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Hi Triona,
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Liston’s paper and how we can reflect on our current practice to improve the teaching of STEM rather than individual subjects. It is important to ensure meaningful connections across the different areas of STEM, this could be done in more project based learning.
The resource One year on Earth allows for lots of discussion and as you have suggested allowing the learners to create their own model to demonstrate and share their learning. I also like how you plan to include digital learning and using simple data to address all areas of STEM. As you have mentioned this would allow for lots of skills development from the curriculum but also for collaboration. Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Caoimhe,
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and reflection on your current practice in light of Liston’s paper. I agree and find that my own class are always more engaged when they are discovering things for themselves and often while I may have the lesson planned, their own thinking and reasoning can at times lead us in a different direction as they explore their own ideas.
I think using a fixed object in the yard will be a great help in guiding their observations and looking at where the sun is in relation to the item. You could also consider a tree, pole, even chimney of nearby building as a focus point when observing the sun’s location. I also agree that focusing their observations will encourage them to reflect on something they see every day and haven’t thought about it.
Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Diarmaid,
Thanks for sharing your project idea on Roscommon. I really like the concept of the noticing walk and encouraging the learners to collect sound snippets on their devices. This would be a great stimulus for the art lesson also.
It seems like you have many areas to incorporate in your place-based project with the different habitats and areas of heritage. You could consider focusing on one area at a time to allow for more time to learn about the specific area and to show their learning in different ways such as art, poetry, music as you have outlined.
As you have mentioned a gallery walk would allow for sharing of knowledge and learning. You could also consider more group based projects focusing on different aspects, this would also give the learners the opportunity to become more independent in their learning and sharing their learning with their peers.
Hi Niamh
Welcome to the course and thank you for sharing your thoughts and reflecting on your own practice in light of Liston’s paper. I agree that we all have fell into the trap of treating the areas of STEM in isolation rather than an integrated approach. I really like how you are planning to put engineering into the heart of your lessons now and making connections to real life problems. I often try and consider design and make tasks that would link to concepts or topics in Science such as exploring forces and gravity and then having a parachute task to allow for connections between the concept and engineering.
It is great to hear that you feel the Curious Minds framework might be a better fit for your student’s needs and I hope that the other resources across this course will help in planning for the learners in your class to allow for project based learning at their level. I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Rebecca
Welcome to the course, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the different resources in this module. The many resources across this module and other modules do allow for critical thinking and real world learning. I agree that reasoning and encouraging the learners to share their thinking is very important and that teachers can adapt the lessons where suitable to encourage this. I also agree that allowing multiple ways for learners to show their thinking and learning would support a Universal Design for Learning.
It is great to hear that you will use these resources with your class and allow for cross curricular, integrated learning. I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.
Hi Laura,
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your reflection on using the documentary Home with your class. It is a great idea to choose different clips to use in your classroom as you can choose what is most relevant and suitable for those in your class. I like how you are planning to carry out different activities to link with the clips from the documentary and allow for meaningful connections between the video and the learning. It is also a lovely idea to encourage the learners to reflect on action that they take themselves and to promote even the small changes in the school which will hopefully empower them to make changes at home and in their communities.
Hi Ashling,
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your reflection on Liston’s paper. The paper allows us lots of opportunity to reflect on our own practice and how to enhance it for the learners in our classrooms. I can see how you plan to enhance the STEM activities in your classroom to allow for more meaningful integration with all areas of STEM. Something that I think we can all try and focus on and will link with the new STEM curriculum. It is also important to reflect on what is working well and you seem to have a great approach in incorporating real life problems for the STEM tasks. Well done! I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.
Hi Mollie,
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on this module. I also agree that children learn best when exploring real-life scenarios and getting involved in activities with connections to real-life. The weather station is an ideal example of this. The class can learn about the weather and look at data but the creation of a weather station which allows the gathering of their own real life data allows for more meaningful learning. I like how you are planning to promote this weather station across the school and encourage others to record the data and even creating a weather board for the school. A great idea to promote independent learning for all classes. Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the other modules.
Hi Sinead.
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your lesson idea. While it is very general you could consider the area you are living in or the local area of your school and consider adapting this lesson specific to the area. Such as if your school is urban, using images from a rural area near you for comparison of the night sky. You could also focus on the school area specifically when exploring the artificial lights so that the learners can consider what changes are needed in the school initially before exploring further in the local area.
Hi Orla
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your ideas for moon observation. I like how you are planning to observe the moon on Stellarium first, this will give the learners a focus when going outside the observe the moon and record what they have observed. I like how you are planning to use lots of different resources and materials for the learners to show their observations and learning. Don’t forget to check the dates to ensure the moon will be visible during school hours.
Hi Aishling,
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your ideas on making sundials with your class.
I like how you are planning to explore the rotation of the earth initially and use this knowledge when teaching about the sundials. This will allow the pupils to make real life connections when creating their own sundial. I also like how you are planning to make the sundial more permanent on the yard and accessible for everyone. Great ideas, thanks for sharing.
Hi Edwin,
Welcome to the course. You are very fortunate to have the Obelisk near your school. What a great opportunity to use the explore the heritage and science in your local areas. It is a great idea to visit twice and at different times of the day to explore the different sundials. I like how you plan to allow the children to design and make their own sundials using what they have learned about the obelisk and exploring the garden sundial. This allows for lots of creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. There are lots of cross curricular integration opportunities as you have mentioned. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Anna,
That is a great idea to link in with the wind farm in your local area. I like how you are planning to explore windmills in history and how you have considered how this topic could be approached across the different classes also. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Mary,
It is a great opportunity to link local history with STEM investigations. There are some great ideas to explore the different properties of a variety of materials and I am sure the learners could also design their own fair test investigations too which would give them autonomy of their learning and would be so engaging for pupils.
I also like how you plan to develop the thinking of individual fibres to weaving fibres to make them stronger and then compare the woven fibres for different properties also. There are so many exciting learning opportunities here. Great ideas, thanks for sharing.
Hi Yvonne
Welcome to the course. I agree that the video has lovely ideas to map out the different aspects of the local area with a focus of the school grounds for younger classes. It is great to use natural materials which allows for curiosity and creativity and the learners can then recreate the map with other construction toys and resources such as Lego to create a different style of map. This would also provide for Universal Design for Learning as the learners can respond in multiple ways which allows for lots of discussion among the learners as you have mentioned.
Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.
