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Giving blogging another go…

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I feel that I have neglected my e-portfolio a little throughout MA2; I enjoyed writing out my notes and when it came to writing in my e-portfolio, the thought of it seemed like such a chore. However, the elective module Expressive Arts requires me to document some of my TDT’s electronically so I thought “Why not?”

The first TDT I’ll be sharing on my blog is one that I enjoyed taking part in with a group from Expressive Arts. The task was to make a silent movie, which meant that there was no dialogue whatsoever, only music to tell the story.  In first year, Sharon showed us this video which was made by the Spanish Lottery. It is such an emotional video and this is because the powerful music emphasises the emotions felt throughout.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOnrzULj-BE

Our take on ‘silent movie’ was a little different than this advert and we instantly thought of old black and white movies. We could have been a bit more creative with the story line but we opted for a simple change of emotion so that we could easily display the different music used for such contrasting emotions. If this was a lesson that I was doing with an upper years class, I would definitely spend a lot of time with them thinking of a story and then replacing whatever dialogue they had in their role-play with music which they created.

In our silent movie, we chose to use piano as our main instrument as one of our group members was confident in playing piano, and we also used different percussion instruments. We kept it simple and just used two people as actors and the other three (myself included) played the instruments and also recorded it.

watch here

 

 

2 Prof. Knowledge & Understanding, 3.1 Teaching & Learning, edushare

Understanding Science Literacy

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The process of fair testing is ensuring there are no deliberate advantages or disadvantages to any variables in an experiment. This ensures that the information gathered is reliable. To guarantee reliability any obvious advantages to any factors are controlled.

An example of this is how high a ball bounces (Prain, 2007). The height of the bounce the ball executes is measured, however the following things are considered:

  • “Will the type of ball affect its bounce?”
  • “Will the surface on which it bounces affect the bounce?”
  • “Will the height from which you drop the ball affect its bounce?” (Prain, 2007)

These three variables are changed and the experiment is carried out more than once. This, therefore, ensures the test is “fair”. By taking into account all these factors and questioning how they will effect the experiment a person is, therefore “science literate” as they are understanding the questioning and issues with the experiment.

Being literate is ‘the ability to read and write’ (Oxford University Press, 2016). Being able to read and write helps us understand daily processes we wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Without being able to read and write we wouldn’t understand travel timetables, signs, how to tell the time, how to shop or even be able to sustain a job! To me, this would suggest that the idea of Scientific Literacy means simply to be able to understand the ideas behind science and how to use these ideas to conduct experiments, alike how we use reading and writing to understand variables of the outside world.

Not only does Scientific Literacy mean having an understanding of science, bscienceut also being able to form questions and conclusions from the evidence found through experiments (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2003). Over all, Scientific Literacy means that children understand the words used in science, the process of experiments, why the experiments are being carried out, can come up with their thoughts about the outcomes, and also why it is important that they know this for everyday life. This directly links to some key principles in the Curriculum for Excellence (Education Scotland, 2016). Teachers must ensure that when they are teaching science their pupils are not simply just learning the terms like they may learn a times-table. In order to be Science Literate the children must understand the depth of what they are learning.

A lack of scientific literacy could mean the development of false scientific conclusions. One of the main examples of this was the MMR vaccine scare. In 1998 an investigation into the three in one vaccine for measles was conducted by, the now discredited, Andrew Wakefield. He came to the conclusion that that vaccine could actually increases a child’s chance of developing autism. This research was released and caused fear to spread to all parents who became hesitant to allow their children to receive the vaccine. It wasn’t until 2004 that an investigation into Wakefield’s research took place and it was found to be flawed. The medical records of thmmre children he investigated did not match his research and the paper he published was taken  down.

This is a clear example of how important science literacy is. This spread of false information caused the vaccine rates to drop dramatically and a significant increases in measles, causing many children to suffer unnecessarily. New research found that there was no connection between and vaccine and autism and there are no side effects to the vaccine. However, some parents are still wary of the vaccine and refuse to allow their children to receive it.

 

Prain, V. (2007) How to interpret multi-modal science texts. Available at: http://www.education.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/5303/linking_science_literacy_strat.pdf (Accessed: 27 January 2016).

Education Scotland, (2016). Principles – How is the curriculum organised? –

Learning and teaching. [online] Educationscotland.gov.uk. Available at: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningandteaching/thecurriculum/howisthecurriculumorganised/principles/index.asp [Accessed 28 Jan. 2016].

Oxford University Press, (2016). literate – definition of literate in English from the Oxford dictionary. [online] Oxforddictionaries.com. Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/literate [Accessed 28 Jan. 2016].

OECD, (2003). The PISA 2003 Assessment Framework – Mathematics, Reading, Science and Problem Solving Knowledge and Skills. Paris: OECD

The story behind the MMR scare, Rory Greenslade, 2013. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/apr/25/mmr-scare-analysis

Utmb Health, Wakefield Autism Scandal, David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, 2012. Available at http://www.medicaldiscoverynews.com/shows/237_wakefieldAutism.html

NHS Choices, Ruling on doctor in MMR scare, 2010. Available at: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/01January/Pages/MMR-vaccine-autism-scare-doctor.aspx

 

3.1 Teaching & Learning, Curriculum resources, edushare

Thinking about teaching science

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Today MA1 had our first science workshop which was really enjoyable. Science is a subject which I, and many others in the class feel slightly nervous about teaching as it is not a subject that I took a large amount of interest in throughout my time at school. I realised that there is such a vast range of subjects that science could cover and I think it’ll be a really fun and interesting topic to teach children.

For today’s workshop we were asked to prepare a short presentation to share with  a peer in the class in order to have a think about different experiments that we could use with a class in placement or with our own classes in the future. I chose to carry out an experiment called “Raining Blood.” This involved mixing vegetable oil with food colouring, and then pouring this mixture into a jar of water. The coloured oil created a layer on top of the water and then droplets of coloured oil sank to the bottom of the jar. This happens because the molecules of oil are heavier than those of water and therefore sink through the water. Then droplets of oil start to move back up to the layer above the water because the oil and colouring molecules begin to separate.

My experiment did not turn out as well as I’d hoped as the water changed colour much more quickly than it was supposed to but I think this was because I used too much colouring compared to the amount of oil and this is something I would need to be more careful of if I were to carry out the experiment again.