This chapter discusses the ASCEND project, which developed an after-school science enrichment programme for 14-15 year-olds using the themes of understanding the nature of science and developing metacognition. The activities developed for this programme are introduced in the next chapter, and the original teaching materials used are provided on the accompanying CDROM.
'We think that science is . . . well cool yeah . . . it's why pop corn goes pop and not spat'
From dialogue during an ASCEND session
Introduction
ASCEND – Able Scientists Collectively Experiencing New Demands – was a project for able and enthusiastic secondary science students using the nature of science as a starting point for developing challenging tasks for gifted science learners. The project involved a programme of enrichment activities held during after-school sessions at the University of Cambridge for students in the schools that comprised the secondary 'Federation' of schools in the City of Cambridge. After informal discussion with local schools, it was decided to work with pupils in Y10 (i.e. 14-15 year olds in the year before decisions were made about college subjects and applications). The Comprehensive Schools in Cambridge were invited to nominate students who would be:
- able enough in science to be ready to be challenged;
- interested enough in science to want to attend after school;
- and able to attend regularly.
Although the formal invitation did not specify that students needed to be on the school's gifted register, the informal discussions which preceded the invitation were couched in terms of challenging gifted learners in science. As discussed in chapter 2, there are difficulties in the way 'gifted' is defined in percentile terms in official UK policy guidance. Clearly the intention was not to include gifted students who were not interested in spending their free time doing more science, but equally not to exclude students that the teachers felt would benefit from challenges but were not technically on the 'gifted register' because they had not performed well enough in formal tests.
Part of the logic of working with several schools was to ensure there would be a 'critical mass'. By definition most schools only have a small number of exceptionally able students in a year group (indeed one of the Cambridge schools declined to participate on the grounds that it had no suitable students), and ASCEND would allow these to meet and work with similar-minded individuals from other schools. One of the complaints commonly heard from high-ability students is that 'friends who really understand us are few and far between'.
The programme was also intended to show how, in principle, several schools could work together to share responsibility for joint provision (although in practice the University partner took the lead in planning, organising and running the programme). This reflected the model used in the Excellence in Cities programme, where
"The schools within each partnership are normally grouped together into 'clusters' of 3 to 8 schools with a Lead Co-ordinator who is responsible for gifted and talented provision within each cluster. Each cluster of schools has formed a network with a range of external partners such as higher education institutions, libraries, museums and businesses to support the provision of out of school hours activities."
The programme was organised to run approximately fortnightly (during school terms) at a suitable time to allow students from the participating schools to walk, cycle or otherwise get to the Faculty of Education. The decision to hold the sessions in the University was a deliberate one: as well as being 'neutral' ground, this would be an adult environment, where the students could be treated as if conference or course delegates. To this end, the sessions were arranged such that they started with a thirty-minute window for a conference style registration during which delegates could take refreshments and socialise in the Faculty café.
The group then moved to teaching accommodation for a ninety-minute academic session. The sessions were led by the author (Taber) supported by a team of teaching/research associates, with school science staff having an open invitation to attend and get involved. The Faculty teaching team were all science education specialists – science teachers in training, or graduate research students.
Four of the City comprehensive schools nominated students for ASCEND: Chesterton Community College; Netherhall School and Sixth Form College; Parkside Community College; and St. Bede's Inter-Church Comprehensive School. The total number of delegates from the four schools was about thirty, although not all were able to attend all seven sessions. The sessions were staffed by a group of about a dozen graduate assistants: these were science education research students and trainee science teachers who had all volunteered to be involved in the project. Some teaching staff from the schools came and observed or joined in some activities. Each session started-off with a short general introduction to that day's theme, normally followed by the delegates breaking-up into groups, and usually spreading among several adjacent teaching rooms to work on the set tasks.
A group size of around four was employed. In order to encourage mixing, it was specified in the first few sessions that each group should include (a) both genders, (b) students from more than one of the schools.
The ASCEND activities
Two key themes for ASCEND were the nature of science (see chapter 4), and metacognition (see chapter 5). The nature of science was selected because
- it was considered to be an area where standard school provision was often weak;
- it offered a relevant theme which would not simply duplicate school studies;
- it was considered to offer suitable opportunities for challenging the most able.
In designing the activities, an attempt was made to provide contexts that would link with and support school learning, but without simply repeating or pre-empting work that the delegates would meet in school science.
A set of activities were designed for the ASCEND programme with a number of principles in mind. Firstly, as discussed in the previous chapter, the main organising theme would be aspects of the nature of science, with a subsidiary focus on metacognition. Secondly, most of the activities would be based around small group work, partly because being able to take on roles within groups is believed to be one characteristic of gifted learners in science (see chapter 2). This also provided us with the ability to observe the students at work. The third key principle was that the work should be challenging, and so a minimum of guidance was provided in terms of exactly how to carry out activities. The delegates would be given tasks with overall aims, which they needed to plan and organise – and they also had to consider how they would evaluate their own achievements. In this way the 'default assumption', which was revisited during the project, was that when placed in a suitable, adult, learning environment, and offered responsibility for regulating their own learning, the delegates would be able to rise to the challenge.
In designing the activities, an attempt was made to provide contexts that would link with and support school learning, but without simply repeating or pre-empting work that the delegates would meet in school science. The activities devised (and described further in chapter 7) were based around the questions:
How do we decide if some activity is, or is not, scientific?: Exploring the criteria we used to define what is, and what is not a science.
How do we learn?: The science behind learning, and how it can inform study habits.
What makes a good scientific explanation?: The criteria for a good explanation in science.
Can we identify patterns in data?: A practical activity looking to identify a scientific law
Can we learn from computers?: Using independent learning materials designed to support learning about A level physics.
How do we produce new scientific knowledge?: Exploring the work of famous scientists in terms of simplified 'philosophies' of science.
How do science specialists work together?: Developing a model of plant nutrition by synthesising ideas from biology, chemistry and physics
Why do scientists believe in evolution?: Exploring objections to evolution by considering the argument for natural selection.
What is it like?: A card game encouraging players to find analogies between scientific concepts and everyday ideas and phenomena
How do we evaluate scientific models?: Comparing two particle models, and two models of ionic bonding, in terms of how well they can explain phenomena / properties
The computer-based learning activity was not primarily related to the nature of science theme, but was an opportunity to work with some National Learning Network (NLN) materials developed for independent learning of physics in the post-16 sector. A report into the adoption and implementation of the NLN materials found that,
"for the majority of the students we met, the appeal of e-learning lay in three main areas: The value of multimedia presentation; The pace and manageability of learning; The scope for self assessment and feedback."
Clearly the second and third of these points are directly relevant to planning provision for the gifted, who may wish to work faster than many classmates, and may be ready to demonstrate greater independence in their learning (chapter 5).
The 'learning science' activity was partly intended to inform the development of metacognition, but – in common with a number of other activities – also involved a modelling activity, something recommended for challenging gifted learners in science.
