Knowledge and understanding in science learning – making connections

The lessons discussed in this chapter draw attention to the importance of understanding how children develop and represent their knowledge in different contexts. In the Year 5/6 class the teacher explicitly told the pupils that for the purposes of that lesson she wanted to know what they had learned in school that term, not just the factual knowledge about the planets which they had gained largely through their homework. She used another classroom tool, the flipchart, to list some key concepts such as ‘day and night’ and this provided a visible representation of pupils’ school learning to prompt them as they worked on their own maps. This tactic helped to mediate the pupils’ ‘home’ and ‘school’ knowledge effectively and many were then able to begin to combine the two areas of their thinking. As Hart (2000) points out, the principle of making connections between the pupils’ classroom responses and their wider learning experi- ences out of school is central to the thinking required of teachers and pupils and it is one of the fundamental ways to enhance learning and inclusion. The idea that teachers and pupils will combine the use of different classroom tools to make connections in learning draws attention to the need to place the use of any one resource, such as the interactive whiteboard, in the context of activity in the whole classroom environment. As we have already seen in Chapter 5, the work of Kress et al. (2001) extends this point in examining how pupils construct their understanding using a ‘multi-modal’ interplay of resources in speech, writing, gesture, action and visual images. Kress et al. (2001: 13) ask ‘what constraints and possibilities for making meaning are offered by each mode present for representation in the science classroom, and what use is made of them?’ The use of these different ways of representing knowledge is at the heart of the learning process, especially in attending to the connections that are made between them in science learning. Our lesson observations notably drew attention to the relevance of examining gesture, movement and other physical activity by teacher and pupils, in connection with the more familiar uses of speech, writing and visual images.

‘IS THERE A PICTURE OF BEYOND?’

Multiple aspects of learning in the whole classroom environment – a question

of control?

Individual tools such as the IWB do not stand alone in the classroom, but we do need to acknowledge that a particular resource may have specific and distinctive characteristics which can support, or hinder, different aspects of learning. For example, it was very clear from our study that the public nature of the IWB could have advantages and disadvantages. It could clearly help groups of pupils to share ideas with an easily visible point of reference. However, pupils were also aware of the possibilities for social evaluation as their work went up on the large screen and several were concerned about publicly demonstrating their technical skills including accurate typing and spelling. In discussing their review of research litera- ture on ICT and pedagogy, Cox et al. (2003) identify one of the emerg- ing themes as the control of learning. They note that work such as that by Hennessey et al. (2005) with teachers in secondary schools suggests that the use of ICT can be associated with a decrease of direction from the teacher and an increase in pupil self-regulation and collaboration. In our case both class teachers were concerned with involving the pupils in the learning, handing over as much as possible to them without withdraw- ing support all together. The idea that responsibility for learning can com- fortably be shared by the pupils in the whole classroom environment, with all the prioritising, risk-taking and public errors implied, may be a goal to work towards as ICT tools become embedded in each primary classroom.

Knowledge and understanding in science learning – making connections