Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub Science

Secondary Teaching Hub Science content is mapped to Australian Curriculum Version 8.4 and 9.0 Science across Years 7-10 to simplify learning progression.

It makes covering the curriculum easier, with: 

• topics and lessons that can be searched by curriculum code and have the relevant curriculum information detailed in situ.
• lessons that have a clear learning intention, success criteria and links to the real world, making the content relevant and engaging for students.  
• 1-2 topics per year level that address each Science understanding sub-strand.

In addition, Secondary Teaching Hub Science helps teachers integrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures into science education to enhance the richness of the content and develop appreciation of the contributions that First Nations Australians bring to science.

Flexibility is at the core of Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub Science, ensuring the learning experience is engaging and teaching is simplified.  

The digital hub provides modular content including text, videos, assessments, inquiry activities, practical investigations and more, which can be delivered in any order to suit the needs of teachers and learners.  

Worksheets that complement and enhance learning can be downloaded from the digital hub, including fully worked solutions.  

The Student Companions give students the opportunity to document their educational journey, providing a series of questions and activities that complement and enhance the digital material whilst maintaining consistency in course coverage. 

Teachers have control and flexibility to use the modular content in Secondary Teaching Hub Science in the way that works best for them and their students.

All topics and lessons in Secondary Teaching Hub Science are part of a recommended learning sequence made up of modular content chunks. Depending on preferences, school protocols, experience and more, teachers can choose to follow the recommend learning sequence exactly, use it as a guide but assign some content in a different order or, teachers can utilise all content as individual chunks and assign each to students in whichever order they wish.

Modular content simplifies teaching, allowing for a digital hub that is easy-to-navigate and supports teachers to deliver lessons with as much or as little guidance as they wish using the easily-assignable bite-sized modular content chunks.

Secondary Teaching Hub Science includes in situ teaching notes in every lesson.

Teaching notes are written with out-of-field and inexperienced teachers in mind, ensuring a starting point for every teacher. Depending on the outcomes of each lesson, teaching notes provide in the moment support, including:

• differentiation prompts to help enable and extend learning
• common misconceptions and suggested remediation
• content clarifications and guidance
• support for conducting Spark activities, Practical investigations and inquiry activities including preparation guidance, safety notes and possible answers

Secondary Teaching Hub Science teaching notes ensure every teacher can deliver a high-quality program with minimal preparation.

Secondary Teaching Hub Science helps teachers spend less time creating and marking assessments, uncovering and addressing misconceptions and providing ongoing feedback for students with prepared assessment opportunities including:

• prior knowledge questions
• check-in questions
• Worked examples
• Lesson review questions
• Topic review questions
• Practical investigations
• Inquiry activities
• Downloadable worksheets
• Student Companion questions

All questions in the digital hub are auto-marked. For Practical investigations and Inquiry activities, where auto-correction would not be appropriate, students upload their work for teachers to review. Downloadable worksheets and Student Companion questions are supported by fully worked solutions.

Teachers are supported with rich progress reporting in Secondary Teaching Hub Science, providing ongoing insight into student understanding before, during and after lessons and helping teachers to determine when to spend more time on certain concepts.  

As students complete assigned work, teachers can view progress at the student and class level.  

• At the student level, teachers can see the number of attempts students used and if they chose to access the hints and answers for a given question.  
• At the class level, teachers can get a snapshot of completion rates and overall performance as well as a deeper view of trends in understanding across certain areas.  

Reporting is visible in the digital hub and a class report can also be exported for simple use at reporting writing time or in conjunction with other school systems.  

The topic introductions in Secondary Teaching Hub Science introduce teachers and students to a topic. Topic introductions are made up of:

• Topic opener: Introduces the topic to students by making links between the real world, their prior knowledge and what they are about to learn.
• Spark activity: Engage students and activate their prior knowledge with an optional 5–15-minute class activity led by the teacher.
• Prior knowledge questions: 3-5 auto-corrected questions in the digital hub with additional questions of a similar level available in the Student Companion.
• Teaching resources: Downloadable resources including curriculum alignment information, recommended learning sequence, links to other topics, common misconceptions and concept development maps.

