Freedom of choice and variety of activity has led to some fantastic student engagement in several Year 10 Science classes. Their teacher, Esther Hancock, reports back on some exciting learning that has gone on in her two science classes over the second half of this year.

At the end of Term 3, some Year 10 students were surveyed about what would motivate them to put a bit more effort into their learning. Many voices said they would like to learn stuff that they could see would be directly relevant to their Year 11 learning.

After a suggestion from a fellow science teacher, it was decided to trial the Sports Science Award. This award is a nationwide initiative facilitated by the SCIENCE Award Trust in Christchurch.

It is a spreadsheet of different activities where students get to chose which ones they want to do. They can work in groups or individually, although all students have to present individual evidence of their learning. 

The activities ranged from practical science investigations to internet research; drawing force diagrams, to running and then taking their own pulse. Activities were rated with stars from 1 to 3 depending on difficulty level, and students had to work their way up to 20 stars to get the award.

I loved it because the freedom of choice catered better to the huge range of abilities and motivations within my class and freed me up to move around the classroom helping others.

89% of the students surveyed at the end of the year commented that it worked okay or very well for them. Comments were along the lines of “I had something to work towards (the award)”, “It was fun”, “I got motivated”, “It was good for us to be left alone and to get our work done by ourselves.”

I will definitely use the spreadsheet structure of learning as much as I can next year – particularly for juniors. The SOLO taxonomy, which encourages students to develop their ability to analyse and discuss, particularly lends itself to this approach.