Gifted Education School Network Experience Sharing Compendium - STEAM Education

Enhancing Gifted Students' Meta-cognitive Skills and Higher-order thinking skills through Nutrition Science Education

– Pentecostal Gin Mao Sheng Primary School

This L&T design focuses on allowing gifted students to participate in scientific inquiry and conduct quantitative and qualitative scientific experiments, thereby improving students’ higher order thinking skills and creativity. Through differentiated instructional teaching strategies, students are guided to measure the vitamin C content of common drinks and clarify myths about vitamin C. This L&T design can encourage students to make evidence-based scientific explanations, make informed decisions, and develop good habits of a balanced diet.

Nurturing Gifted Science Students through Gifted Pull-out Programmes

- G.T. (Ellen Yeung) College

This L&T design allows gifted students to understand the properties and applications of salt through experimental demonstrations and hands-on experiments. Using multi-sensory teaching, students discuss and share the uses and characteristics of salt in groups, and then learn about the impact of salt on ice. Students experienced first-hand the heat-absorbing effect of salt by making ice cream. Extended discussions are included for other applications of salt in daily life to ensure students have an in-depth understanding of the properties and applications of salt. The instructional design aims to enhance the learning interest of science gifted students, develop observation and reasoning skills, and combine the knowledge learned with practical applications.

Nurturing Gifted Thinkers: Philosophical Inquiry as Catalysts for Climate Change Awareness

- HKUGA College

The goal of this L&T design is to build a deeper understanding of the evidence for the causes of the average increase in global temperatures over the past century. The lesson starts with a reading activity of how greenhouse gases cause global warming. An argumentation activity then provides two opposing claims about the causes of global warming, and student will write scientific questions to clarify which claim is better. Then students will examine eight pieces of evidence and identify which claim is supported. Finally, students will construct an argument for one of the claims. The L&T design help nurtures creativity and higher-order thinking skills of scientifically gifted/ more able students.

Learning by Seeing Osmosis: Engaging and Extending Student Learning through Inquiry-based Activities

- HKMA David Li Kwok Po College

In this L&T design, students observe and question slices of pickling cucumber. Using a simulation, students notice that cucumbers placed in a salt solution become firmer. The understanding of osmosis helps them make connections to daily life scenarios. The L&T design rearranges the lesson sequence, allowing students to explore the biological concepts using their own words and understanding. Biological terminologies are then introduced to support students’ articulation of the ideas of osmosis that help explain more principles about the pickled cucumbers. It can foster a deeper conceptual understanding of osmosis.

電的探究──蠱惑的水

– 香港南區官立小學

[In Chinese only]

課堂運用了預測—解釋—觀察—解釋(PEOE)的科學探究模式，學生將參與動手和互動活動，例如識別和測試材料的導電性、設計和構建自己的電路以及進行故障排除和調整。本教學設計旨在挑戰學生運用高階思維技巧，並培養學生的個人及社交能力。課堂結束時，學生對導電體和絕緣體的概念及其在電路中的作用有深入的了解，並掌握一系列技能，使他們能夠設計和構建自己的電路。

Exploring pH: Engaging and Extending Student Learning through Inquiry-based Activities

- G.T.(Ellen Yeung)College

In this hands-on lesson, students will explore the behavior of natural indicators and learn how they can be used to test the pH of various substances. Using red cabbage and butterfly peas as examples of natural indicators, students will conduct experiments to observe color changes that occur when the indicator is exposed to acidic, basic or neutral substances. Through these experiments, students will develop a deeper understanding of the pH scale and the importance of natural indicators in everyday life. This lesson promotes higher-order thinking skills and encourages students to communicate their findings and conclusions with peers.

Growing Up Gifted: Developing the Potential of All Students by a School-based Talent Development Approach

- Carmel Pak U Secondary School

This lesson is designed to support gifted/ more able students to propose predictions and formulate hypotheses that explain an unexpected result from a classic three candles experiment. The experiment provides counter-intuitive results and allows students to explore the concept of gases and their properties. Using the predict-observe-explain instructional sequence, students first predict which candle would go out first with explanations. They then observe the behaviour of the candles in the covered glass jar and analyse the data to revise their initial explanations to formulate hypotheses that explain the phenomenon. Students design and conduct experiments to test their hypotheses. The lesson aimed to strengthen gifted/ more able students' scientific inquiry skills such as observation, data analysis and hypothesis testing, and to foster their higher-order thinking skills and creativity.

Rethinking the Introduction of Particle Theory for the Learning of Gifted/ More Able Students in Regular Classrooms

- St. Paul's School (Lam Tin)

Students often think that matter is continuous without space between particles. To support deep conceptual development about particle theory, the lesson follows Predict-Explain-Observe-Explain (PEOE) inquiry approach. The teacher introduced a puzzling phenomenon of mixing different liquids (i.e. mass conservation but volume reduction). Students are guided to conduct a scientific investigation and use the analogy of mixing beads to explain the phenomenon. The lesson design helps foster gifted/ more able students’ higher-order thinking skills and creativity.

透過探究式學習提升資優學生的科學素養

– 民生書院小學

[In Chinese only]

• 學生以「預測(predict)、觀察(observe)、解釋(explain)」科學探究模式進行有關蠟燭的科學探究。學生逐步剖釋「蠟燭愈長，愈快熄滅」的神奇現象。
• 教師透過課前評估和分層提問等適異性教學策略，讓學生思考和分析燃燒與空氣的關係，並延伸至不同燃燒的情況。
• 課堂設計能強化資優／高能力學生科學的論證能力，有助提升他們的高層次思維技巧。

Promoting the Scientific Enquiry among Gifted/ More Able Students via Candle Investigations

- Homantin Government Secondary School

This lesson is designed to exemplify the use of a jigsaw cooperative learning strategy using a prediction-observation-explanation (POE) inquiry model. When candles of different lengths are ignited under a closed system, the longest candle will go out first. It is because the hot carbon dioxide rises and accumulates near the longest candle. The experimental result may contradict students’ predictions as they may think that the burning time depends solely on the amount of fuel. This lesson allows students to discuss what they think will happen in the closed system. They are arranged in expert groups to collect new evidence in 4 learning stations. Finally, students are arranged in jigsaw groups to share their empirical findings and write an explanation for what they have seen. The lesson design helps nurture creativity and higher-order thinking skills among gifted/ more able students.