Children’s ideas in Science Essay

Harlen (1997) set various techniques which dejection be used to enable children to say their ideas. These include quizzical, asking children to draw or write virtually what they think is happening, discussing their theme or drawing with their t distributivelyer and initiating a group discussion.With Harlens view in mind and considering the class topic of materials organism focused on in Science, my collaborator and I decided to plan a lesson that explored childrens ideas of what popicular intents be do from and what they were prior(prenominal) to the object they are now.It was entangle that in order for childrens ideas to be shine uped, visual cues would be beneficial. Harlen (2000125) supports this and affirmsThere are often products or artefacts at some(prenominal) represents of childrens activities which all have the authority to indicate children ideas.The use of visual back up did help children respond to the querys asked and assist children check their idea s. They lookd the children were focused and also ensured the children were kept on task.For one of the examples, it may have turn up more than effective if the visual objects had been provided for each stage that the object had been through to make believe it to what it is now.To evaluate childrens ideas, it was mind that questioning the children would be very beneficial and as Harlen (2000) emphasised open questions and person-centred questions prove the some effective types of questions in order to grow out childrens ideas. Considering this view, my partner and I tried to ensure the majority of our questions include these two question types. The first question to be asked was What do you think this was onward it was made into a jumper therefore reflecting a person-centred question.Some of the children at this stage replied with the answer a sheep and upon reflection it butt be said that the question necessitate to be more focused to ensure the children stated what the jumper was exactly originally it was a jumper. It perhaps would have been more affective and easier for the children if we had looked at the objects the different federal agency around focusing on a sheep, moving on to a globe of wool and then moving on to the woolly jumper. However the learning nonsubjective 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 entire class in order to get more ideas. Harlen (2000101) suggested that childrens discussion with their peers is a blue-chip source of generating ideas. This is because children are back up to consider alternative ideas through other peoples ideas and secondary sources and non just from what they experience directly. tart (200085) identifiedChildrens involvement in formulating their ideas, attempting to march on them and listening to alternative explanations by their peers is a valuable learning process.To enable a cl ear understanding of childrens ideas were generated it was thought that through children drawing their ideas as sanitary as discussing them would not only highlight their ideas but would also be valuable for assessment purposes. Harlen (2000125) highlights childrens drawings give especially 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 insight into the childrens thoughts and ideas. Sharp (2000) highlights through discussions with children, about their pictures, enable their ideas to be clarified and explained upon.As well as drawing pictures, the children were asked to write a truncated 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 verbalised their ideas more thoroughly than within the pi ctures and put down how some of the objects had been a different object prior to the object they are now.