Science: Unlocking Potential

Dr Caroline Oprandi keeping you up to date with science & technology at PACA

Next term the pupils will be working on their individual STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths) projects. A project-based curriculum is something that I have long conversations about, with my husband Paolo. Paolo completed a Doctorate in Education recently at the University of Sussex and has set out his opinion on this topic below.
“Children spend many hours at school at great expense in their most formative years, but we often miss the opportunity to ensure they meet their potential. In the current model of education children do not learn what they value or to value the skills they have. Many of them start to believe they are bad at subjects simply because they were not motivated to learn key concepts when they are taught it. Consequently many of our children’s strengths are not uncovered or are overlooked by the time they have left school and a great opportunity is lost.
“In order to rectify this I propose we take a project-based approach to our school curricula. There are four key differences in this approach from traditional education I wish to highlight.

In a project-based curriculum:
1. Students are required to relate subject content taught by the teacher to a specialism of their own
2. They present their specialism to their peers, relating it to the subject content taught by the teachers
3. They discuss, challenge and peer review other students’ work
4. They keep a portfolio of work including an assessment piece, class exercises, a journal of their learning experiences and peer interactions that they will ultimately be assessed on

“The peer engagement expected in this model gives students a genuine interest in each other’s work. Interaction between peers develops a greater discernment and criticality about the subject topics than tutor to student interaction. The increased ownership children feel combined with the opportunities for peer interaction motivates the students to be resourceful and inquisitive about the subject. Finland has already started a move towards introducing a project-based, “phenomenon learning” curriculum. Hopefully we will too in the UK, but please feel free to challenge these ideas.”
I’m really looking forward to the challenges of 2016. It was great to recently have met with the Director of Teaching and Learning Research from the University of Sussex, Professor Gillian Hampden-Thompson and tell her about everything we had achieved in this last year. Hopefully, besides winning prizes and competitions at the STEM centre; we can also start to have an impact on educational policy.
Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA) is a college offering sixth form, 11-16 years, youth centre, adult learning, community education, sports centre and pre-school. Find out more at www.paca.uk.com