The Theory lessons in Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub Science help teachers address the Science understanding and Science as a human endeavor content descriptions and may also be applied to some Science inquiry descriptions. 

Each topic includes 5-7 Theory lessons, each covering 2-3 success criteria supported by in situ teaching notes. Theory lessons are and made up of: 

• Lesson introduction: Introduce the lesson with opening content supported by the Learning Intention and Success Criteria for the lesson. 
• Spark activity: Engage students and activate their prior knowledge with an optional 5–15-minute off-screen class activity led by the teacher.  
• Success Criteria Content: Engaging content delivered as small chunks of images, text, videos, carousels, flip cards and more followed by 1 auto corrected ‘check your understanding’ question to provide immediate feedback to students and teachers before moving on to the next success criteria.  
• Lesson review: Reinforce learning and address misconceptions with 3-6 auto corrected review questions covering all Success Criteria from the lesson.  
• Lesson reflection: Questions prompting students to think their confidence, progress and areas for improvement.  
• Glossary: A summary of key terms used throughout the lesson.  

The Student Companion books enhance the digital material with additional practice questions and fully worked solutions.  

The Practical investigations in Secondary Teaching Hub Science help teachers address the Science inquiry and Science understanding content descriptions and may also be applied to some Science as a human endeavor content descriptions.

They provide essential opportunities for students to develop and apply science inquiry skills through experiments, field work and modelling.

Ensuring they are safe and yield effective results, all Practical investigation lessons in Secondary Teaching Hub Science have been trialed and tested in a school laboratory. They can be projected onto a shared screen from the digital hub, downloaded and printed as single worksheets, or accessed from within the Student Companion books to make sure workbenches are safe and clear of devices.

Each Practical investigation lesson includes:

• Background
• Aim
• Materials
• Method
• Results
• Reflection

Many of the Practical investigation lessons are further supported by videos, SkillBuilders, Worked examples and interactive Spark labs in the digital hub. Risk assessments, safety notes, and lab technician's checklists and recipes are provided for Practical investigations where relevant.

The Inquiry activities in Secondary Teaching Hub Science help teachers address the Science inquiry content descriptions and may also be applied to some Science understanding and Science as a human endeavor content descriptions.

They are open-ended and provide opportunities for hands-on learning that encourages students to plan, design and create solutions to scientific problems. Like Practical investigation lessons, they can be projected onto a shared screen from the digital hub, downloaded and printed as single worksheets, or accessed from within the Student Companion books to make sure workbenches are safe and clear of devices.

Each Inquiry activity lesson includes: 

• Background 
• Aim 
• Plan 
• Design  
• Conduct  
• Improve 
• Evaluate 
• Results 
• Reflection 

Many of the Inquiry activities are further supported by videos, SkillBuilders and Worked examples in the digital hub.

SkillBuilders are short activities which support the development of science inquiry skills, outlining a method or technique and stepping students through the skill to support its application.

In the digital hub, lessons that require specific science inquiry skills have a relevant SkillBuilder activity linked within the lesson at the point of need. SkillBuilders for more general science inquiry skills such as writing a hypothesis can be accessed individually by searching the digital hub.

Worked examples are scaffolded problems and techniques that use a research-based thinking and working approach to guide students through solving problems and applying techniques to practice and master skills. These each include:

• Worked example table: a problem and solution with thinking and working steps detailed 
• Worked example video: a video explanation of the problem and solution 
• Auto-marked Check your understanding questions: 1-3 questions to test students’ abilities to complete the Worked example 

The Student Companion books have an icon to indicate where digital SkillBuilder lessons are available to support the Student Companion content.  

Topic reviews help teachers provide a recap of key concepts and assess knowledge and skill acquisition against the learning intentions and success criteria for each topic. They are made up of:

• Core content questions
  • 8-15 auto-corrected questions (1-2 per topic learning intention)
  • mid-high order questions
  • appropriate for use as summative assessment
  • fully worked solutions available in the digital hub
• Topic reflection questions
  • review students’ confidence of what has been learnt

Topic reviews are also provided in the Student Companion books, providing additional practice and opportunities for summative assessment.