Concepts

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Technology conceptsDigital tech conceptsScience concepts

Digital concepts and tools || Indicators Note: Use discretion according to student capability and the requirements of strands and assessments. Use digital resources to effectively find, analyse, and use information (inquiry process)  Demonstrate discernment as a consumer of information, and acquire skills for determining validity of information
 * Digital tech Content Years 11 – 13 [|Digital Tech_content[1.pdf]] ||
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Select and apply appropriate planning tools  Apply evaluative skills to inform outcomes

Recognise the importance of safe working practices Recognise the importance of appropriate/ethical use of digital technologies Develop an appropriate file management structure  Develop appropriate data management strategies across multiple platforms (such as flash drive, web storage, and email systems) Understand and practise data security strategies (such as back-up and versioning) Self-direct problem-solving for software/application issues Develop appropriate communication skills (such as note taking, ‘netiquette’, survey/key questions, and interview techniques) ||

[|Building Science Concepts]
I believe that, exposed to rich environments where adults explicitly use concepts to explain their world, young children (under 8 years) absorb that meaning and have the vocabulary to then extend and connect with unfamiliar contexts, the realms beyond human scale - the v.v.big and v.v. small and issues of ethics and uncertainty covered in secondary education. The Building Science Concept books are primary based covering the basic concepts in familiar contexts. As such they provide for introductory lessons that test students prior knowledge, before a secondary student is taken into the larger contexts. They are excellent for "remedial" work, vocabulary building and to cover background scientific information needed for technology or social science classes. I think that these books are exemplary and could be extended to be indicative of a basic standard of conceptual understanding for all standards.

Key pedagogical features of the Building Science Concepts series include:

 * Teaching science concepts in familiar contexts.** Students can actively build their understandings when the context(s) of learning are familiar and meaningful. However some contexts are more helpful than others for challenging and building conceptual thinking in different areas of science. Contexts have been chosen to reflect traditional "favourites" as well as to suggest new possibilities for learning in primary science.
 * Explicit patterning of how to keep a clear science-conceptual focus while exploring a familiar context.** Concepts within a context are clearly identified so that it is possible to keep a sharp focus on the planned learning. By indicating possible "foothills" for conceptual learning within a topic, the booklets show how students may build their experiences of the world to accommodate increasingly abstract and/or interconnected ideas.
 * Signalling possible ideas that students might bring to their science learning.** A large body of science education research shows that school learning may have no impact on students' personal theories about the world unless these are acknowledged and used as a starting point on which to build. Activities in the series draw on research to anticipate students' likely personal theories, and a "what you look for" guide assists teachers to draw out and use students' thinking in their teaching.



Supporting research
English, C. and Hipkins, R. (1999). //Supporting primary teachers in their understanding of some key science concepts while focusing on the development of provisional concepts.//[| Paper presented to Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) Conference, Rotorua, July 8-11 1999.]

This paper was written relatively early in the developmental stages of the Building Science Concepts project. It explains the thinking behind the development of the concept template and of the overall booklet structure. A provisional example that illustrates how this structure might apply to the "big idea" of a water cycle is appended. The subsequent 2000 NZARE paper compares this and other concept templates from the early stages of the project with the same templates in a more final form some eighteen months later. Hipkins, R. and English, C. (1999). //Continuing the discussion about supporting teachers in their understanding of some key science concepts: making the science problematic.// [|Paper presented to Ministry of Education Conference on Primary Science Teaching, Wellington, September 1999.]

Presented six months after the ASERA Conference, this paper builds on the earlier ideas through a discussion about the features of science knowledge that may create particular teaching and learning challenges. Using the big idea "energy" as an illustration, the paper suggests that the format of the Building Science Concepts booklets could be one way to help teachers negotiate the minefields of the abstract science.

Hipkins, R., Joyce, C. and Bull, A. (2000). [|//Modeling the complexity of concept/ context interactions in science learning./.][|Wellington College of Education Paper presented to NZARE conference, Hamilton, 30 November - 2 December 2000.Building Science Concepts]