Want a new way to teacher grade 10 science that keeps students actively engaged and trains them in authentic scientific thinking? Check out the resources for my new grade 10 science course.
Unit Question and Model Focus: Each unit has a overarching question that drives the inquiry in our daily lessons. Students build an answer in the form of a model page, a visual representation of the science concepts that tell a story in response to the question.
Observation and Curiosity: Many lessons, especially near the start of a unit, ask students to describe what they notice and what they wonder in response to a video, article, or demonstration. The questions they generate help to motivate the daily learning.
Process of Science: All the units are designed to follow authentic scientific thinking. We notice something unusual and generate questions that need to be answered. Each lesson adds a piece to the answer by finding scientific patterns and developing concepts and labels to describe them. Soon we have powerful conceptual tools that we can use to predict and explain.
Scientific Applications: Many lessons, especially in the chemistry and biology units, are framed from the point of view of a science-using professional who needs to figure something out. Students can imagine themselves in these roles and use their emerging understanding to solve simplified, real-world problems. You are an environmental officer investigating a industrial chemical leak; you are a community health nurse meeting a patient with troubling symptoms; you are a company scientist assessing a new technology.
Optics: This is a great introduction unit for the course because other units don't critically depend on it so it offers students a chance to "buy in" to the learning format with lots of fun activities and get used to the learning expectations before the critical chemistry unit. The optics content does return in the climate change unit (properties of light) and biology units (visual organ system and microscopes).
Chemistry: This unit is the heart of the course. Its skills are purposefully reused in the oceans, climate change, and biology units. It connects the most directly with learning at the grade 11 level.
Oceans: This is a combination of the acids and bases topic from the chemistry unit and climate change with a focus on ocean acidification.
Climate Change: Here we use optics and chemistry ideas to explore how the Sun warms up the Earth.
Biology: This exploration of life and how things grow builds on chemistry ideas with a bit of optics.
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Each unit of the course has a Course Guide Powerpoint that has slides and teaching tips for each lesson. These complement the Handbook lessons very closely and should be explored and used together - the lessons will make much more sense!
Handbooks: The daily investigations students complete. We print out one package per student for each unit.
Course Guide Powerpoints: These are the Powerpoint slides we use with each lesson. They contain lots of helpful visuals, videos, pictures of the equipment, and various teacher and student tips for each lesson.
Tests and Quizzes: Includes my solutions.
French Immersion: My colleague, Herman Lam, has adapted our grade 9 course for our French Immersion program. You can find all those resources in the folders for each unit of the course.
For detailed information about each unit, please follow these links:
Completed Student Handbook: I have included a completed copy of the student handbook. I often revised each lesson right after teaching it, so what you see in the scans can be quite different from the updated resources above!
Quizzes: We have replaced our unit tests with two quizzes, dividing the unit in half. This makes for a manageable amount of content for students, allows for a generous amount of time to accommodate our IEP students, and provides time for students to go through the "blue pen" self-evaluation process.
Scientific Skills Culminating: Since hands-on work is so important for this course, we run our version of a lab exam that focuses on our experimental thinking processes and skills.
Learning Logs: Students create daily summaries of their lessons.
Daily Homework: Most lessons have an associated homework page. We provide students with the homework solutions online. They are responsible for completing the homework and making corrections using a blue pen. At then end of each unit, they complete a self-evaluation where they assess how thoughtfully they go through this process.
Mastery Learning: I routinely collect the daily classwork or homework and provide simple feedback: G (Green) if there are no significant errors; Y (Yellow) if very minor improvements are needed or things are correct but the explanations are poor; and R (Red) if there are significant errors or incomplete work. I do not accept work that has not been blue-penned! Students are welcome to resubmit their work to upgrade their feedback.Using this process, there is a clear and high standard for daily work and credit recovery is built in to the course.
Assessment Preparation and Exams: Grade 9 is often students' first experience of a formal exam. The assessment folder has the PowerPoints we use to introduce the exam and discuss study strategies.
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Working in Groups
Many students have had negative experiences working in groups long before they arrive in our science classes. However, group work done well is a very effective way to learn. To make groups work in your class, there are a few important things to do:
Explain why groups work so well and traditional teaching doesn't. People learn much more when they explain what they are thinking. Listening to one another allows students to quickly catch their mistakes and reflect on different points of view. Writing lots of notes in class does not allow students to do wither of these things!
Train students how to work effectively in groups. It's not a free-for-all: everyone has a role to play in the group and everyone still needs to produce their own work. This is different group work from what they are likely used to!
Promote self-evaluation of students' learning. Students won't improve at anything unless they reflect on their actions, identify what needs to improve, and figure out what to do to improve it. This applies to group work behaviours as well as science content.
Set-up the classroom for group learning. Configure the seating so students can face one another. Have the group materials (white boards, multiple choice letters, pencils, etc.) readily available at each table.
During the first two weeks of class, I randomly change the groups every day. This way, students get to meet one another and find people they will work well with. After that, we change groups each unit. To help design good-functioning groups, I ask students for their input and try to match people up.
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