Course Title:
Subject Studies Assignment
Student’s Name:
1st marker:
Module Organiser:
The comments below indicate some of the strengths and weaknesses of this assignment, together
with an indication of any areas which should be addressed in future writing. Criteria for assessment
(explained in the PGCE Handbook) include:




Knowledge and understanding of the relevant research and literature
Evidence of analysis and critical reflection
Evidence of the development of an argument or thesis
Presentation and organisation, and the standard and quality of expression
This assignment considers the teaching of energy to year 7.
The literature review presents a very solid description of all of the relevant literature.
It displays that xxxx has an excellent grasp of the subject.
The literature review shows that xxxx is able to skilfully analyse the relevant
literature, compare and critically reflect on it.
A pre-test is used in conjunction with the findings from the literature is to inform initial
planning of the lessons. The same test was then used at the end to show the change
in misconceptions throughout the teaching sequence.
A series of well throughout and imaginative lessons is described with lesson outlines
including learning objectives. The analysis of each lesson is comprehensive and
includes data from a transcript of each lesson, written work from the student and
results from the final test. Links to the literature is woven through this section.
It is very well presented with accurate and appropriate referencing
Overall this is a very accomplished piece of work.
Grade: A
Teaching Energy to Year 7
Subject Studies Assignment
1
Contents
Introduction and Context ..................................................................................................................... 4
Literature Review ................................................................................................................................. 5
Theories of Learning ........................................................................................................................ 5
Energy Transfer in KS3 Science .................................................................................................... 8
Recommended Approaches ......................................................................................................... 11
Assessment for Learning .............................................................................................................. 12
Applying the Research .................................................................................................................. 13
The Lesson Sequence....................................................................................................................... 16
Pre-test and initial planning .......................................................................................................... 16
Lesson Outlines .............................................................................................................................. 18
Lesson One: Fuels and Food ................................................................................................... 18
Lesson Two: Thermal Energy .................................................................................................. 18
Lesson Three: Energy Circus ................................................................................................... 18
Lesson Four: Joules and Sankey Diagrams .......................................................................... 18
Evaluation ............................................................................................................................................ 20
Lesson One ..................................................................................................................................... 20
Lesson Two ..................................................................................................................................... 22
Lesson Three .................................................................................................................................. 24
Lesson Four .................................................................................................................................... 25
Marking ............................................................................................................................................ 26
Post-teaching Test Results ........................................................................................................... 27
Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 29
References .......................................................................................................................................... 31
Appendix 1: Test Materials ............................................................................................................... 34
Appendix 2:Test Results .................................................................................................................. 36
Appendix 3: Lesson Plan 1 ............................................................................................................... 37
Appendix 4: Lesson 1 Resources .................................................................................................... 39
Appendix 5: Example of work from Lesson 1 ................................................................................ 43
Appendix 6: Lesson Plan 2 ............................................................................................................... 44
Appendix 7: Lesson 2 Resources .................................................................................................... 46
Appendix 8: Example of work from Lesson 2 ................................................................................ 50
Appendix 9: Lesson Plan 3 ............................................................................................................... 51
Appendix 10: Resources from Lesson 3......................................................................................... 53
2
Appendix 11: Example of work from Lesson 3 .............................................................................. 57
Appendix 12: Lesson Plan 4 ............................................................................................................. 58
Appendix 13: Resources for Lesson 4 ............................................................................................ 59
Appendix 14: Example of work from Lesson 4 .............................................................................. 64
Appendix 15: Transcripts of lessons ............................................................................................... 65
N.B. Appendices are not included in electronic version
3
Introduction and Context
This paper details a sequence of four one hour lessons designed to teach the subject of
energy to a class of year 7 students.
These lessons took place in the context of a large mixed comprehensive secondary school
in Redbridge, East London. The school has approximately 1500 students on the roll. The
number of pupils with English as an additional language (EAL) and the number of pupils
eligible for pupil premium are above the national average. The proportion of SEN students is
below the national average.
My own class consisted of 27 pupils, 11 girls and 16 boys. For the purpose of this study, all
students have been given a code consisting of a number followed by a G or B for girl or boy.
Two of them are EAL students (6B and 18B), both with a very good level of English. Two
students have been identified as having general learning difficulties (1G and 21B), one
student is dyslexic (26G), and one has behavioural, emotional and social difficulties and has
TA support throughout the school day (3B). Students are taught in mixed achievement form
groups.
This class was due to cover the topic of Energy in January 2014. I chose to teach this topic
for this assignment because it is a conceptually challenging topic that I had no previous
experience of teaching. I was aware that there is considerable debate around the treatment
of energy as a stand-alone topic in the curriculum and was keen to put literature into practice
in such a contentious area.
4
Literature Review
In order to inform my teaching, I will consider the literature about general theories of
learning, literature specific to KS3 energy transfer, and assessment for learning. My
literature was primarily found in King's College Library, my own book collection and Google
Scholar. When finding internet resources, I initially searched for the names of well-known
researchers, as well as phrases such as "developmental stages education", "energy
misconceptions" and "energy education". Further literature was found cited in articles, and I
found recent literature primarily by searching for papers with relevant keywords whose
authors had cited classic papers.
