Competent Children, Competent Learners
In the last in her series drawing on interviews done as part of the Competent Learners @ 25 project, Ally Bull asks what if the whole focus for primary school science was creative play.
This is the focus of A Nation of Curious Minds: He Whenua Hihiri i te Mahara – the national strategic plan for science in society. So to what extent does science learning at school support this goal? Before we can answer that we need to be clear about what supports the development of innovators. According to Tony Wagner the answer is play, passion and purpose. He says that in his interviews with highly innovative young people, their parents, teachers and mentors, “passion” was the most frequently occurring word.
In this blog post, Ally Bull makes the case for science fairs.
School science fairs get a bad rap. They are often criticised for not promoting real learning, being overly-competitive, advantaging students from already privileged backgrounds, putting extra stress on children, teachers and families, not representing science as it really is, and so on. Despite this though, some people do leave school with very positive memories of science fairs.
In the first of our new blog, Thinking about science education, Ally Bull aims to start a conversation about the place of science in a future-focused school curriculum. Ally is a former senior researcher at NZCER and now consultant, with deep knowledge and expertise in science education, future-focused learning and professional learning for teachers.
In the first of our new blog, Thinking about science education, Ally Bull considers the place of science in a future-focused school curriculum. Ally is a former senior researcher at NZCER and now consultant, with deep knowledge and expertise in science education, future-focused learning and professional learning for teachers.
