Debate kits

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Our debate kits, do they work?

June 11, 2010 in Debate kits, Evaluation by SophiaC | No comments

Well, of course, I’m going to say YES to that question.

What’s This?

Here is the evaluation report on the first half of the debate kits project, comprising the first two kits (from Summer and Autumn 2009). Obviously I was supposed to publish this MONTHS ago, but it’s fallen by the wayside, until now.

Why now?

We have just brought out the third IAS debate kit, on Stem Cells. We posted out 1,500 stem cells debate kits earlier this week. I got an email from a teacher this morning saying ‘Just got the Stem cell pack…fantastic!’ so I’m hopeful they’ll be as popular as previous kits:-)

What are the debate kits?

The debate kits are designed to get students in their science lessons debating and discussing science issues, seeing things from different points of view and learning to back up their opinions with evidence. Each kit is developed in consultation with teachers, and fact checked with scientists.

Evaluation summary

“This is great I couldn’t have done a debate without it”

I’m a Scientist debate kits is a project to help get more debate and discussion going in the UK’s science classrooms. We are developing and distributing debate kits to UK science teachers. The kits are designed to give a teacher everything they need to run a structured debate on a set topic and help their students develop their discussion skills. The activity gives them a structured way to start discussing and gets them practicing the behaviour. The Wellcome Trust have funded Gallomanor to produce and distribute three sets of kits in 2009/10.

The first kit was developed as part of I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!, in 2008. This first kit was re-printed and distributed to 1,500 teachers and science communicators in Summer term 2009 as the first nationally distributed IAS debate kit. We also provide an electronic version of each kit, which more people can download from the website. The second kit was produced in Autumn term 2009. The topic (suggested and picked by teachers) was ‘Are we too clean?’ The third kit will be produced and distributed in Spring term 2010. A fourth kit will be developed in Summer term and distributed electronically.

Outcomes

Key aims met:-

Kits well used
The resources worked ‘straight out of the box
They really engaged the students
They developed students’ discussion and critical thinking skills

Kits also:-

Were good way for students to learn new content
Were effective with a range of students
Got quieter students talking
Inspired teachers to start making their own!

Recommendations

Next kit in Summer term 2010, on stem cells (done!)
Produce an electronic large print version (done!)
Produce DIY debate kit templates for teachers to use (done!)
Increase print run to 2,000 (done!)

More details in the full Debate Kits Interim Report (pdf).

If you would like to order a copy of the latest debate kit (they are free!) go here

If you would like to download a copy of one of the kits go here

If you’d like to know more about the kits or the project there’s more info here, or feel free to get in touch and ask us!

Best. Review. Ever. (IAS Debate Kits in School Science Review)

May 19, 2010 in Debate kits, How Science Works, science education by SophiaC | No comments

You can now sign up for our next Debate Kit, on Stem Cells! What are you waiting for?

I'm a Scientist debate kit on stem cells, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, image of the front of the kit.

Place your order now!

Maybe you read all the things that we’ve written about the debate kits and think, ‘Well they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ I know I would.

Handily, an independent opinion is to hand! School Science Review, the journal of the Association for Science Education (ASE), has reviewed our debate kits. And boy did they like them!

As we all know, the ASE are the bee’s knees when it comes to science education, so you should definitely listen to them.

Sign up for these kits now if you have not done so already; they are too good to miss. The IVF ‘kit’ (cards in a wallet) is the first of four to be produced by the ‘I’m a Scientist’ team. The second, Are we too clean?, is now also available. Paper stocks of both kits, sent out to teachers, have run out, but they can be downloaded from the site and are freely photocopiable; the convenient size of the cards means that you can get four to a page. It might be sensible to laminate the cards before using with pupils. The remaining two kits will be produced over the next two academic terms in 2010.

Developed in consultation with teachers, these kits work. They are simple but very effective and well thought out. Intended for use at key stage 4 (ages 14-16), they hit the ‘How science works’ nail on the head with their 50-minute lesson plan, which includes a starter and a plenary, by promoting knowledgeable debate. Background notes are provided for the teacher and suitable homework suggested. There is no reason why the kit could not be used with older or younger pupils if thought appropriate by the teacher. Not all characters need to be used and some with potentially sensitive issues, such as cancer patients and lesbian couples, teachers might want to select which cards to use in advance. This would not affect the overall activity.

