Agenda• Final Assignment reminder• Re-visiting Writing• Other forms of integration:

Activity & Art• Assessment

– Forms– Designing– Rubrics– Analysis

Have a happy thanksgiving!! What are you thankful for… in science? Oh, and lets have fun today since its thanksgiving week.

Final Assignment Reminder

• Due Dec 6th by 5:00pm

• For your final assignment you need to reflect on your science teaching in a way that reveals your growth as a science teacher this semester and that shows others what you care about.

Head on over to the wiki: Assignments.

school

Warm up Activity: Recapping Writing…

Expository writing that are helpful in science…• Description: The author describes a topic by listing characteristics,

features, and examples• Sequence: The author lists items or events in numerical or

chronological order.• Comparison: The author explains how two or more things are alike

and/or how they are different.• Cause and Effect: The author lists one or more causes and the

resulting effect or effects.• Problem and Solution: The author states a problem and lists one or

more solutions for the problem. A variation of this pattern is the question- and-answer format in which the author poses a question and then answers it.

Think of a science experience you had this weekend, and write about it from one of these perspectives.

Literacy Integration:Writing

In groups…

• Discuss how your CT has incorporated writing in science (or science into writing).

• Think of at least 3 different examples, and be prepared to explain the strategies.

Writer's Notebooks - Writing About Science

x

Reader's Notebooks

Writing about Science - Journals/Lab Notebooks

Class Blog & Science pages

Integration of the Arts & Body

• Motion & Bodies• Music• Art

Using our bodies in science

From the NSTA book:

• Emilio: imagining himself into the ant world to describe where and how they live

• Using his words and his body to explain and explore the phenomena

Using our bodies in science class

Using your bodies to explore phenomena• Imagine you are a plant. What happens when

you grow? Can two of you act this out for us?• Imagine you are a molecule? What happens

when you heat up and cool down? Can 5 of you act this out for us?

• Charge cards: Jess• Scientific Soccer: Jenn & Lauren

Role playing

• Melissa’s story• 23% first

marking period• The passing girl• Very social with

friends but very quiet in class

We drew a tree because not only the giraffes need it but we need it too cos, erm, of the air… Plus the giraffes will starve. We drew the giraffes saying “ I’m hungry! Help us! Help my family! We need trees to eat the leaves!” and the little one, the baby is saying “Help me! And my Mommy! I’m starving!”

Save the Animals Posters on Giraffes

Researched giraffes: Focused on how recycling impacts the health of giraffes

Melanie impersonated the mother giraffe and baby.

Melanie

Animal Project on Gorillas:

Scientist Jane Goodall Met requirements by reporting on habitat, food and life-cycle of the

animal Enlisted help of Pat and Chantell to act as gorillas while she “taught”

them sign language Received 100% on her report and the presentation.

M My favourite proj e ct, wa s , I agree with Pamela, the an imal pro je ct, cos, um, …

E How did Pamela help yo u? M She was t h e gorilla. And I was the

scie n ti s t. P She was Jane G oodall. M Yeah, I was the s cie nti s t teac h ing the

gorillas the si gn langu ag e. E Oh, how did you g e t the idea to b e Jane

Goodall? M I read t h e book, it says that th e sc ie n tist

teach t h e gorillas s ign la nguage.. like, this m eans peace and s ome other sign language I forg ot. And , I knew that I was gonna get a good grade and I got a 100. and Chalynn was the sound effe ct.

E What do y ou mean s he was the s ound e ffec t?

M She ma de t h e gorilla s ounds. E Oh …. M And also, this sci e nt ist, this is t he

scie n ti s t who t a ug h t t he gorillas * shows pictu re from pr oje ct*

Role playing

• When and how might you use role-playing in science class?– Debates– Presentations– Arguing for ideas (in a science talk)

• Who might kids role play?– Scientists– Science users and consumers

Current Circle/Energy Pass

The class stands in a circle. Each person creates a sound and motion that travels around the circle. When the motion

gets back to the one that started it, the next person starts

their own motion or movement.

What science conceptsand ideas could students explore with an activitylike this?

When might we want to use an activity like this in our instructional sequence?

Art in Science - Creating Models

Text

Art and Science - Technical Drawings and Observations

A common sketch student technical drawing

How might these be used to further student science learning?

Science and Music

Remember the Bone Song - Students create a group dance performance to help them remember to parts of the skeletal system.