Theories of Learning
In the early twentieth century, influenced by Pavlov’s research into classical conditioning and
keen to introduce a more scientific approach to discussions of development, Behaviourists
began to influence education policy. B.F. Skinner was one such behaviourist who developed
the theory of operant conditioning which states that voluntary behaviour can be reinforced or
discouraged by the consequences of that behaviour. He was of the opinion that positive
reinforcement is more effective than negative, and that this reinforcement is more effective in
response to an activity than to rote learning (Skinner, 1968). This influenced the education
system, and in this theory we can see the first shoots of modern science education: active
and based on positive encouragement. However, this theory views learners, even those
engaged in an activity, as passive receivers of reinforcement that have no agency in their
own education.
Agency was given back to the learner by Jean Piaget. Piaget was a cognitivist and a
constructivist, and developed a revolutionary four stage theory of development (Piaget and
Inhelder, 1969). He suggested that rather than being the passive receivers of information,
children construct their own world view from their experiences. They do this through
assimilation and accommodation. If new knowledge does not conflict with pre-existing
5
knowledge, it can be seamlessly assimilated into a child's world view. This leads to an
increase in amount but not complexity of knowledge. If, however, a new piece of knowledge
conflicts with pre-existing knowledge it must be accommodated, through a process called
equilibration. Through this process, children are able to progress in understanding and
through the four developmental stages. The last two stages are the ones relevant to
secondary education: the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage.
Concrete operations are said by Piaget to be achieved by children between the ages of 7
and 11. During this stage, children are able to think logically about objects or events, have
conservation of number and volume, and can consider several aspects of a problem. This is
the stage that if Piaget is correct we would expect all year 7s to be functioning at. The formal
operational stage occurs between 11 and 16 and exists into adulthood. It could therefore be
achieved by some students during the course of year 7. This stage is characterised by
deductive logic and abstract thought, which are both called upon frequently in science
education.
The validity of these stages of this model has been tested in a small study by Kuhn (1972),
and a larger study by Webb (1974). Kuhn tested just three 8-year-olds to assess their stage
of development, and then attempted to teach a new concept using by pitching the teaching
at their stage, slightly above it or far above it. They learned best if they are taught at slightly
above their level in Piagetian terms, which suggests that these stages are correct if one
accepts the validity of such a small sample size. It also suggests that equilibration is in fact
the mechanism of progression from one stage to the next. Webb studied 25 extremely bright
children aged 6 to 11. All were able to perform concrete operations, but only the four oldest
could perform formal operations. This suggests that these stages are a developmental
reality. This theory has not gone unchallenged. Research by Shayer et al (1976) and
Lawson and Renner (1978) suggests that most students do not reach formal operations until
much later. There is also some debate as to whether the stage can be applied to the student
6
or their behaviour, as students may achieve different stages based on their familiarity with
the task (Driver, 1984).
Piaget also was unclear in ascribing a mechanism to this process. Knowledge of this
mechanism is vital if we are to apply this model to teaching. If progress between the stages
is physiological, there is no point attempting to teach children something which is above their
level in stage terms, as they will not be able to progress. If this is the case, the curriculum
could be analysed and taught in stages (the process of which is laid out in Shayer and Adey,
1982). Not all members of a class will be at the same stage, but one could be sure the
material was appropriate for the majority. If, however, progression is functional and
dependent on experience only, then we could reasonably expect learners to understand
material of any complexity if they have been prepared correctly (Driver, 1984). This is closer
to the ideas of Bruner, another cognitivist (Wood et al, 1976).
Modern research suggests that it is a combination. The limitations on achievement seem to
be cognitive: working memory (Krumm et al, 2008, Sűß et al, 2002) and processing speed
(Rindermann and Neubauer, 2004) are the most likely limiting factors. However, these
factors are not static and progress can be accelerated (Shayer and Adey, 1993). Demetriou
et al (2011) in their synthesis of recent research on this topic present a modernised stage
system, and recommend that in order to facilitate progression through stages, the best tactic
for teachers would be to teach to the level demonstrated by their students and not far above
it. They argue that this is not a 'readiness model' that discourages challenge, but rather that
practicing the skills expected in each level facilitates progression to the next level. This also
enables underachieving students to catch up, while also not holding the stronger students
back.
This appears to contradict the work of Lev Vygotsky, an influential constructivist and
proponent of the idea of the zone of proximal development, or ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978). In
education, this idea is combined with the term scaffolding, which was first used by Bruner
7
(Wood et al, 1976) but has been adopted by proponents of Vygotsky. As explained by
Sullivan-Palincsar (1998) in her more recent paper on the subject, it is vital to meet the
children 'where they are', and aim to teach them something which is above their current
understanding. Scaffolding is the role that the instructor (whether teacher or peer) takes in
guiding them through the gap between their current understanding and what they are aiming
for. ZPD is what the student can achieve with help. Ideally, students are always working
within this zone. Vygotsky's other major contribution to modern education was social
constructivism. This is the idea that children construct their own meaning socially and
through discussion. Shayer and Adey (2002) combine the ideas of equilibration, social
constructivism and the zone of proximal development in their Cognitive Acceleration in
Science Education (CASE) programme. This creates cognitive conflict in an environment of
scaffolding and social support to maximise progression.
