Science is about asking questions, from Early Years to Universities and beyond. Questioning is therefore a vital part of teaching science, especially when teaching ‘Working Scientifically’. The children asking questions is fantastic, but how we answer them and support them through the topic really makes a difference. Science should be all about finding out, not about learning facts, and children should be encouraged to wonder and then supported in their efforts to find out the answer (for themselves ideally). Children also shouldn’t be told the answer to anything they ask (well some things they ask), teachers should be using open questions to lead children to the answer.
Encouraging the children to be the ones to ask (and then answer!) questions is a daunting task if Science is not your best subject. But these questions and the subsequent investigations are vital to improving childrens scientific thinking, moving them away from a world of being told about the world around them to one where they work it out for themselves using sound reasoning and logic.
Our objectives for this questioning training course:
- Increase teachers’ confidence in incorporating scientific thinking into lessons.
- Support practitioners with using questioning to develop scientific thinking.
- Highlight characteristics of effective science based activities and lessons.
- Confront teachers’ own issues with science and how it may affect their delivery of these activities.
- Give practitioners practice at planning science based activities with the existing resources in their own classroom.
