Guidelines for Good Practice

Developing Respect

Young people should be encouraged to see that objects demonstrate examples of problem solving and innovative thinking skills of our ancestors. This helps to develop young people's respect for the ancient technology and creativity of our ancestors.

Observe, Discuss and Speculate

Research finding first allows for good skills development. By creating learning opportunities for young people to observe, discuss, speculate and hypothesise you are stimulating the developing of their thinking skills. Using an open ended approach to questioning can encourage discussion, speculation and develop an understanding that there may be more than one possible answer. This can encourage young people to understand that evidence can be incomplete.

Collaboration and Team Work

Collaborative group and whole class enquiry-based approaches foster the best backdrop for investigating objects. This provides a fertile environment for young people to develop analytical and deductive reasoning through discussion, speculation amongst their peers. It has been argued that having an enquiry-based, dialogical approach to examining artefacts promotes learning and can help to make that learning more accessible to all young people, regardless of achievement levels.