Energy Transfer in KS3 Science
On this topic, the national curriculum requirements covered under 3.1a of the National
Curriculum KS3 programme of study (2007) are as follows:
"Energy can be transferred usefully, stored, or dissipated, but cannot be created or
destroyed" (NC, 2007:210)
This provides guidelines of what to teach, and there has been significant research into how
to teach it. Energy is an abstract, hard to define concept that at the same time we can see
functioning in the world and that we can give a numerical value to (Millar, 2005). Energy is
also a word used regularly in everyday life in ways that encourage non-scientific ideas, such
as 'conserving' energy (Mann and Treagust, 2010). As such children entering the classroom
will likely have preconceived ideas about the word's meaning (Brook and Driver, 1984).
Misconceptions can be extremely resistant to change and their unaddressed presence can
make teaching ideas consistent with the curriculum very difficult (Solomon, 1983). For this
reason, it is recommended that teaching of a subject directly challenges the misconception
held (DfES, 2002).
8
However, in order to understand the concept of energy fully, one must consider work and the
theory of relativity, most of which is clearly above the level of most 11-year-olds (Sang,
2011). As a result, Warren (1982) has argued forcefully that energy should be removed from
the pre-16 curriculum altogether. However, energy is still a requirement, so one is therefore
left in the difficult situation of teaching the least-worst model for energy. There is
considerable debate about what this model should be.
I will first discuss ideas about energy that are clearly inaccurate: so-called misconceptions.
In research, these are frequently recognised by using diagnostic tests, and this approach
can be used by teachers approaching a new topic in order to tailor their lessons to the preknowledge of their students (Treagust, 1988). Driver et al (1994) in their comprehensive
review into research on children's ideas identified the following common conceptualisations
of energy:
1. Energy is associated with living things only
This misconception has been found in several studies, including Bliss and Ogborn (1985).
They studied 17 girls in a UK school aged 13 and 14, asking them to pick three pictures in
which "energy is needed or being used" from 10, and explain why. Despite the small sample
size, they carried out statistical analysis and concluded that they were significantly more
likely to choose pictures of animate than inanimate objects. These findings may not be
directly applicable to my class of 11-12 year old boys and girls. However, studying the
misconceptions still found after two years of secondary school teaching is important to
identify which are likely to remain even after formally studying energy.
2. Energy is seen as a causal agent stored in certain objects
This so-called depository model describes some objects as having energy, some as using it,
and some as neutral; often linked to activity and movement of those objects (Driver et al,
1994). This was very commonly found by Gilbert and Pope (1982, in Driver, 1994)in children
9
aged 10-12, which makes it quite relevant to my class, although the education system has
changed a lot in the 30 years since that study.
3. Energy is the same as force, work or movement
Brook and Driver (1984) analysed the responses of 300 15 year-old British students that
were asked a question about a ball-bearing rolled down a track. Many of them related
energy and force, some using the word force instead of or interchangeably with energy. This
study has a large sample size, so is likely to be representative of the ideas of British
students in 1984. However, because most of these students had already received some
science training by age 15, one cannot tell if these views were held by them at age 11, or
were given to them by ineffective teaching. Papadouris et al (2008) conducted a large study
into the pre-knowledge of 240 Cypriot students aged 11-14, and how they utilise energy
models, and found a lot of confusion between energy and force. This study used younger
students, making it more relevant to my class, but they had been educated in the Cypriot
system. Although language is never mentioned, it is likely that their responses have been
translated, which further affects their validity.
4. Energy is a fuel
This misunderstanding could stem from the global discourse of 'saving energy'. Duit (1984)
found that this concept was culture-dependent, finding it in Germany but not the Philippines.
One could expect that given the media focus on energy resources, this misconception could
be common in today's Britain.
5. Energy is a fluid, an ingredient or a product
This includes ideas of energy being conducted or transported as if it were a physical thing,
ideas of energy as a dormant reactant which can be triggered, and energy as a by-product
(Watts and Gilbert, 1985, in Driver et al, 1994).
10
Driver et al (1994) also point out that several studies show that many students do not see
conservation of energy as a necessary concept, intuitively suggesting that energy should be
lost during an event. In order to tackle this, Duit (1983) suggests that qualitative questions
are more effective than quantitative ones. This is because students must think through
logical steps and describe what is happening, and cannot just learn a process. This could,
however, be criticised as further removing energy from its mathematical place in science.
There are two models used in schools for the teaching of energy: the transformation model,
and the transfer model. The first model states that energy is transformed between different
named types (e.g. chemical to electrical to light and heat). This is more commonly used in
the physical sciences, but has been heavily criticised as being unscientific and obsessed
with inventing ever more forms of energy (Chisolm, 1992). This is the model in the textbooks
my class use (Walsh et al, 2008). The second model states that the thing that changes when
events take place is the location of the energy (e.g. from the battery to the bulb to the
surroundings). This is commonly found in the biological sciences where energy is said to
flow down a food chain (Mann and Treagust, 2010). Papadouris (2008) suggests that
students have an intuitive understanding of energy transfer, but do not find it sufficient to
explain changes in a system. Therefore, the transformation model is useful to complement it.
