Stepping Into Science Formative Assessment...Where Have You Been All of These Years?

It is amazing how excited you get when you are given a tremendous number of curriculum resources.  Correction...it is amazing how overwhelmed you get when you are given a tremendous amount of curriculum resources.  Slowly taking time to go through them to uncover new information takes time and patience.  Getting short, simple assignments for the books is helpful too.

This week I was given assignment along with my cohort colleagues to pour through two books. They are titled Uncovering Student Ideas in Science volumes 1 and 2.  The subtitle is 25 Formative Assessment Probes.

Where have you been all of these years? In science getting an idea of what students know in a clear coherent way is nearly impossible.  Students come into science class more than any other with diverse bits of knowledge that is not standardized or universal.  Science curriculums in elementary schools seem to vary and the amount of time spent in science I'm sure varies as well as a result of the tremendous push for reading instruction in the lower grades.  Kids love science. They have varying depths of knowledge.  This makes it difficult at times to assess what they already know before attempting to build on that prior knowledge.

Welcome Formative Assessment!

These books by Page Keeley, Francis Eberle, and Lynn Farrin, in the preface of the book outline the goal of these types of assessments. They say that formative assessment "when used deliberately and effectively, helps teachers find out what their students think and know at the beginning and throughout the instructional sequence". I love this idea.  Normally we would start a new topic, get a cursory feel for what the students know (because we don't have pre-asessments like in math) and then get to it.  The great thing is that you can get an idea of student pre-conceptions otherwise known as misconceptions. I love the line "they are assessments for learning, not assessments of learning." This makes so much sense.  We want to know what students know.  We don't want to over assess.  We do want the right information to help drive instruction.  These formative assessment probes are the right tool for the job.

Well today I used my first "Formative Assessment Probe".  . The goal was to "elicit students' thinking about specific ideas in science". Well, the ideas were properties of matter and conservation of mass.  The question was basically will the mass of ice in a bag change when it melts.  I had no idea what students would choose.  After going through all of the responses most of the students said that it would not change because there is the same amount of material in the bag.  Some common misconceptions were that "it takes up more room when melted so it has more mass" and "ice floats on water so water is heavier".  Knowing the thoughts of my students will help me to design instruction to help change preconceived ideas.  As the authors claim in the book, conceptions, if not addressed  may "get in the way" of new learning in the classroom.

The beauty of it all is that these assessments are quick, easy to administer, analyze, and discuss with students.  They make teaching and learning more effective in a subject in the elementary school realm has long been ignored.  Students can demonstrate their thinking and learning. Teachers can gain a much better handle on student thinking and understanding.  Another positive aspect of these probes is that they can be used for demonstration, class discussion, pre-assessment, ongoing assessment, or even as a summative assessment when appropriate.

Science is fun. Formative assessments help to make it even more fun to teach because you really delve deep into the ideas.   Through careful instruction, if you can help to turn the preconceptions into new learning and knowledge that students will have for a lifetime, it will lead to better science and scientists in the future.

Look into these tools.  I have five of these books. I can't wait to use them. Ask to borrow them. Thanks again Harry for the fantastic resources.

Here is a link to the website: http://uncoveringstudentideas.org/
Here is another link to science and curriculum:  http://www.curriculumtopicstudy.org/

Powerful Learning in Math and Science

(This blog today is part of a school assignment)

The book Powerful Learning by Linda Darling Hammond delves into the area of teaching for real understanding.  Chapters 2 and 3 focus on this understanding in math and in science.  Chapter 3, "Mathematics for Understanding" by Alan H. Schoenfeld explains how math needs to be presented to a learner in order for real understanding to happen.  The first, most important thing to happen is for students to begin to make sense of the information.  Students need time to play and manipulate and explore using the mathematical phenomena in order to begin to make sense of the topic being presented.  Schoenfeld calls this an "interaction with the content"  that is very different from the traditional practices of mathematics teaching.  Discourse and questioning, along with writing and proving what they know is imperative for children to develop deeper mathematical understandings.  Rote learning has its place in mathematics for sure.  Knowing basic facts and how to apply them is of great importance.  Students though need a deeper understanding of the rest of the mathematical concepts.  Not having an understanding of the underlying principles, the how and the why in a math concept is like a house not having a foundation.  There is no strong footing to build upon.  It may stand for a while on top of the soil, but when the rains come, the house, (and the knowledge) will be sure to wash away.  If they do have a firm grasp of the underlying principles, then no matter what type of problem is before them, the student will be able to find a way to make it work.

