Teaching syllabus

Mastery Science is publishing a teaching syllabus for Project Science to act as a blueprint for developing the competences of working like a scientist and engineer.

Project Qualifications list the aspects of a project that students have to demonstrate in a project for assessment. However, they don’t define the underlying transferable skills, nor the science-specific practices students need to learn.

Project competence goals

The overall learning goals for the course are competences in each kind of project as:

  • Investigation: Conduct an experimental enquiry, working like a scientist
  • Design: Solve a real-world problems, working like an engineer
  • Research: come to an informed judgement on a personal, local or global issue

Competences like these integrate at least three dimensions of learning:

  • Scientific (enquiry) practices - skills that scientists and engineers use to investigate and design solutions
  • Transferable skills - capabilities that can be applied across different subjects and situations
  • Scientific ideas - additional understanding related to the specific project

The teaching syllabus focusses on practices and transferable skills.

Scientific practices

The syllabus has mapped out the scientific practices involved in an Investigation, Design or Research project. These are based on the work we did in designing the KS3 Science Syllabus (published by AQA).

For an investigation project: Devise questions, Interrogate sources, Review theories, Test hypotheses, Plan variables, Collect data, Estimate risks, Present data, Analyse patterns, Construct explanations, Critique claims, Draw conclusions, Justify opinions, Discuss limitations,

There are additional practices specific to a Design (engineering) project: Evaluate design, Specify problems, Imagine solutions, Prototype designs,

Plus three additional practices relevant to a Research (desk-based) project: Integrate evidence, Examine consequences, Use ethics

Skills and learning performances

To give teachers and students clarity on how to develop practices, we mapped out 2 levels of learning outcomes for each practice. The diagram shows this for the practice of ‘discuss limitations’.

There are three outcomes:

  • skills: novice outcomes that students gain through required practicals and prescriptive experiments
  • understanding: the thinking behind the doing
  • learning performances: more expert outcomes which integrate several skills, with understanding

5-stage processes

Since there are so many outcomes, we have organise into a structure that is simpler for teaching and learning. For each each type of project, there is a 5-stage process.

For an experimental Investigation project, scientists tend to follow the process below, although the details vary between disciplines.

  • Ask: Frame the investigation question
  • Search: Use relevant theory to make predictions
  • Experiment: Plan and collect data
  • Interpret: Analyse data and draw conclusions
  • Report: Share the findings with your evaluation

For an Design project (called an Artefact project by EPQ), engineers follow the ‘design cycle’, which we simplify as:

  • Ask: Define the problem and design criteria
  • Search: Generate and evaluate solutions
  • Build: Create and test prototypes
  • Improve: Optimise designs
  • Report: Document the process

For Research project (called a Dissertation project by EPQ), there is also a general process, with variations in the details :

  • Ask: Frame the research question
  • Search: Find and evaluate sources
  • Interpret: Synthesise information from multiple sources
  • Decide: Consider different perspectives, consequences or ethics
  • Report: Write the dissertation

Giving all the projects a common structure allows for a joint project timeline, to help teachers keep all the different projects going on roughly in step.

Transferable skills objectives

The world of work requires students to be carry out complex, innovative, multidisciplinary projects, and work in teams. The main skill areas they need, often referred to as 21st century skills are:

  • Collaboration: Follow agreements, negotiate, understand points of view and give feedback.
  • Creativity: Generate diverse and creative ideas, evaluate and improve ideas
  • Critical thinking: Use inductive and deductive reasoning, analyse alternative approaches and overcome personal biases
  • Independent learning: Choose goals and strategies, use metacognition, manage timelines and resources
  • Problem-solving: Define and break down problems into parts, evaluation approaches and make plans

Project Science teaches these skills 'just-in-time’, at the appropriate stage of students' projects, so they can be immediately applied.