Recommended Approaches
Chisolm (1992) suggests that in order to sidestep the tricky question of what energy actually
is, definitions should be left as late as possible. Taking a constructivist approach, he argues
that children will develop their own understanding through experience anyway. In terms of
nomenclature, he suggests a range of 'potential' energies, kinetic energy and heat energy
only, in order to stem the proliferation of unnecessary names. He also recommends teaching
energy by identifying an activity, and breaking it down into the release of energy, the transfer
of energy and the use of energy. He seems to advocate a loose transfer model, with some
names from the transformation model added for clarity.
11
More recently, Millar (2011) has presented another teaching sequence. He suggests
teaching fuels first, as this is what students often associate with energy anyway, and then
expanding to thermal processes, and finally energy changes and transfers. His approach
strongly favours the transfer model, with named energy types (such as kinetic and potential)
only being introduced later in the teaching sequence.
Assessment for Learning
Assessment for learning, or AFL is an approach described by Black and William (1998) as a
way to raise standards of learning in the classroom. AFL is "any assessment for which the
first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting pupils' learning"
(Black and William, 2002). By reviewing international literature on the subject, AFL was
demonstrated as increasing achievement with an effect size of between 0.4 and 0.7, a huge
gain (Black and William, 1998). AFL was further explored in the King's-Medway-Oxfordshire
Formative Assessment Project (KMOFAP), a large study of year 9 and 11 classes taught by
19 different teachers. An education gain of effect size 0.3 was found, equivalent to just over
half a GCSE grade. This was a result of changes in four key areas (Black and William,
2002):
1.Questioning
Increasing wait-time after asking a question is vital, as it allows students more thinking time.
This in turn means that more complex questions can be asked. The responses to these
questions can give much better clues about understanding to both pupil and teacher.
2.Feedback through marking
Butler (1988) demonstrated that for 132 students, on average, comment-only marking
resulted in an increase of both performance and interest. When grades were given, this had
a negative effect on both performance and interest, whether or not comments were given
too. Formative feedback includes comments only, and indicates how improvements can be
made.
12
3.Peer- and self-assessment
Peer- and self-assessment can enable the pupil to analyse their own work with reference to
the specific criteria that the teacher would use. They can then begin to analyse their own
work as they are creating it, which will improve quality. Also, students are often happier
accepting criticism from peers than from teachers (Black and William, 2002).
4.The formative use of summative tests
This is mainly used in preparation for exams, but using pre-tests to identify misconceptions
before teaching has begun, and afterwards to see if these misconceptions have been
replaced by accepted ideas (Treagust, 1988) could be described as using summative
assessment in a formative way.
These ideas have been extremely influential in the field of education, with the government
providing support for improvement in this area (DCSF, 2008). Black and Harrison (2004)
provide some concrete ideas to apply these techniques to teaching science. Rich questions
that require the pupil to think harder or to link ideas together are easily used in science, as
ideas almost always link to other areas of the curriculum, and can be used to stimulate
debate.
Applying the Research
From this literature, it is possible to formulate an approach to teaching energy that is most
likely to result in good learning. The literature on learning theory suggests that
developmental stages are a reality, although they can be accelerated. This acceleration,
however, requires dedicated lessons to work on conceptual ideas. In four lessons, this is not
possible. Therefore, in order to engage students of all developmental levels I will avoid using
tasks that rely on deductive logic or abstract thought. I will still aim to stretch all students,
using activities that are slightly beyond their current understanding, with differing degrees of
scaffolding in order to allow all students to work in the ZPD. One method available to me in a
mixed-achievement group is paired discussions. Those that are confident have the
13
opportunity to stretch themselves by explaining it to others, and those that are not get extra
support. I will also have the help of the teaching assistant that will join me in the majority of
these classes to ensure that the students with additional needs have their needs met.
I will broadly follow Millar's (2011) suggestion of teaching fuels and thermal processes
before teaching energy transfer. My intention in starting with fuels is to meet the students
where they are in their understanding, thereby bolstering their confidence to expand their
understanding of energy to include more areas than they hear about in everyday life. I will
move on to thermal processes to introduce energy that one can't see. This also allows me to
introduce the analogy suggested by Miller (2011) of temperature as "concentration of
energy". They have covered concentration and diffusion recently in chemistry, so I will be
able to use this as an analogy. This is a significant departure from the scheme of work
normally taught in the school, which begins with a list of the types of energy before
considering energy transformation, and finally moves onto fuels. Thermal processes are not
normally taught at all.
Deciding which model of energy to teach has not been easy. This is because the KS3
scheme of work, textbooks and resources available within the school all strongly use the
transformation model, but this has been heavily critiqued as introducing an unnecessarily
complex system which encourages misconceptions. Miller (2011) uses a transfer model,
which is more scientifically accurate but unsupported by textbooks. I have decided on an
approach by consulting the GCSE syllabus, past papers and mark scheme for OCR 21st
Century Science, which is the syllabus currently followed by the school. OCR appear to
accept both models, but require students to use the terms kinetic energy, and a range of
potential energies including gravitational and elastic. This is unlikely to reflect exactly what
will be required of today's year 7 students as curriculums are changing significantly, but
provides guidelines. The resulting model is more-or-less what Chisholm (1992) and
Papadouris et al (2008) suggest: using the transfer model to describe how energy moves
within a system, while using a select few names of 'types' of energy to describe the process
14
in more detail. Miller (2011) recognises that this, as well as the idea of energy concentration
have the potential of encouraging the misconception that energy is a fluid, so I will have to
be very careful to ensure my students know that this is not the case.
