Children’s ideas in Science Essay

Harlen (1997) identified various techniques which can be used to change children to set off their ideas. These include questioning, asking children to draw or write about what they commend is happening, discussing their writing or lottery with their teacher and initiating a group sermon.With Harlens view in mind and considering the class topic of materials being focussed on in Science, my partner and I decided to plan a lesson that explored childrens ideas of what particular objects atomic number 18 made from and what they were preceding to the object they are now.It was felt that in revisal for childrens ideas to be highlighted, visual cues would be beneficial. Harlen (2000125) supports this and affirmsThere are often products or artefacts at several stages of childrens activities which all have the potential to indicate children ideas.The use of visual help did help children respond to the questions asked and assist children develop their ideas. They correspondd the child ren were focused and also ensured the children were unplowed on task.For atomic number 53 of the examples, it may have proved more(prenominal) legal if the visual objects had been provided for each stage that the object had been through to get it to what it is now.To measure childrens ideas, it was thought that questioning the children would be very beneficial and as Harlen (2000) emphasised open questions and person-centred questions prove the most effective types of questions in order to find out childrens ideas. Considering this view, my partner and I tried to ensure the majority of our questions included these two question types. The first question to be asked was What do you hold this was before it was made into a jumper consequently reflecting a person-centred question.Some of the children at this stage replied with the answer a sheep and upon comment it can be said that the question needed to be more focused to ensure the children stated what the jumper was exactly bef ore it was a jumper. It perhaps would have been more affective and easier for the children if we had looked at the objects the other centering around focusing on a sheep, moving on to a ball of wool and then moving on to the woolly jumper. up to now the learning objective was to see if children could state what an object was prior to the one it is now and what is was before that.This part of the lesson was completed as a full-page class in order to generate more ideas. Harlen (2000101) suggested that childrens discussion with their peers is a valuable source of generating ideas. This is because children are encouraged to consider alternating(a) ideas through other peoples ideas and secondary sources and not well(p) from what they experience directly.Sharp (200085) identifiedChildrens involvement in formulating their ideas, attempting to transport them and listening to alternative explanations by their peers is a valuable learning process.To enable a clear understanding of chil drens ideas were generated it was thought that through children drawing their ideas as well as discussing them would not only highlight their ideas merely would also be valuable for assessment purposes. Harlen (2000125) highlights childrens drawings give specially rich information about their ideas.Throughout the drawing of pictures, the children were required to think about what the objects were before and before that. The drawings provided us with a clear brainwave into the childrens thoughts and ideas. Sharp (2000) highlights through discussions with children, about their pictures, enable their ideas to be smooth and explained upon.As well as drawing pictures, the children were asked to write a draft description of what the various objects were prior to what they are now. Harlen (2000) identified that through writing, childrens ideas may prove more productive. Within the writing, children expressed their ideas more soundly than within the pictures and recorded how some of t he objects had been a different object prior to the object they are now.