“Not only is it important to ask questions and find the answers, as a scientist I felt obligated to communicate with the world what we were learning.”
― Brief Answers to the Big Questions
What have Professor Brian Cox, Doctor Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Doctor Hannah Fry, Professor Marcus du Sautoy and Doctor Sarah Jarvis (and other scientists and mathematicians on radio and television) have in common? They’re all brilliant communicators.
They can communicate complex thoughts, ideas, and facts in exciting, intriguing ways that the layperson understands. A skill that teachers fully appreciate, having to do the same daily.
Over the next few days, schools all around the UK and further afield will be busy taking part in British Science Week. The activities require students to work in teams, be good readers, think creatively, speak and listen well, negotiate and, in some experiments, write to explain, argue and discuss – essential study and life skills!
Here’s a simple checklist to support your students in these skills to enhance their learning experience, so that you can focus on the science! (I’ll be looking into each of the skills below in greater detail in future blogs, so be sure to sign up to receive the Beautiful Minds Education monthly newsletter if you want further information).
Reading skills for science
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Following instructions
Even bullet-pointed instructions can be challenging to follow if the language is unfamiliar and complicated.
→ Share the reading strategies you use (however obvious) when reading instructions (i.e. reading more than once, looking at pictures for clues, underlining difficult words and re-reading surrounding sentences, and highlighting key actions).
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Learning new vocabulary, keywords, and concepts
The more familiar and confident your students are with subject-specific terminology, the more likely they are to use this language when speaking and writing in your subject.
→ Use every opportunity to increase your students’ knowledge of your subject’s language: definitions, pronunciation, spelling, and importantly, how to use the words in context, whether speaking or writing. For students needing support with reading, you may find ‘How to help your reluctant readers to read‘ useful.
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Researching
The skill is in finding the relevant information for the purpose in hand.
→ Emphasise the importance of understanding the purpose of the research so that your students skim, scan, and close read for the relevant information.
→ Once the relevant information is identified, show your students how to make good notes and summaries, including keywords and phrases to back up points when appropriate.
Speaking and listening skills for science
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Collaboration
Teamwork provides a safe learning space for students to increase their participation and confidence.
→ If you haven’t already done so, co-write (with your students) ground rules for speaking and listening needed for successful teamwork. Great for buy-in and participation.
→ Accentuate the importance of using keywords. Make it competitive: award points for using keywords. The more challenging the keyword, the more points it’s worth. Dartboards are great for displaying the various keywords and their corresponding value.
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Asking colossal questions
Support your students’ creative thinking and questioning – visit our blog on this.
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Preparing to write
Speaking and listening activities are excellent preparation for writing: if you can think it, there’s a high chance you can say it, and if you can say it, there’s a higher chance you can write it. An oversimplification but you get the idea – more of this in future blogs.
Writing skills for science
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Planning content and structure
Whatever the purpose of the writing, planning is essential to ensure that you’ve included all the points you want to make, used keywords and concepts, structured it in a logical order, and used the most appropriate formats, e.g. graphs. Here’s how:
→ Co-plan and write with your students, so they realise the importance of planning.
→ Show them how to back up their points with evidence. Simple steps to follow are:
Step 1: make your point
Step 2: back it up with evidence
Step 3: explain how your evidence backs up your point
Step 4: connect your point to the challenge or question
→ Proofread your writing, checking spelling, punctuation, and grammar to ensure clarity.
Further reading
A Guide to Greatness has more detail on all the above points. For writing, it has writing templates for writing to explain, discuss, argue, and analyse. It also has a five-step to great writing, writing checklist, a guide on how to include evidence to back up your points and a writing plan that can be used for any purpose.
What literacy and learning topic would you like us to cover?
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