[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Shane,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your reflection on Liston’s paper and your approach in your own class. It is great that you can work on coding with your learners and provide for lots of skills development in coding. While I have used tutorials, it is an area I need to work on myself.

STEM is integrated and this is represented in our new STEM Specification. As you have said, you will now work on more design based projects to develop engineering and problem solving with a purpose. As you have said the learners will often be more engaged and will understand things better when they are in the process of testing predictions, investigating and problem solving with their peers.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Anna,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your lesson ideas which focus on the infant classes. Play based learning and exploration, while it is an approach for all classes now, is an effective one for STEM in infants. As you have said, there are lots of opportunities to explore sound and light in free play initially and then explore it further in discrete lessons. Visuals would also be very engaging for the infants and I like how you plan to introduce the telescope to them with images and then allow them to show their learning in different ways such as creating their own pictures and using simple vocab as responses to the lesson.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Kevin,

Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your lesson ideas on map making. I really like how you plan to explore the placenames in the local area first and link with logainm.ie. I have done this previously and it adds to the maps when they are exploring the meaning of the Irish name and what is around the area. I taught in an area where there were lots of ‘Ráth’ in place names and my class recognised the link to fairy forts. It provided for lots of discussion and connections to other place names too.

It is a lovely way to explore the local area and maps of the local area, thanks for sharing. I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.

 

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Siobhan

Welcome to the course. It is great to hear your thoughts on Liston’s paper and how this is reflected in the new STEM Curriculum Specfication.

It is great to hear you liked the activities in this module also. Activity 1 is very useful, as you have said, to address the concepts and highlight the differences. I like how you plan to extend the learning with the learners writing their own sentences, this would really demonstrate their own learning for assessment purposes.

Checking the temperature in the classroom every day at the same time will be a challenge and possibly even become a reminder on the phone, (after the roll call alarm) Recording the temperature and gathering the data is very engaging for the learners and would allow for real life connections when covering data in the class. As you have said, they would need to have the knowledge of averages and creating graphs to fully engage.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Susan

Welcome to the course, it is great to hear your views on the activities in this module and how they build on the knowledge gained in module 1. As you have said learners would need to know the difference between weather and climate before engaging in Climate Reporters.

While the activities are engaging, with hands on tasks and activities. We all need to consider the learners in our class and modify and adapt the lessons which best suit our own class. As you have mentioned the terms used in the lesson would need to be taught or more simpler explanations available. Perhaps it may be suited later in the year as you have suggested to consolidate their learning and also give the learners the opportunity to work on presentation skills. Thanks for your reflection on this activity. I hope you enjoy the other modules in the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Katie,

Welcome to the course. It is great to hear that you enjoyed the different activities in this module.

Weather or Climate is an age-appropriate resource to highlight the difference between these two concepts as they can often be confused as you have said.

There is great scope for development of Activity 2 in gathering and collecting their own data and I like how you are considering it as an on-going activity. I think encouraging the learners to make predictions about the weather would also enhance this activity. Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Amanda,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your thoughts after reading Liston’s paper. It is great to hear that your learners are strong collaborators which is a fantastic skill in life. It sounds like your school allows for many hands on activities and that you intend to plan for more meaningful learning opportunities to design, create and problem solve together.

It is great to hear your feedback on the activities from this module and that you may need to adapt the lessons to suit the learners in your own class. While the lesson plans outline hands on activities, we must all look at the vocabulary and resources needed to ensure we can adapt them for our own class.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Eleanor

Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing how you would adapt the activities for your educational setting. It is great to hear you lked the video and the visual approach to learn about the concept of greenhouse gases and climate change.

Using the activity and resources within a SEE theme would suit a lot of classes and would allow for collaboration between the learners and sharing what they have learned or noticed, as you have mentioned. I think your follow up tasks would allow for engineering and problem solving and as you have said make the learning more relevant to pupils’ everyday lives.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Maeve,

Welcome to the course. I like how you are planning to use images from the local area across the seasons initially as the learners would be familiar with the places and this would be very engaging.

You could also consider the photos within the One Year on Earth lesson pack to explore the changes in the trees and allow for lots of discussion. This would then lead onto the seasons and exploring a hands on activity on why we have seasons, depending on the age of the learners in your class. The One Year on Earth has a great lesson outline to explore the changing seasons.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Jennifer,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your observation plan for the sun. I like how you are encouraging predictions prior to the observations as this may help to engage and support the learners when observing the sun. Using landmarks such as trees and buildings as you have suggested will also guide and support the observations.

I also like how you plan to extend this activity by considering the sunrise and sunset in other countries too. Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Aoife,

I agree that a thematic planning approach allows for more meaningful connections in the learning as the class are exploring a topic across multiple curricular areas and as you have mentioned they become more absorbed in the topic.

You have included lots of lovely suggestions for poetry, some of which I will look at for my own class.

There are so many integration opportunities as you have outlined above, thanks for sharing.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Olivia,

I agree that the learners may be surprised to discover the biodiversity around them even in an urban area.

The school and local park allows for lots of exploration of biodiversity in the scavenger hunt. I like how you are considering this across the seasons to compare the changes in nature. You could consider including nocturnal animals on the list for the scavenger hunt to allow for discussion and critical thinking about the nocturnal animals.

I like how you are giving the learners the oopportunity to consider the actions we all can take such as sensor lights in our own gardens. Thanks for sharing.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Heather,

Thanks for your comprehensive plan to explore light pollution with your class. I like how you plan to explore the night sky from two different areas using photographs, the questions you have outlined will allow for lots of critical thinking and discussion.

I also like how you plan to explore different areas for the light survey which will allow the learners to compare the results and consider changes that could be suggested or action they themselves can take.

Great idea to link their learning with nocturnal animals and the effect the light pollution has on them. Thanks for sharing.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Miriam

Welcome to the course. I agree that as a senior class teacher myself, the learners are engaged in exciting and fun lessons that bring something new to the classroom. It is great to hear that you want this to flourish in your classroom.

I like your questioning prior to any observation to explore prior knowledge and also allow for critical thinking during the discussion. This would also focus and guide their observations of the sun. You could consider using trees or buildings and compare the location of the sun to them initially and then use compass points etc.

Thanks for sharing your lesson plan and how it represents the new STEM specification. I hope you enjoy the other modules in the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Siobhan

Welcome to the course. It is lovely to hear about your school garden and how it already allows for hands on learning and exploration. So it is a lovely idea to incorproate the sundial into this location.

I like how you plan to explore the movement of the sun using a stick initially and allow the learners to represent the shadow at hourly intervals. This would allow for exploration and making connections to what the learners already know. I also like how you plan to encourage the older learners to use their knowledge and create a more permanent sundial for other classes to explore and observe.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

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