Best Practice schools needed for cross-curricular dialogue event development
Would a team of teachers at your school like to develop a cross-curricular collapsed half-day event to discuss controversial issues in science with year 10 students?
Large scale cross-curricular events are exciting, informative and encourage emotional responses in students but the burden of event planning and preparation is a problem for busy teachers. The Biochemical Society wants to reduce this burden by developing an adaptable framework for running large scale, cross-curricular dialogue events and high quality resources linked across the curriculum.
We would like to consult with a team of teachers from three schools to establish a Best Practice event which can be demonstrated to visiting colleagues.
To do this we need:
- a team of five teachers who would like to team-teach a cross-curricular event
- representatives from a variety of curriculum areas within the team
- senior leaders who are behind the project
- links with other local secondary schools
What’s in it for you?
Students will be given opportunities to:
- raise and address their own questions through group discussion and debate.
- appreciate the tentative nature of cutting edge science
- form and analyze their own opinions regarding the applications of scientific developments in a societal context
- respect and appreciate the views of others
Teachers will have the opportunity to:
- forge strong inter-departmental links
- gain new ideas and the confidence to try them
- try high quality curriculum-linked resources
- experience an adaptable event framework for use with future cohorts
- establish an in-school support network for trying out new skills
- assess ‘Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills’
- make effective use of teaching time by addressing overlapping learning objectives across the curriculum (e.g. judging bias and appreciating alternative moral values)
Schools can establish:
- a sustainable institutional culture of collaboration
- annual events which can continue without the need for further support
- a reputation for dissemination of best practice
- funding for resources and supply cover available throughout 2012 for UK schools
The schedule
1. Development workshop (31st Jan 2012)
Teams of teachers from three schools will be invited to a half-day development workshop at Cardiff University where ideas for the event will be modeled. Controversial science, ethical questions and techniques for facilitating discussions will be presented by the experts. Teachers will be requested to feed in ideas to guide modifications, enhancements, pedagogies and resource requirements (supply cover costs will be met).
2. Pilot event (March – July 2012)
Your team will run the event with whole or partial year groups with support on hand should it be required.
3. Dissemination (Sept 2012 - July 2013)
You will cascade your event to a subsequent cohort at your school and invited teachers from local schools
Email jane.thomson@biochemistry.org if you would like to get involved