How to be an Outstanding Science Teacher – Going Back To Basics (Without Buying Equipment)
- Created By Neil Atkins
- Posted on July 19th, 2022
- Programme Overview
Topic | Numeracy in Science |
| Delivery Model | Online Learning |
| What is Included |
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| Cost |
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| Deadline booking date: | Wednesday 28th September 2022 |
| Date of Training | 4 Part Course: Tuesday 11th October Tuesday 25th October Tuesday 1st November & Tuesday 8th November 2022 |
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| Time (UAE) | 4pm to 5pm |
| Platform | Online |
Target audience
Science teachers looking at improving the engagement of all students and certainly those who want to increase the number of girls doing A level
Aims of the course
Improving student engagement and understanding in science, but above all improving your teaching!
Intended outcomes
- These strategies increase the engagement of your students, but they also improve your engagement and hopefully enjoyment of teaching this challenging but rewarding subject.
Neil Atkins
Programme details:
Going back to the basics, this course aims to show you how to develop your students into brilliant scientists and in so doing turn you into an outstanding teacher. Based on Neil Atkin’s charity Rubbish Science, this course looks at how you can create engagement and excitement and provoke curiosity in your science classroom. We will show how we can develop scientific literacy in our students and a true understanding of how scientists work. Better still we can do this using only materials recovered from the recycling bin. You can make a fly trap in seconds using a plastic bottle, but what colour works best? what bait? where should you put it?
You could spend a lifetime answering these questions. Students are given a very structured approach using design thinking to solve real problems of how we might provide a degree of food, water and health security with few resources. All the activities are low-threshold – everyone can do them, but high-ceiling – there are no limits to what they can achieve.
We will look at the research and what makes great learning. How to develop your students’ problem solving ability and boost their resilience. There will be loads of ideas and resources you can use the very next day in your classroom
| Session 1: Introduction to being outstanding
● What is outstanding teaching? ● What does the research say works? ● Getting the knowledge/skills balance right ● The role of confusion in learning ● Metacognition and stretching students |
| Session 2: Design thinking
● Developing creative problem solving skills ● Resilience – How we can make our students more resilient (particularly those fragile high achieving girls) and maybe yourself ● The role of Prototyping in the science classroom. ● Practical session showing the structure of an outstanding lesson |
| Session 3: Practical Sessions
● Further development of using the structure of design thinking and knowledge based approaches ● More ideas for brilliant lessons ● Plan a lesson for your gap task
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| Gap task:
● Trial your lesson you planned in Session 3 ● Video or have it observed ● Evaluate and improve your lesson ● Prepare to do a brief presentation for session 4.
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| Session 4: Putting it all together
● Sharing how the gap task went- Successes and failures ● Sharing of ideas based on the principles we have learned ● Developing another outstanding lesson – Group task ● Staying in contact for further development |
About AtkinEdu
Neil’s background in challenging schools led him to develop the physics of activities students found engaging such as football, surfing, and skateboarding. “You can teach most of the forces topic using a skateboarder doing an ollie and the skaters will listen to you!”
A hearing loss forced Neil from the classroom where he loved being an Advanced Skills Teacher in challenging schools- Terrible title, but wonderful job. So he became an educational consultant and the more he learned, the more he realised he had and still has to learn. But digital tools have enabled him to effectively teach again and have opened a whole host of new opportunities.
