Developing classroom resources for science

1. The value of available resources

In this course you will be creating resources that you can use in your school.

The decisions you make will depend on your school's resources. The activities that you do in a classroom always depend on resources that are available to you. If you have a computer in your classrooms or a computer lab in your school, then learners can do ICT-based science activities. If you have an overhead projector then you may want to create resources on transparencies. With no computers or projectors you might want to produce printed activity sheets for your learners.

In this workshop we encourage you to think creatively about the resources that you do have and how to take maximum advantage of them. You will be making some plans about which resources you will find most useful and would like to create during the course.

Follow these steps to complete these activities. Look for contexts that are meaningful to you in your classroom.

1

Work in groups (preferably with teachers from your own school) - 30 minutes.

• Make a list of all the resources for science teaching that you have in your school (10 minutes).
• Describe how each resource is currently used (10 minutes).

Use this template for your resource analysis list.

2

Regroup as a class (30 minutes).

• Compare school resources and how they are used.
• Listen to how other schools use similar resources and write these ideas in your resource list (15 minutes).
• Discuss generally how the use of these resources could be enhanced by the support of ICT - note this in your resource list (15 minutes).

3

Work on your own (30 minutes).

• Consult the curriculum statements, focusing on the areas that you teach
• Identify a range of specific learning outcomes or assessment standards that you would ideally like to enhance with the support of ICT
• Lists these learning outcomes in your resource list document (Section B)

Curriculum Statements:

GET Natural Science

FET Physical Science

4

Regroup with colleagues from your school, or work in pairs with teachers that teach a similar grade to you (30 minutes).

• Discuss and record how you will use ICT to support or enhance teaching and learning for specific learning outcomes:
  • Create science resources for your teaching
  • Create science resources for learners to use
  • Create lessons that include the use of ICT

Look back at the first module to remind yourself of the ICT resources for science teachers