I am looking forward to kits number three and four.

Sue Howarth

School Science Review, March 2010, Vol 91 Number 336

Next kit: Stem Cells

Orders now open

FREE!

Pre-orders now open for the new debate kit!

October 7, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | No comments

It’s gone to the printers. It’s on it’s way. The second, ever, I’m a Scientist Debate Kit is GO!

The topic is ‘Are we too clean?’ which was suggested by a teacher called Laura, on this blog, on September 9th. You then voted and picked ‘Are we too clean?’ as the most wanted topic. Your wish is our command, so now we’ve developed the kit for you and sent it to the printers. The first batch will be ready to ship on 19th October.

You can pre-order a kit here, but don’t do that if you are already on our list! We’ve sent you an email and you can confirm or change your order with a click.

Now we’ve made the kit I want to find out who Laura is, and send her the first ceremonial copy. If you are Laura, or know who she is, then please get in touch!

(And now that I think about it, I’m pretty impressed that we entirely crowdsourced the choosing of the topic. I don’t know if any other educational publishers (I guess we are educational publishers?) have tried this before. If you fancy giving it a go, we used twitter, the blog and email to solicit suggestions and then online votes. This included us consulting all the teachers who’d used the first kit – so our entire user base. It worked great!)

Topic for next debate kit: Are we too clean?

September 23, 2009 in Debate kits, Uncategorized by SophiaC | 1 comment

Is this man too clean?

I’m surprised, as so many teachers have suggested stem cells to me over the last few months, whenever I’ve talked to them about the debate kits. I was sure that was going to come out top. But ‘Are we too clean?’ snuck in at the last minute, and wiped the floor with all comers, if you’ll pardon a very weak pun.

I was once at a gig where a member of the audience shouted out the name of an obscure, early hit, as a request. The singer laughed into his microphone and said, ‘It’s all very well for you, you’ve only got to remember the title, I’ve got to remember the chords and all the words to the ******* thing!’

I feel a bit like that – it’s all very well for you lot, you just have to vote, now I have to research and write the damn thing! The more I think about it, the more it seems like a very big topic to do justice to in one debate kit…

I guess the areas I mentioned in the poll all need to go in there (i.e. antibiotics/antibacterial cleaners/resistant bacteria/allergies). Let me know in the comments if there is anything you particularly want the kit to cover, curriculum links you think are important, and so on.

Wish me luck!

(photo credit Attila Malarik)

VOTE for what the next debate kit will be on

September 15, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | 7 comments

You all gave us lots of great suggestions of topics for the next kit. Thanks!

Here’s the list of topics – I think nearly all of them would make fascinating debates and raise lots of interesting issues.

Now YOU decide which one we use for the next kit.

Please vote in our poll below.

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

I’ve put the topics in alphabetical order, rather than popularity of the suggestion, so it’s a bit fairer. There were several more great topics suggested but the list was just too unwieldy with all of them.

Help us decide the topic for the next debate kit!

September 3, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | 27 comments

1,500 of you have had the first, IVF, debate kit and you’ve been giving us great feedback on them. We are now gearing up to produce the second kit and we’d like your help choosing the topic, because who better than teachers to tell us what teachers want?

The suggested topics so far are:-

Stem cells
Creationism
Homeopathy
MMR
Cannabis (legalisation and/or medical use)

Have you got any other bright ideas? Topics must be biomedical as we are being funded by the lovely Wellcome Trust. Are there topics you’d really like debating resources on but can’t find anything suitable? Then let us know in the comments section! We’ll collect suggestions over the next week or so, and then let everybody vote on the shortlist.

