After completing my training session with Elizabeth Hutchinson, I embarked on my first Fosil mission and here are my findings:
As Elizabeth mentioned in the first thread, I have made my way into the Science department and was given one hour in the library to work with a group of Year 9 students on the difference between the Plumb Pudding model and the Rutherford Model.
First meeting with the teacher I asked for all the information the teacher had on the two models and placed it in a Science file on our library system. I then looked at reliable online sources of info, I selected books we have in the reading for learning section as well as news articles from The Day for the whole group to conduct their research with.
I discussed the expectations the teacher had for the lesson and I felt from our discussion I had pulled the correct resources and had the time necessary to give the students the skills and knowledge needed.
Lesson 1… I firstly introduced the students to the Investigate stage of Fosil. Disseminated materials and the students were split into pairs.
It quickly became apparent that basic navigation of information skills was not in place for the students, such as using a dictionary, judging the most relevant websites to select information, to the awareness of the differing reading strategies required to make progress with the research.
I think looking back and having a discussion with Elizabeth I should have produced a knowledge organizer and used a simple news article with a list of key words the students could pick out as they read which then allowed them to read with greater purpose.
Going forward I am going to look at producing a knowledge organizer and strip the process back to the skills we would expect from Yr 7 and follow the whole investigation cycle apposed to just one section. I have chosen a topic which all year groups 7 to 10 present and feel the whole Fosil cycle will work nicely.
I will continue with feedback when we embark on our next mission.
Big thank you to Elizabeth for her support and guidance so far.