I will endeavour to include AFL at every stage of teaching this topic. Before teaching, I will
use an assessment task taken from Bliss and Ogborn (1985) to assess the pre-knowledge
and misconceptions of my class. I have selected this because understanding the questions
requires no knowledge of specialist language, but also the students are queued that they
should be using energy to explain the situations, which mimics a lesson about energy. It
should, therefore show up the same misconceptions that would be barriers to learning in the
forthcoming lessons. I will use this knowledge to plan a set of lessons that will focus on the
areas they are less confident in, and best address their confusions.
During lessons, I will use a combination of recall-based and rich questions, limiting the
recall-based questions only to where knowledge recall is actually useful. The rich questions
will allow me to see the level of understanding the student has, and will allow students to
engage in debate. I will use AFL techniques (detailed in my lesson plans) during and at the
end of each lesson to ensure that all members of the class are ready to progress to the next
part of the topic. In keeping with a constructivist approach, I will include group work or
discussion in every lesson. When marking written work, I will use a formative approach, and
encourage the students to respond in writing to allow students to engage with what is
required of them, and check that they have understood my comments.
15
The Lesson Sequence
Pre-test and initial planning
At the end of the term before these lessons were due to be taught, this class was set a task
designed by Bliss and Ogborn (1985) to elicit their prior knowledge of energy (appendix 1). It
asked students to identify three pictures that they thought needed or used energy, and one
that did not, and to explain their answers. From these answers it was possible to identify
whether any of the misconceptions recognised by Driver et al (1994) were present in this
class.
Plant Football
Chosen as
needing/using
energy
Chosen as not
needing/using
energy
Radiator Room Boat
Breakfast
Lamp
Statue
TV
7
11
13
0
5
4
11
0
12 11
1
0
0
5
0
0
0
13
0
Table 1: Students' selections of items that need/use or do not need/use energy before teaching.
Frequently, justifications were short and tautologous, for example: "A boat because a boat
needs energy" from 27B. This suggested that although they may have a general sense of
what energy means, many had a general lack of confidence in writing about this topic, and
perhaps an inability to write about it scientifically.
In their original study, Bliss and Ogborn (1985) found that their students preferentially
selected pictures of animate objects. My students showed no such preference. A picture of a
girl eating breakfast and a plant were the least and third least popular choices respectively of
all the pictures that the students found feasible. This misconception was notable in its
absence: no students appeared to have the misconception that energy is related to living
things only.
Those that did pick the breakfast picture mainly focussed on the action of the girl moving
("You have to move your hands and arms to eat breakfast" 19G). This was also true for
16
Train
0
those picking the footballer ("You need energy to move yourself" 18B). In their selections
and explanations, the students appeared to show a bias towards those involving lots of
movement. Like in the original study, no students thought that the room or statue needed or
used energy. Their explanations further suggest a bias towards movement, for example: "A
room because it is a static object that cannot move" 12B; "Rooms don't move or shake or
make any movement" 19G. This suggests that some students held the misconception that
energy is the same as movement.
A final misconception that wasn't identified by Driver et al (1994) but did appear to be
present in my students was that energy is just related to electricity. Electrical objects were
very popular selections, and their justifications often explicitly stated the need for electricity
as the reason ("A TV needs electricity" 20B). Several of the students who picked the radiator
also ignored heat in favour of the fact that you need electricity to run one ("It is working by
using electricity" 4G).
These answers were used, along with the literature discussed above to write my initial plans
for the four lessons. The misconceptions that my pre-test clearly identified were that energy
is just do with movement, and that it was just to do with electricity, and the test suggested a
lack of confidence in or knowledge of scientific terms to do with energy. I therefore decided
that Millar's (2011) recommendation of beginning with fuels and thermal processes would be
appropriate for this class as it introduces forms of energy that are not easily visible, and do
not involve electricity.
17
Lesson Outlines
Lesson One: Fuels and Food
Learning objectives:

Describe what a fuel is.

Explain how we can use the energy in a fuel to do useful things.
Starter: Energy spider diagram
Main: Use of fuels table, followed by burning fuels practical.
Plenary: Review of practical and mini white-board suggests of what is special about fuels.
Lesson Two: Thermal Energy
Learning objectives:

Explain what happens to the energy in fuels we burn.

Describe how energy moves between hotter and colder objects.
Starter: Answering questions about last lesson's practical.
Main: Deciding on class definition of a fuel, and reviewing hot and cold beaker demos with
questions.
Plenary: Applying this concept to a cup of tea.
Lesson Three: Energy Circus
Learning objectives:

Describe the movement of energy in a variety of systems.

Describe the different ways that energy can be stored.
