Project Leader
Michael Reiss This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sara Price

Project Details
Gatsby Charitable Foundation
September 2006-September 2008

Project Web Site
http://www.lkl.ac.uk/

Keywords
Science Education
Learning Skills
Evaluation

Project Aims
This project will evaluate the Science Enhancement Programme (SEP)'s Learning Skills for Science programme. The main aim is to ascertain the impact of the English-based LSS programme on the teaching and learning of science in secondary schools. The specific objectives are to:

-Determine the extent to which the LSS facilitates gains in academic performance for students in yrs 9-11
-Determine the extent to which the LSS programme fosters students' interest and engagement with science
-Investigate developments in teachers' pedagogical knowledge as a result of LSS training
-Investigate the processes of adoption, adaptation and dissemination of the LSS
-Develop assessment instruments to determine the extent to which students have the skills that the programme seeks to develop
-Propose ways in which LSS materials might be developed further for science teaching

The Evaluation
The aims of the evaluation call for a range of methods: individual interviews with teachers, focus group interviews with students and observations of science lessons. It will engage teachers using LSS in science departments across different curricula and different year and ability groups in schools from across England.

The main themes of the LSS evaluation project will focus on:
Students
-students' academic achievement
-students' engagement with science
Teachers
-adoption, adaptation and dissemination of LSS
-the effect of LSS implementation on teachers' pedagogical knowledge
-looking at the different year and ability groups

LSS programme: the teaching model
The teaching model focuses on six Skill Areas and each of these is divided into sub skills. The aim of ‘the shift is towards placing the curriculum content in more authentic contexts, making it more inquiry based'.

1. Information retrieval - library, electronic databases
2. Listening and observing - video, lecture, demonstration
3. Scientific reading - article, textbook, scientific text
4. Data representation - table, graph, schema
5. Scientific writing - article, abstract, scientific work
6. Knowledge presentation - model, poster, multimedia, oral presentation

LSS Goals
1. To enhance learning skills for science among secondary school students.
2. To provide teachers with resources that can be easily integrated into a variety of scientific subjects.
3. To design flexible teaching and learning tasks suitable for different levels of students and a variety of learning styles.