Method: Designing Primary School Practicals

[AnnabelleBuda]

Designing the Practical

1. Identify Key Stage that is the target for the experiment.
2. Identify the area of learning which will be the focus of the experiment (e.g. material world, physical world, earth and space etc.)
3. Develop experiment ideas. Take into consideration:

• Duration
• safety concerns
• set-up and clean-up times
• Expenses
• portability etc.

4. Link experiment to specific learning outcome points from the syllabus.
5. Write out:

• Method
• equipment list
• cost analysis
• teacher/ student information sheet
• Inquiry questions for before the practical
• Reflection questions for after the practical

6. Fill out a HIRAC and have it signed (be aware that all chemicals must be ‘green’ on ChemAlert)
   Test experiment and record:

• Pictures
• Any masses etc. needed for calculations
• Time taken for experiment

7. Write up method and equipment used for the experiment.
8. Write up results and improvements to be made to the experiment.
9. Write up

• equipment
• method
• background information
• student inquiry sheet
• student reflection sheet
  following the templates.

10. Attach HIRAC and MSDS of chemicals to final document.
11. Reference sources used for experiment design.

Notes

• When writing the student inquiry and reflection sheets, keep in mind the syllabus dot points.
• If possible try to link the practical to other parts of the syllabus (e.g. history, english, maths etc) through the activities used.
• Keep in mind the age of the students and the types of activities that are most likely to engage them.

[AnnabelleBuda]

The images used for templating and design are located in this folder:
Images folder

To design more graphics, please use the colour palette for the existing graphics. Adobe Illustrator was used originally and the graphics are available in both .pdf, .ai and .jpeg formats.

Instructions for Method writing:

• Keep instructions short and clear using vocabulary appropriate to your audience.
• If the experiment is to be done in parts, split the method up into those parts (e.g. Part A and Part B)
• Photographs or diagrams may be useful when describing experiment set up.
• You may wish to include parts that can be used as extension work for those who finish early or are advanced students.

Instructions for Background Information:

• This is information primarily for the teachers, but may be given to the students after the experiment and theory has been explained.
• This information may go beyond the scope of what students are supposed to learn so that the teacher may be comfortable with the background of the concepts they are teaching.
• Again, diagrams are useful for illustrating points and clear, non-technical language is preferred. If technical language is used, please explain each term.

Instructions for Student Inquiry sheet:

• These questions are to be answered by students before and/or during the experiment in order to engage them in the concepts taught during the practical.
• These questions work best using inquiry based learning in which students will be asked to pose a hypothesis about what would happen under a certain set of circumstances; e.g. What would happen to plants if there was no sunlight?
• These questions are intended to improve their understanding of the concepts taught rather than to quiz them on their theory knowledge, so avoid questions like "What is the definition of the angle of incidence?" Instead ask them to perform a calculation of answer a question that is linked to their knowledge of the subject or may be figured out logically.
• Keep this section relatively brief; the time intended for the entire practical should not exceed 1 hour or the practical may have to be split into parts.

Instructions for Student Reflection sheet:

• These questions are to be answered by students after the experiment.
• They may be research based to encourage further investigation of concepts taught during the practical. Or they may ask students to provide reasons for observations made during the practical. They may also ask students to perform some analysis of any data gathered during the practical.
• Some of these tasks may be left as homework if the teacher chooses.
• Again, avoid simplistic questions that require memorized definitions or simple recall of facts.