Starter: Mini white-board review of demonstration from last lesson.
Main: Introducing types of stored energy, and energy transfer diagrams. Using these to
describe a range of changes in a circus.
Plenary: Writing on mini-whiteboards the type of stored energy present in a range of
examples.
Lesson Four: Joules and Sankey Diagrams
Learning objectives:
18
•
Explain that energy can exist in useful and less useful forms.
•
Use numbers to describe energy transfers.
•
Use Sankey diagrams to show useful and wasted energy.
Starter: Feynman's story of Dennis the Menace and his energy blocks- literacy task and pair
discussion.
Main: Introduce joules and discuss wasted energy. Complete joules worksheet and Sankey
diagram card sort.
Plenary: Mini white-board questions about wasted energy and joules.
19
Evaluation
In evaluating these lessons, I will draw on three sources of evidence: written work produced
during lessons and as homework, transcripts of the lessons which were recorded using a
Dictaphone, and the results of the test given at the end of the teaching period. Examples of
this written work, full transcripts and full test results for each student can be found as
appendices.
Lesson One
The intention behind beginning lesson one with a spider diagram of concepts related to
energy created in pairs was threefold. Firstly, I wanted to encourage the children to speak to
one another about their ideas as early as possible in order to foster a social-constructivist
approach. Secondly, the pre-testing had shown me that the misconceptions held by this
class tended to be that energy was limited to certain things. By asking students to express
these different misconceptions I hoped that the students would demonstrate to one another
that energy was a broader idea. Finally, it was my intention to introduce the topic by
suggesting that students already had a good idea of what energy was, thereby building
confidence, and avoiding an explicit definition as recommended by Chisolm (1992). This
activity was successful in these aims, as it brought out a wide variety of ideas, including
solar power, coal, food, crude oil, light, calories and sleep. The suggestion of sleep brought
about a useful discussion on the differences between energy in everyday life, and in science.
24B: Sleep.
T: Why do you say sleep?
24B: Because when we sleep we gain our energy.
T: So that's a completely different meaning of energy. When we talk about energy in
our everyday lives we say "Oh, I'm out of energy, I need to sleep". Where do we
really get energy from?
23G: Food
20
T: Yes... So there's sort of 'science energy', and there's how we talk about energy in
every-day life, and they're different.
The challenge with this activity was to discourage students from saying that any one of these
suggestions was the same as energy. Two students asked me to define energy as I was
circulating and seemed understandably dissatisfied with my reluctance to do so.
The second activity involved identifying where and why fuels are used. This allowed us to
move into a more concrete area of discussion, which was useful. Worksheets were
differentiated for students 1G, 3B and 21B to provide further scaffolding. The aim of this was
to identify the common factors of fuels, and provide a segue into talking about foods as fuels
for humans. I chose this sequence because almost all students who picked the picture of the
girl eating breakfast in the initial test had focussed on her movement. Most students seemed
happy to make the link between food and fuel.
7G: Chips
T: Why chips?
7G: Potatoes are fuel for your body
The next part of the lesson was testing whether food was indeed a fuel by using it to heat
some water. The practical aspect of the lesson was significantly slower than I had planned
because of a last minute room change which put us into a room which was not set up for a
practical, and where nobody knew where the equipment was kept. This meant that the
majority of groups did not collect data for more than one food source, and I made the
decision to postpone reflecting on the practical until the next lesson in favour of collecting
some results to reflect upon. The lesson finished with a brief plenary in which students
discussed in pairs what might be special about fuels, and made some notes on what they
thought.
21
Lesson Two
The main focus of the second lesson was on thermal energy and thermal processes. This
was explicitly linked to the energy released in the previous lesson's practical. I chose to
make this link because the way I had heard students discuss fuels in the last lesson
suggested that they thought that the energy was made in the fuel and then was used up. My
intention was to dispel this misconception by giving them a mental image of where the
energy in this concrete example had gone. The experiment that I had initially intended to be
a class practical was changed into a demonstration to allow time for this discussion to
happen in full.
The lesson began by setting up the demonstration, in which a beaker of hot water and a
beaker of cold water are placed in different room temperature water baths. Changes in
temperature of both beakers and water baths are recorded for 15 minutes. During this time
the students discussed the results of the previous lesson with their partner and wrote down a
summary of the practical. This part of the lesson was successful because it enabled them to
compare observations and results from different foods.
After a period of pair discussion, students discussed as a class what they considered to be
the definition of a fuel.
4G: A fuel is something that when heated, burns and creates a chemical reaction.
T: Ok, can anyone add to that?
13B: A fuel is a substance that has enough energy to keep something running.
20B: A fuel is something that is burnt or put in a process to make energy.
15G: A fuel is something that creates energy.
T: So we've got two types of definition, we have ones that say a fuel is something
that creates or makes energy, and we have another that says that fuel is something
that has energy in it that you can release to do something. Hands up if you think the
22
fuel makes the energy from scratch (about 5 hands go up). Hands up if you think the
energy is in the fuel already (around 10 hands). You guys are right... So the energy is
in the fuel already... Does anyone know the name of the energy we turned the
chemical potential energy into?
6B: Thermal energy.
