water ice
Figure 14.6A six-year-old’s concept map (from Harlen et al. 2003: 128)
Concept cartoons
Concept cartoons were devised by Naylor and Keogh (2000). One example is given in Figure 14.7, but a wide range of cartoons have been published and used with both trainee teachers and primary children. Their key features include:
■ representing scientific ideas in everyday situations wherever possible, so that connections are made between scientific ideas and everyday life;
■ using a minimal amount of text, in order to make the ideas accessible to learners with limited literacy skills;
■ using a simple cartoon-style presentation that is visually appealing and empowers teachers and learners to create their own concept cartoons;
■ using published research to identify common areas of misunderstanding, which then provide a focus for the concept cartoon (Keogh and Naylor 1998: 14).
They have various uses, including finding out children’s ideas. For this purpose, children can discuss the ideas suggested by the cartoon characters either in small groups or as a whole class and talk about why they may agree or disagree with the suggestions, or give their own ideas. In many cases the situations have no ‘right’
answer and in all cases the discussion of pros and cons of the suggestions made requires some explanation of why one or another view could be supported.
Children-only discussions
Concept cartoons provide a very useful way of setting up small group discussions that allow the teacher to listen in to the conversation without taking part. Setting groups to work on a combined concept map serves a similar purpose. Another approach was described in the vignette in Box 12.1. Children-only discussions are valuable in freeing children to express their ideas. To quote Douglas Barnes:
The teacher’s absence removes from their work the usual source of authority; they cannot turn to him [sic] to solve dilemmas. Thus . . . the children not only formulate hypotheses, but are compelled to evaluate them for themselves. This they can do in only two ways: by testing them against their existing views of ‘how things go in the world’, and by going back to ‘the evidence’.
(Barnes 1976: 29)
When the children are talking directly to each other they use words that they and their peers understand. These, as well as the explanations and reasons that they give to each other, can give clues to their ideas. In the example in Box 12.1 the teacher noted that the children appeared to confuse melting and dissolving, which alerted him to take some action to clarify the difference between these concepts.
Discussing words
Sometimes children use words loosely – as we do ourselves at times. (Who does not talk about ‘letting the cold air in’ when a door has been left open on a cold day?) In the context of learning science, however, we have to be clear about what a particular word is labelling in the child’s mind. In the case of melting and dissolving, have the children not distinguished the processes of melting and dissolving or just not realised which is called melting and which is dissolving? In such cases it is important to explore the children’s meaning for the words in order Finding out children’s ideas 149
Figure 14.7Concept cartoon: ideas about germinating seeds (from Keogh and Naylor 2000: 30)
to know what their ideas are. It is useful to ask them to give an example of melting or to say how they would try, for instance, to make sugar melt. This would indicate whether melting is different in their mind from dissolving. Other points about using scientific words are discussed in Chapter 4.
Discussing with children digital photographs of themselves engaged in activities
The ready availability of digital cameras has opened up a new set of opportunities for exploring children’s thinking. The speed with which the photographs can be displayed on a computer screen or an interactive whiteboard means that teachers can study images of children within a short time of the event, discuss with the children their thinking at the time or preserve the images for perusal later. An example was described by Lias and Thomas, working with eight-year-olds:
During the activity (making a ‘circuits game’ for practising multiplication tables) we took several digital photographs of the children making and testing their circuits to display later. Because there was a PC, an LCD projector and an interactive whiteboard in the room, we decided to show the photographs to the children at the end of the activity. . . The captured images of particular events helped children to recall what they were doing at a particular time and prevented confusion over which event was being discussed. They also helped to keep the children’s minds focused and provided a visual scaffold to support their descriptions and explanations. Compared with previous occasions, the children answered questions far more confidently and fluently, needed far less prompting and support, and their responses were far more detailed and complete.
(Lias and Thomas 2003: 18)
Summary
This chapter has been about methods that teachers can use to gather information about their pupils’ ideas in order to make decisions about how to help the children’s learning. The main points are:
■ It is important to be clear about the ideas that the children are intended to develop through undertaking an activity.
■ There are many strategies from which to choose to elicit children’s ideas. These are listed in Box 14.2.
■ When the teacher is questioning orally or setting a written or drawing task to find out children’s ideas, the questions should be expressed as open and person-centred.
■ Setting up situations in which children have to use words in discussion with each other or the teacher enables the teachers to find out how certain concepts are understood.