Implementing institution: Science Oxford
Country: United Kingdom
Source: Education Endowment Foundation
Execution period: 2012 - in progress
Plataforma de Prácticas Efectivas:
To make science lessons in elementary schools more practical, creative and challenging.
A teacher training program in innovative, practice-based and child-centred pedagogy.
Participating students increased their science scores by 0.22, with an even greater impact on girls (+0.32) and students in difficulty (+0.38).
Thinking, Doing, Talking Science (TDTS) is a child-centred, practice-based, innovative pedagogy teacher training program. The intervention contains a number of tools and strategies that, while intended to guide teachers, are not “ready-to-use” recipes. The aim is rather that they find their own way of doing things, that is to say, that they develop their innovative capacity.
The initiative is the product of collaboration between Science Oxford (the public arm of The Oxford Trust) and a team from Oxford Brookes University. The intervention is implemented by selecting two science teachers from each school, who will be trained for 5 days by program professionals. Those teachers should then share the acquired knowledge with their colleagues, so that they too can experience the TDTS methodology. The pedagogical techniques of TDTS include both the ability of teachers to pose questions to their students – so that they build their own knowledge – and group discussions in class, practical exercises, among others. In this way, training focuses on three key elements of the science learning process: thinking, sharing and practising.
In England, the schooling of children at elementary and secondary levels covers almost the entire population of attendance age (99.85% and 98.28% respectively in the year 2014). Net participation rates have been growing since 2006, especially at the secondary level (up 6 percentage points). However, the Report of the International Program for Student Assessment, or PISA Report of the OECD, has highlighted a decline in reading comprehension levels in part of the English population at 15 years of age, just above the average for advanced countries (492 against 490 respectively). This means that there are countries that achieve greater performance (Finland, Australia, Austria among others).
As a result of the situation described above, the English Ministry of Education has proposed within its strategic axes (2015-2020 plan) the need to promote child-centred teaching methods.
Between 2013 and 2014, the Institute for Effective Education (IEE) evaluated the Thinking, Doing, Talking Science (TDTS) program in order to assess its impacts on children’s outcomes and behaviours with respect to science. Thus, 655 grade 5 students in 21 schools were selected to participate in the pilot study, where 328 of them received the intervention.
Comparison of average results, before and after the intervention, has shown that participating students have increased their science scores by 0.22 deviation, with even greater impact on girls (+0.32) and students in difficulty (+0.38). Interviews with teachers indicate an improvement in class discussions and a reduction in the need for written exercises. Considering the relatively low costs of the program (£26 per student) Thinking, Doing, Talking Science (TDTS) represents an effective and timely innovation to improve the scientific performance of students at elementary level.
Impact of interventions:
Charts: Impact measured in standard deviations of the intervention group compared to the control group
Link: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/our-work/projects/thinking-doing-talking-science/
Report: Ver informe
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