Professional Knowledge
Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it

A snapshot of a Science unit plan for Kindergarten students developed to explore properties of different materials and select appropriate material for an intended product. 

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 This unit plan was designed to promote conceptual understanding and inquiry skills in students by stimulating and engaging their senses through a range of age-appropriate, outcome-aligned content (ICT, stories, hands-on exploration, discussion, and investigations), effectively setting learners up to question natural phenomena in their environments. This is based on the socio-cultural theory of Vygotsky which recommends exposure of student to tools within their environment, along with discussion opportunities assisted by knowledgeable adults, as conducive to learning. The content was organised with an overarching inquiry question about materials and their suitability in constructing different objects, depending on their function, which effectively aligned content and its delivery with the main focus of inquiry. Each lesson was aligned with one aspect of these materials for in-depth learning opportunities, yet also provided learning opportunities for all the sub-strands of science, as recommended by Skamp (2018). Moreover, the organisation of content delivery followed a framework of gradual release of responsibility to students in each lesson, as promoted by Vygotsky for its effectiveness, from whole-class introductions to small group investigations and independent representations of thinking into a portfolio of work samples (artefacts or experiment results) for summative assessment and reporting purposes.