The link to thermal energy brought us on to a discussion of the demonstration. My intention
with this was to track the movement of thermal energy from a hot object into cooler
surroundings and from surroundings into a cool object, using diagrams and our results. The
students appeared to understand this concept, many linking it in their books to when we
discussed diffusion of perfume the previous term ("Thermal energy moves out like a perfume
diffuses" 27B). However, in retrospect this was an overly teacher-led activity. I endeavoured
to keep the children involved by asking targeted questions, the answers to which led the
discussion. However, it is not enough to only be sure of a few student's understanding and
only check the others' while marking after the fact. This activity could have been carried out
as a card sort, which would have got all students involved at all times, and allowed for better
AFL. The didactic nature of this task meant that the key point that energy cannot be
destroyed was introduced by me and not discovered by the students. If students had been
allowed to come to their own conclusion it might have been understood by more students,
not just copied down. A prime example of the failure of this method was written in 19G's
book: "It is important to destroy thermal energy". This was a statement obviously written
without much understanding.
After reflecting on the last two lessons, I decided to increase the amount of AFL I was doing
during the class, and rely less heavily on the techniques of targeted questioning which only
assesses a few individuals and questions in plenaries which only give you information when
it is too late to use it.
23
Lesson Three
The Dictaphone ran out of battery before this class, so no transcript is available. The main
idea behind this lesson was to broaden the idea of energy to include more changes, and
give students a framework to describe these changes. An energy circus is a classic activity
for demonstrating lots of different changes, and I used this as an opportunity to introduce the
energy transfer model to the class.
The lesson began with mini-whiteboards, which I used to assess the students' understanding
of the previous lessons. We next made a list of all the types of stored/potential energy,
including chemical, gravitational, kinetic, elastic and thermal. This concession to the
transformation model was suggested by Chisolm (1992) to make descriptions easier. The
students were to record each change using an energy transfer diagram, like the one below:
The idea of these diagrams was to focus not on what the energy was doing or what form it
was in, but where it is and the process it moves by, and in so doing discourage ideas of
energy disappearing or being 'used up'. After two demonstrations of how to construct these
the students started moving around the circus. The work produced was mostly inaccurate
and confused. For example, 12B's diagram for a wind-up toy:
Winding
Movement
Toy walks
Or 1G's diagram for a kettle.
Hand
Switch kettle on
Boil water
This is representative in that it reads like a process or set of instructions. The closest work to
being correct was 7G's (appendix 5c). The main problem with these diagrams appears to be
24
that they have no specific vocabulary to go with them, and could include a wide variety of
words depending on the change you are describing. Students seemed to have problems
identifying when they had got the right idea. They seemed to find the instruction "where the
energy is goes in the boxes, how it moves goes on the arrows" too subtle a distinction to
make on the first attempt. I reviewed the process once more with a new example, and asked
them to do three more diagrams as homework. The homework was even less accurate than
the class work.
Finally, we went back to the list of stored energy types and I asked the students to write on
mini-whiteboards the type of stored energy found in each example. With a more definite
range of possible answers, students were much more confident in this task and were
generally accurate in identifying the stored energy.
Lesson Four
I began this lesson with a literacy task adapted from Feynman's analogy of Dennis the
Menace and his blocks (Feynman et al, 1964). The intention of this starter, was to introduce
the idea of being able to count energy like blocks. Students discussed its relevance in pairs.
Between them the students identified all the relevant parts of the analogy, primarily
indestructibility and ability to move. This was a great improvement on the way I had
introduced a difficult concept in lesson two, because this time I left it to them to explain it to
themselves and one another. I had only to add that the blocks represented joules, which was
a new idea to these students.
A very fruitful part of this lesson was the discussion following my question about wasted
forms of energy from a torch.
10B: So when you turn the torch off, the light that came out disappears straight away,
so where has it gone if it hasn't disappeared?
T: That's a very good question. You're right the energy hasn't disappeared. What do
you think happens when light hits something?
25
10B: Is it heated?
T: Absolutely, so where has the energy gone?
10B: Is it transferred into thermal energy in the thing it hits?
The insight that this question and the subsequent discussion suggested surprised and
impressed me, and instead of moving on to the next part of the class immediately I decided
to make sure the whole class understood the question and its answer, which lead to a short
discussion on energy transfer in microwaves. The interest that this question sparked was
evident in the whole class who tried to answer each other's questions. I decided to facilitate
the conversation since it was so relevant, and postpone the final task, drawing Sankey
diagrams, until the next lesson.
The main activities of the lesson were a worksheet adapted from the school's scheme of
work that I had chosen as a good introduction to joules and wasted energy, and an activity
involving representing these numbers in a diagram, as an introduction to Sankey diagrams.
All students carried out the calculations correctly, and the questions concerning wasted
energy prompted some good discussions. These allowed me to draw out ideas of friction
producing heat, and the possibility of sound being absorbed. The lesson finished with a very
successful plenary using mini-whiteboards during which all students answered at least one
question right.
I had one more lesson with this class after this four hour study. In that lesson we covered
comparing and drawing Sankey diagrams.
