Why should I care? Engaging students in conceptual understanding using global context to develop social attitudes.

Abstract:

A glance through the Harvard Business Review reveals many suggestions and research pieces reviewing sales and marketing techniques. Most educators will be familiar with the notion that making accurate first impressions and being responsive, whilst maintaining pace is critical to engaging an audience. There are lessons to be learnt from industry that can significantly impact upon our teaching. Eisenkraft, in his address to the NSTA, proposed four essential questions. This presentation explores one of those questions: ‘Why should I care?’, and discusses why this question is crucial for engaging students by giving a clear purpose for developing their scientific understanding. Additionally, this presentation explores how The ISF Academy has adapted the NGSS, using the 14 Grand Engineering Challenges and the IB MYP, to provide current, authentic global contexts, in order to give credibility to the concepts, understandings and skills being learnt. The provision of global contexts across units and within lessons supports a platform for students to have the freedom to explore their own sense of social responsibility. The Science Department believes that planning lessons with tasks that elaborate on the student’s new conceptualisations, has helped to transfer the student’s new understanding into social behavior beyond the classroom. Furthermore, extension tasks have been used to transfer conceptual understanding between different global contexts.