Secondary National Strategy: Effective practice in Interactive Teaching

Start date: 1 March 2007
End date: 30 April 2009
Funder: Secondary National Strategy
Primary investigator: Dr Jaume Amettler
Co-investigators: Dr Jenny Lewis, 00045303
External co-investigators: Ms. Jan Peckett, Ms. Jane Bourne, Mr. Julian Clarke - National Strategy

This project was commissioned by the Secondary National Strategy. Using recent research findings from two ESRC-funded research projects (EPSE and Dialogic Teaching), members of the CSSME worked with officers of the National Strategy and a large group of teachers to develop short teaching sequences to introduce key scientific ideas to students at ks3 (11-13). The teaching sequences are:

Explaining change processes using a simple particle model of matter [PDF: 2.46MB]
Explaining how electric circuits work [PDF: 2.76MB]
Force and motion [PDF: 2.47MB]
Key concepts in genetics [PDF: 2.59MB]
Modelling matter: the nature of bonding [PDF: 1.36MB]
Plant nutrition: from common sense to scientific views [PDF: 1.68MB]
Voltage, energy and power in electric circuits [PDF: 2.33MB]
Behaviour
Light

In each teaching sequence:

The introduction of ideas is planned and sequenced to take account of research findings about teaching and learning science
Teaching activities are planned to support communication between teachers and students that will promote learning - this is termed interactive teaching by the National Strategy

Professional development materials are currently being produced to support science teachers in using these materials to promote interactive teaching.