Things you'll need to decide on as you plan: Levers
Teaching Guidance
for 11-14
Bringing together two sets of constraints
Focusing on the learners:
Distinguishing–eliciting–connecting. How to:
- subvert the notion that you get something done for nothing
- draw on the work done in identifying forces acting on objects
- make the compensating quantities, and the pattern of compensation, explicit
- use a wide range of everyday examples
Teacher Tip: These are all related to findings about children's ideas from research. The teaching activities will provide some suggestions. So will colleagues, near and far.
Focusing on the physics:
Representing–noticing–recording. How to:
- be systematic in your use of terms
- adopt helpful conventions
- relate the action of the machines to fundamental physics
Teacher Tip: Connecting what is experienced with what is written and drawn is essential to making sense of the connections between the theoretical world of physics and the lived-in world of the children. Don't forget to exemplify this action.