Marking
After the final lesson, I marked all the books using formative feedback, and set each
individual a number of specific tasks based on their work. The next lesson, I set aside 15
minutes for students to use green pens to respond to my feedback and answer the questions
I had set. I saw marked improvement in many students work after my written feedback,
particularly in the energy transfer diagrams they produced.
26
Post-teaching Test Results
Plant
Chosen as
needing/using
energy before
Chosen as not
needing/using
energy before
Chosen as
needing/using
energy after
Chosen as not
needing/using
energy after
Football Radiator Room Boat Breakfast Lamp Statue
TV
Train
7
11
13
0
5
4
11
0
12 11
1
0
0
5
0
0
0
13
0
0
5
14
16
0
7
7
17
0
6
9
0
1
0
4
1
0
0
15
0
0
Table 2: Comparison of picture choices before and after teaching
After teaching, the pictures chosen by students remained broadly similar, with a few key
differences. Again, no students believed the room or statue needed or used energy, which is
unsurprising, as we did not cover special relativity. Breakfast, although slightly more popular,
was still not chosen by many students, which is surprising considering the first lesson was
about food as fuel. Those that did choose breakfast, however, tended to focus on chemical
potential energy in their answers. It is unsurprising that more students chose the lamp, as a
torch had featured heavily in my examples. Half the number of students picked the TV, the
largest change. One might tentatively suggest that this was because the transfer model
focuses on locations of energy, and for a TV the initial location is far away, so it is harder to
explain.
More interesting is the changes in how students justified their answers. In general, students
wrote a lot more, and fewer answers were tautologous (although many still were, and were
counted as neither correct nor incorrect).
27
Correctly using scientific
language
Before Teaching
3
After Teaching
7
Correct
Explanations
10
16
Incorrect
Explanations
4
3
Table 3: Changes in student's justifications
More students used scientific language in their answers after teaching, but the only
statistically significant result using McNemar's mid-p test (Fagerland et al, 2013) is the
increase in correct explanations (p=0.039). I would argue this is the most important increase
given that the test did not specifically ask for scientific terminology.
28
Conclusions
From the evidence I have gathered during and after these lessons, I am confident that the
majority of students in this class have made progress in their understanding of this topic.
However, I do think that many aspects of this scheme of work could be improved upon, and
this has implications for me personally, the school, and indeed the curriculum.
Personally, the most important improvement will be to integrate AFL techniques all the way
through lessons, not just the beginning and end. After writing mini-plenaries into my plans for
lessons three and four, I was much more confident in my assessment of the individuals in
the class. Practically, placing mini-whiteboards on desks at the start of the lesson allowed
planned and ad-hoc assessments of progress. I also adapted my style of delivery, focussing
much more on questioning and leaving space for students to come up with their own
answers. I found this tremendously helpful in assessing whether an idea was being
understood.
The scheme of work I developed was a successful adaptation of Millar's (2011)
recommendations. My resources were differentiated and self-explanatory, except for the
energy circus worksheet, which relied heavily on the transfer model. I will discuss the
problems surrounding this in more detail below. When teaching this topic in the future, I will
keep the order broadly similar, but will spend more time on fuels and food. This actually
required two lessons to cover the theory and practical sufficiently.
From reading the literature, I was convinced that the transfer model of energy was not only
more accurate, but also less likely to instil misconceptions. Having taught this model, I can
now see flaws. The lack of specific terminology makes it difficult for students to assess
whether they are talking about changes correctly. Although some students did grasp the
concept, especially after written feedback and further examples, many never differentiated
an energy transfer diagram from a simple flow chart of a process. If they are so easy to
confuse, one might question if the diagram is providing any further information. The extra
terminology of the transformation model might seem arbitrary from a scientist's perspective,
29
but it provides very clear guidelines on whether a student is correctly understanding and
describing a change.
For the transfer model to become a viable way to teach energy, several changes need to
take place. Firstly, this needs to be a decision taken by the entire science department so that
the teaching of energy is consistent across the year groups. The lesson after my teaching
sequence finished, the class teacher continued with the school's scheme of work and
introduced the traditional list of energy 'types', spending a lesson discussing energy
transformation. This means that this class haven't even had a consistent model of energy
taught within one term. I imagine this is confusing for many students.
Secondly, science educators need to agree upon the criteria of a 'good' answer within this
model, and this needs to be included in examiner's mark schemes so as not to disadvantage
students taught with this model. Finally, resources and a scheme or work should be
developed that can rigorously assess understanding within the transfer model. Due to the
relative rarity of this model, my resources and questions had to be heavily adapted or built
from scratch, and I found no external reference points on which to base my assessments.
This is work I will continue before teaching this topic again.
With so much work to do to make the transfer model a more attractive option for teachers,
and the criticisms of the transformation model still unaddressed, one might wonder if there is
a good solution to the question of KS3 energy. I am tempted to echo Warren (1982) and
suggest that energy as an abstract concept is an unnecessary complication to the KS3
curriculum. However, to do so would be to sidestep my duty to deliver the National
Curriculum, and the 2014 KS3 curriculum features energy as the first of just five physics
topics (DfE 2013). I believe that a hybrid transfer and transformation model, delivered with
excellent AFL and in the circumstances outlined above, is the best way to teach energy.
30
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