Schoenfeld cites a TIMSS study that countries who place a "greater focus on the conceptual underpinnings of the mathematics"  were higher achieving.  An emphasis on one or two problems during a class period leads students to more in depth thinking.  I have seen this in my classroom.  Student discussion when faced with a multistep, open-ended problem is richer and more focused than when completing a basic word problem.  Students rise to the challenge and relish the opportunity to try and prove they can succeed.

A strong conceptual understanding and opportunities to communicate those understandings in a variety of ways will lead to more improved, confident math students.  These can be taught in tandem with basic skills.  It is our job as teachers to begin to make this not so subtle shift for the benefit of our students.  As a result our teaching will greatly improve, because we are forced to think and teach in new creative ways.  Having the opportunity to work closely with colleagues to develop and implement these new "topic areas" will lead to better teaching.  Having a "continuity of focus" in workshops or Professional Learning Communities on these areas will lead to better practices.

Teaching Science for Understanding apples many of the same principles as teaching math for understanding.  An inquiry based approach is the best, most effective way to teach science for understanding.

Students come to school with some facts that may be accurate or inaccurate.  The need is to help change those misconceptions.  Then making "connections among the facts"  is vitally important to help student understandings.  Deeper questioning and investigation, along with allowing students the opportunity to explore and find information independently creates opportunities for them to be self-directed, self-motivated learners. Working together with peers in science to develop an inquiry investigation helps to increase their scientific knowledge.

As in math, "understanding any concept requires processing prior knowledge and ideas and incorporating them into a broader knowledge base".  Time and deep, rich activities allowing for discourse and student  interaction help foster this powerful knowledge.

As a teacher, science has been the one area I have feared the most.  Teaching in the traditional fact based manner, followed by quizzes and tests if how the past fourteen years of teaching been conducted.  Students have not been learning.  They  learned for the bit of time they needed the information, but that knowledge often evaporated over time.  Attending inquiry training and beginning to teach in a new way has made teaching science fun and exciting.

The four areas that Zimmerman and Stage see as being most important are:

Making Science Accessible


Making Thinking Visible


Helping Students Learn from Each Other


Promote Lifelong Learning Through Reflection


Science teaching needs to change for these important pieces to happen. Unbelievable things will happen as a result.  Students will be more confident, better thinkers, collaborators, writers, and students.  Teachers will be more confident, better questioners, and more reflective in their practice.  Students will then be able to bring this large knowledge base of skills and concepts, not necessarily facts along with them.  Hopefully the successive teachers they encounter will begin to change their practices as well.

I am excited and hopeful that these changes will happen. I am beginning to see this transformation in my classroom...and I like it!

Designing Effective Science Instruction..Making a Change

Oh the things we missed out on in Teacher's College.  I actually can't remember much besides student teaching and learning abstract concepts that were irrelevant to us then and well into the first years of teaching.  I have to imagine the education those undergrads are receiving now is of much higher quality and well organized.  I hope they have the ability to design and teach science lessons that are meaningful to students. They have the time.  I am now learning about designing science lessons that inspire students to think, ask questions, and truly wonder about the world and phenomena around them.

Designing effective science instruction is very similar to designing lessons in other curricular areas.  The only difference is that I and many teachers like me have feared this one area in the past.  We have had the least training and had the least amount of instructional time in this most important subject.  I am now learning to let go, let the science happen, and let the "organized chaos"  (as some of my DESI colleagues call it) unfold.  This is not a "subtle shift".  This is a monumental shift that we need to take for the sake of our students.  Learning in an inquiry based way can only encourage and motivate students to excel.

I was given the book Designing Effective Science Instruction today at our workshop.  This book was written by our presenter Anne Tweed, a leader in the field of science education.  I plan to use this resource, among others, to help design and plan science this year with my colleagues.  If any science educators would like to read it along with me, please comment  and we can have a bit of discourse about the what is happening in our classrooms.

We were also given an awesome "Flip" video camera! What a great tool for instruction.  Can't wait to use this for our experiments. Thank you Harry!