lowry theory” (NSW Education
Standards Authority, 2017, pp. 51-52) is one unlimited by
including Davy? Lavoisier and Davy? Lavoisier, Davy and Lewis?
or some other combination? With many similar content statements
to address, some teachers are seeking to skim the surface, like
a skipping stone, whilst ensuring the pond is clear enough for
deeper exploration for those students who see something they
want to explore in more detail. One way of doing this is by using
a flipped learning approach, described in a previous article
(Harrison, 2018), as a means of pushing content learning out
of the classroom to create more time for experimentation and
application of conceptual knowledge during lesson time. This
has the added advantage of providing an instant reference
library prior to an examination. However, skimming does have
its downside too. Trying to cover as much theory or content as
possible, on the off-chance students may encounter it during an
examination, may come at the expense of a deeper understanding
of some of the more important concepts.
Share
Of particular interest, and the key motivation for this article, have
been the incredible levels of collaboration which have emerged
through social media and, in our case, Facebook in particular.
Groups have been created and heavily patronised as teachers
support one another, share resources and seek advice from
the ‘brains trust’ in a way that has not been evident in the pre-
technology days. Whilst this is also the case for other social
platforms, including Twitter, some examples have been chosen
from several Facebook groups to help illustrate the point (Fig.1).
Any identifiers have been removed from the examples below.
Shape
This is probably the least desirable of the three approaches, but
it is still well used. Unfortunately, the time required to develop
completely new programs and learning activities from scratch
for one or more (for teachers in some rural or remote locations
– many) new senior courses means some teachers reshape
previous modules from the old syllabus to fit the new curriculum.
For example, in Year 12 Chemistry, Module 5 on Equilibrium and
Acid Reactions, much of the material can be shaped from the
previous core offerings in the Acidic Environment, the Haber
Process in Chemical Monitoring and Management, as well as
material from the Industrial Chemistry Option. Of course, this is
not enough; nowhere had solution equilibria been adequately
covered in the previous syllabus, but it does provide a sound
starting-point. This approach also provides a potential bank
of questions from past papers which can be merged into new
resources.
Figure 1 Post 20 Feb 2019 Awesome NSW Science Teachers on
Facebook
Given that all teachers are under significant time pressures, it
would appear extremely appealing to many teachers to adopt the
approach of minimal modification to past programs to simply “get
Since their inception, the professional groups on Facebook have
delivered benefits to teachers far beyond the social connectivity
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 1