This session explores how Micro: bit technology can be used alongside case studies and practical classroom activities to help students investigate how diseases spread.
Developed during the COVID pandemic through collaborative teacher learning, the approach was designed to model both airborne and more traditional contact-based transmission. Participants will see how these activities can support engagement with current, real-world science through problem solving, discussion, and enquiry.
The session will share the background to the work, outline how the activities were developed for classroom use, and demonstrate how Micro: bits and disease-transmission scenarios can be used to promote STEM learning and scientific sensemaking. Resources will be shared digitally with attendees.
1. Use case studies and Micro: bit technology to engage students in investigating disease transmission through relevant, real-world contexts. 2. Plan opportunities for students to apply science inquiry and problem-solving approaches as they analyse evidence and identify possible sources of infection. 3. Adapt an integrative STEM activity that supports exploration, sensemaking, and discussion of disease transmission in the classroom.
The session begins with everyday objects that prompt close observation, enabling learners to notice patterns and features that naturally lead into specific primary science phenomena. Each activity is deliberately structured with scaffolds that support pupils in articulating their ideas and using scientific language with increasing confidence. In line with research emphasising science as a distinct linguistic practice (Lemke, 1990), the session foregrounds opportunities for learners to develop and apply scientific vocabulary through guided talk, modelling, and structured interaction.
All materials have been developed directly from classroom practice and draw on a range of pedagogical approaches, including inquiry‑based learning, dialogic teaching, and explicit vocabulary instruction, to ensure accessibility for all learners. The design of the session reflects current evidence that vocabulary must be explicitly taught and embedded within meaningful contexts to support understanding, as highlighted by the Education Endowment Foundation.
Aims: •Learn about a range of free digital platforms that can be used to create video content •Understand how the use of video content can transform learning, as shown by the PIC/RAT model •Learn how to create their own videos or templates to scaffold tasks for pupils From TikTok to Teams calls, many platforms offer video editing software features for free, therefore creating video content has never been easier.
‘If you truly understand something, you can teach it to others’ Getting pupils to make their own videos gives every learner a voice and develops a variety of additional transferable skills, ranging from literacy and oracy to collaboration and digital skills.
Join Dr Ben Scott as he showcases examples of pupil’s work that demonstrate their understanding of science ranging from digital lab report videos, creating models of atomic concepts and revision videos. These tasks engage and challenge learners to be more creative in how they express their understanding. Apart from showcasing some of his favourite go to tools, he will also demonstrate how he uses rubrics to design and mark these types of assessments.
Outcomes: -Be more confident about harnessing video editing software in their own classrooms -Be able to design rubrics to create and mark their own pupil video assignments -Record their own videos to help support their own lessons and learners
Since Covid, Ben has been passionate about the use of technology in teaching and found many digital tools remained in his classroom when he returned to face-to-face teaching. This led to him becoming a digital research and development coordinator as part of the Teaching and Learning school team. Ben has been selected as a UK Adobe Innovator for the last two years, recognised for his creativity in science teaching. He is also a founding member of the National PedTech Partnership, a UK focus group of digital thought leaders who are developing a pedagogy first, technology second approach within their school institutions. Using a variety of digital tools, he continues to implement innovative ways to challenge pupil’s learning, through engaging and creative means, to assess their knowledge and understanding. Creating YouTube style video content has been particularly powerful.