Timetable:-

3rd – 11th Sept

Gathering suggestions

14th Sept

Put up topic shortlist for voting

21st Sept

Topic chosen

21st Sept-19th Oct

Researching, developing, testing and producing kit number 2

19th Oct

Posting out next kit

Debate kits – Report on phase one

July 31, 2009 in Debate kits, Evaluation by SophiaC | No comments

We launched our I’m a Scientist debate kits on 18th June and have now distributed all 1,500 we printed. We’ve been really pleased by the response from teachers. The next kit will be coming out in the Autumn. We’ve written a report on this first phase of the project and we thought a summary of that may of interest to others, so here you go:-

Project: I’m a Scientist Debate Kits

A Wellcome Trust funded project to distribute structured debate kits to science teachers

Key milestones

18/06/09    Promoted kit by email to our contacts and on twitter
22/06/09    Mailers arrived in 5,000 UK secondary schools
23/06/09    Posted on psci-comm
26/06/09    Featured in Planet Science
01/07/09    1st kits arrived in schools
06/07/09    Posted on TES messageboards
27/08/09    Final kits posted out

Other marketing

Complimentary kits sent to the 323 specialist science colleges and 177 largest secondary schools plus various IAS contacts (e.g. at BSA, SLCs, ASE) with request to pass info on to teachers who may be interested.
Ongoing twitter and blog coverage.
Contact with Aimhigher who agreed to help publicise us to their target schools.
Attended Wiltshire STEM ambassador event.
Presentation to student teachers and to their mentors at UWE.

Orders over time

I think it’s clear that the events I’ve highlighted have had the biggest effect on teachers ordering kits. The dates of other interventions did not coincide with a spike. However, other activities, especially word of mouth between teachers, are invaluable and contribute to the long term take up of the kits, but will not give the same sort of spike. We are still seeing new visitors to the site every day with teachers signing up to hear about the next kit.

Distribution

Comps: 523
Online orders: 644
Offline orders: 283 Total: 1450 sent out
50 distributed in person

Additionally 167 people have downloaded the online version.

Schedule for kit 2

31/08/09    Ask teachers for topic suggestions
11/09/09    Email feedback reminder to teachers
14/09/09    Put up topic shortlist for voting
21/09/09    Decide topic for kit 2
………………….Put up info about it and start taking orders
………………….Make any topic-related connections necessary
28/09/09    Start research/writing kit 2
………………….Make decision about whether we produce a mailer for this kit
01/10/09    Meet w mailing house about arrangements for batch 2
05/10/09    Kit 2 to design
07/10/09    Kit 2 to printers
19/10/09    Post out 1st batch kits

Debate kits SOLD OUT

July 20, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | No comments

Well, not exactly sold out, as they are free, but they’ve all gone. We’ve sent out all the 1,500 debate kits we printed, in the space of a month. Which I think is pretty good going. I told you teachers really wanted resources like this. They’ve practically been biting our hands off! You can still:-

Download a kit

Register for info on future kits

The next kit will be produced in the Autumn term and will be ready to send out round about 19th October.

Science debate kits going like hotcakes!

July 7, 2009 in Debate kits by SophiaC | No comments

We’ve been really pleased with the response to the debate kits. We’ve had loads of orders, have sent out two batches of kits and have now only got about 200 kits left! So order quickly if you want one:-)

It just goes to show that the teachers we’ve worked with were right and this is a resource that’s really needed. Although I hope we’ve all thought this through? The kits are supposed to get kids debating and ‘asking why a lot more’. Maybe one day, faced with an argumentative generation of critical thinkers, we’ll wish we’d kept our mouths shut. I know my Mum certainly does…;-)

You can still:-

find out more details about the debate kits

order a kit

download a kit

And remember, there will be new kits developed every term next academic year. If you want to be consulted about what topics we should do, then pick that option when you get your confirmation email.

Science debate kits now available!

June 19, 2009 in Debate kits, Downloadable teacher resources by SophiaC | 3 comments

Well it’s been pretty hectic here but the debate kits are now go! Thank you to the Wellcome Trust for funding us, and believing in getting people talking about science issues.

To find out more details about the debate kits

To order a kit

To download a kit

The kits are designed to develop pupils’ discussion skills, giving them a structure to work from, and getting them to consider other points of view. They’ve got great feedback from teachers who’ve used them in the I’m a Scientist event. Teachers told us there is a real lack of simple-to-use, but effective resources like this for getting discussions going. So we made some.

The first kits are being printed as we speak and will be sent out towards the end of next week. We haven’t even seen one yet, just lots of mock-ups we’ve been printing out and stapling at our desks.

I’m really excited! I think they are going to be fab, and hopefully very useful and generate discussion around the land! Please pass this on to any teachers who might want one.

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