Research-2-practice: Research informed science lesson plans for busy teachers

This project seeks, through consultations with teachers, to identify issues that they believe prevent the effective teaching of science at both primary and secondary level. Having identified these issues we will synthesise and condense down academic science educational articles to provide teachers with a concise summary of what the research says about these issues. After outlining the research findings, the project will produce exemplar lesson plans that illustrate the most effective way of teaching those various aspects of science, identified by the teachers as being problematic, in a way that draws on the findings reported in the research literatures. The project has two main modular components: primary and secondary, that can be delivered either as stand-alone projects or as a combined whole. The project is designed to work with either primary PGCE trainees, who will need to teach some science, and/or with secondary science subject specialist PGCE trainees, and their school mentors. The aim being that mentors will then take ownership of the model in order for it to continue, sustainably, post-funding and the trainees will, likewise, embed the ideas learnt in their own teaching practice and share these in the future as, they too, progress to become mentors themselves. To date, consultation with teachers, trainee teachers, and their mentors has confirmed that they have little time in their busy professional lives to engage with pedagogic research pertaining to effective classroom practice in science. This intervention project will work with primary and/or secondary PGCE trainees and their school mentors to provide the research informed support and guidance that they need within their teacher training year.