At the beginning of this module, I was very weary of teaching science because it is something that I have done in the past with little success. This was because I did not possess the confidence needed to teach science efficiently in the primary school. In hindsight, this module has allowed myself as a developing practitioner to feel more confident in my ability, especially with regards to inquiry based learning and allowing children to explore different issues and aspects of science. Luckily, this module has given me the opportunity to teach two different age groups in science which is the reason for this blog/vlog post. The first lesson was do with acids and alkalis with a primary six class and the second lesson was to do with electricity with a primary 7 class. This post today aims to describe what my colleagues did to exemplify inquiry based learning and the vlog post will reflect on the experience.

The activity was based around the issue of cars and their headlights. Our ‘hook’ displayed numerous cars (old and new) with their headlights on. The children were asked to discuss the function of headlights and why cars need them. Once the children discussed and answered these questions, the children were asked to think about how the car headlights get their power and were asked to discuss. this matter. To highlight to the children how this happens, we lined them up outside the classroom and asked the to think about how electricity runs through wires. Questions were along the lines of ‘when we flick a light switch, does the light come on fast or slow? The children then passed along the line to symbolise how electricity runs from a batter to a lightbulb. One of us walked alongside the children to symbolise that electricity is passed along from atom to atom.

Once the ball analogy concluded, the children were involved in making their own circuits, comparing things such as:

one battery connected to one lightbulb
Two batteries connected to one lightbulb.
Two batteries connected to two lightbulbs.

However, before this we talked about hypothesising and why it is important in science. Children then created their own hypotheses about what would happen with the above scenarios. The interesting thing was that hypotheses varied from child to child showing how individualistic children are when it comes to their own ideas. Each adult that was involved in the activity acted as a facilitator to the children’s’ learning, which emphasised the need for social constructivism in science. Once the children completed their circuits, we had a general plenary on the things the have learned and to see if they enjoyed the activity.

Below is the link to my professional reflection on the activity focussing on what went well during the lesson, what could be improved upon and how the children interacted with the lesson.