So the rationale for
the ICT and science unit we've designed for the school
sort of stems from the history of our teaching
the pre-service teachers at the university
where we've taken them for a subject called Teaching Science.
Graeme was involved with our project up there
as the ICT expert
to help us integrate the ICT
into achieving our science learning outcomes.
The background of that is...
It comes from a few elements, really.
Science is not really something
that is a text based or an orally based sort of understanding.
In fact, it couldn't exist if it was only oral.
And it's really multi-modal and integrates diagrams and...
..models sometimes, physical models,
into the understandings.
If you imagine the players are the salt. They're the salt particles.
Each player's a salt particle.
And you've seen the footy when they've been
a bit naughty and had a bit of a wrestle
and they all run in and there's more and more of them there
and they're all in the middle, having a wrestle.
Here's my MCG.
Here's my players wrestling in the middle.
So all 36 are in the middle and they're all stuck together.
So what I want you to imagine is you're in a helicopter
and you're going up, higher and higher and higher,
and you can see the big green...oval.
And you just get to the point where you can just see those players
all having a big hug in the middle.
WOMAN: So today we've all been looking at our animations
and we've already talked a little bit about what software we'll be using.
Who's using Pivot?
One, two, three.
Is anyone else using...the webcams?
A couple there.
And is anybody... We've already had one group use an iPad.
WOMAN 2: Yes, that was this morning.
WOMAN 1: We might be able to elect another group doing that.
And everyone's putting them together on Movie Maker?
One of the things you were saying before about the simplifications
is they'll want to include their sun,
and they always need some context,
but you always just need to double-check with them
that they know that the sun's a simplification
of what they're saying it is.
Yes, so my role was...
I'm based at Golden Square Primary School,
and I was approached by La Trobe to go into the university
and work with the lecturers.
And...I was introduced to Jim.
And I spent one day a week with going to lectures
and finding out what the particle model was all about
and how chemistry fit in
and what he was teaching with his students.
And then Jim came up with these ideas about the particle model,
and he said "What is the best way to represent that?"
And we went down the track of using stop-motion software,
and that's what the large part of this experience has been about
with the students.
Can I have a look at... back to the Pivot one?
So, what are you doing with these two stick figures?
Well, they're just the people that are going into the hot-air balloon.
OK.
When we're animating it.
So thinking about what we can do next time to make it more effective,
one of the things that got said by Kerrieanne and the students
was the timeline of three weeks with the whole unit -
you know, getting to this use of the particle model
and including completing their animation...
We were thinking that perhaps a little bit like that third-year model
that we need to adjust the practicum aspect from the uni's perspective
where perhaps we've got a series of lead-in afternoons
before the block practicum
to give the students a chance to engage with the kids
and find out what they know and get to know them.
And then, sort of, bang, when the block practicum starts,
you can be really into the meat of the unit.
GRAEME: And that was a theme that was going right through,
is that the student teachers felt like it was crammed.
JIM: Yeah.
GRAEME: So I think it's important that the literacy...
At the moment, it's still being separated into other blocks.
And the connection that they're doing with their storyboarding,
that that falls through into their literacy
and that the mentor teachers see that.
The other aspects of it too is that we've had some meetings with Jan.
-The practicum coordinator. -The practicum coordinator.
And she also mentioned the same thing,
that this seems to be a flavour
with some of the other schools that you're working with.
So it would be great if we can move
some of that initial contact
the student teachers have with the mentor teachers
and with the classroom, the students.
So I guess what I'm hoping that I'll see even more -
and there's signs from these students this year
that they're developing this understanding,
that the use of the ICT
is as much about developing students' understandings of science concepts -
and of science too, I suppose,
but the concept especially with movement about particles
that it facilitates.
It's as much about that aspect than it is
a summative assessment of their learning,
than a post-hoc assessment of what they've learnt,
that it's a formative assessment
in that you can judge what the kids are understanding
very visually all the way along
and feed into that.
It's not just "Stand back!" and "This is," like, "a test."
You're actually developing an explanation.