Science and MusicRaps

Health competition

Begins to use art to educate othersJanis’ Rap – 3rd place

Statewide competition, age 13-19

Verse 1Just sit down and take a seatOpen your ears and listen to meI gotta tell something that you won’t likeSomethin’ you didn’t know ‘bout your lightsIncandescent light bulbs help global warmingA solution to pollution in this bulb is formingFluorescent light bulbs they do last longerFluorescent bulbs are brighter and are strongerSo give CFLs a try ….And wave those ugly bulbs goodbyeTake aim … at climate change Cut down your bills, it ain’t so strange

 Chorus: Do as I doTake and unscrewThrow out the oldAnd put in the new One simple thing you all can doIs change to CFLs, & don’t be a fool

“I’m a make a difference expert”

• Clouds (5th grade)

You guessed it…

• We’ve just finished a unit on life cycles and you are 4th graders. Create a rap to teach this topic to your 1st grade buddies.

At what stage in the Instructional Sequence would it make sense to integrate art into science?

What other ways can schools integrate science in the school day?

Integrating into Science• In your groups you will be assigned a form of

integration.• In your groups either modify your big lesson plan to

incorporate your form of integration OR design a new lesson plan

• Be prepared to:– Teach the part of the lesson that involves the integration

(within reason)– Explain

• the integration• what part of the lesson sequence it involves (engage, explore, explain,

apply)• how it connects to students’ lives• how it enriches the science lesson

Assessment in Science

Why do teachers use assessments?

Teachers use assessments for various reasons, including:

• Monitoring student progress toward learning goals -- How is each student progressing in relation to learning goals?

• Making instructional decisions -- how can a teacher use evidence about his students’ progress to make instructional decisions?

• Evaluating student achievement -- how does each student’s understanding at this time compare with the goals that student was expected to achieve?

• Evaluating programs -- how well is the program working in relation to goals and expectations for the

students?

Think about what kinds of assessments you have seen used in your mentor teacher’s classrooms. Besides, achievement, what powerful examples can you

think of that relate to the other 3 goals?

When does assessment take place?

Diagnostic assessment or Pre-assessment The purpose of diagnostic assessment is to determine, prior to instruction, student background experiences, skills, attitudes, and conceptions. – Helps the teacher to evaluate each student’s learning needs

and relevant connections before instruction begins.

Formative assessmentFormative assessments are often administered during a lesson. They help teachers to figure out how students are progressing in their learning.

– Not used for grading purposes, but provide teacher and student with valuable feedback about the student’s progress.

– Teachers can use this information to make informed decisions about their teaching, such as adjusting the rate of instruction, assigning remedial activities, and planning alternative experiences.

Summative assessmentSummative assessments are often administered at the conclusion of a lesson, unit, or grading period. They provide a summation of what a student knows at that point in time.

– They are often used for reporting student achievement levels to districts and states, or for assigning grades.

What kind of information do you need? Target your assessment to gain specific

information!

• What students know and can do before instruction begins

• How well they are progressing toward learning goals during instruction

• Which strategies and thinking processes students use to reach answers or conclusions

• How well students are integrating new information

• What motivates students • How effective are special interventions • Whether a teacher needs to alter his or her

teaching

How can you use assessment to inform your instruction?– Identifying appropriate content, sequencing, and pacing of

lessons – Modifying or extending activities– Choosing effective teaching methods– Examining the effects of the tasks, discourse, and learning

environment on students’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions– Making instruction more responsive to students’ needs – Ensuring that every student is gaining scientific power

How do we identify/create rich and informative assessment tasks?

A ‘rich’ and informative assessment task is:

• related to the GLCE/ learning goal.

• focused on conceptual understanding rather than information recall

• designed to reveal strengths and weaknesses in students’ mastery of the learning goal

• designed so that ALL students can respond to the task (possibly with varying degrees of quality and mastery.)

Examples of Formative Assessment Opportunities

Assessment Rotation Stations: In your groups, you will have 5 minutes at each station to review and discuss the assessment task example. As you visit each station, consider the following:

What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this assessment task?

Which assessment tasks would give you the most information about how students think and understand?

Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Task 1:Physical Science, 4th grade

• 4th Grade Performance• Student investigates the effect of different container materials on

heat transfer; draws a conclusion about the best insulator; and applies concept to a new, seemingly quite different problem.

• Review the task. What specific understanding does the task assess?

• Review the sample student work: How would you assess student performance on this task?

What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this assessment task? Which assessment tasks would give you the

most information about how students think and understand? Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Task 2: Classification, grade 4• Students will develop a binary classification system using

concrete objects.• This task assesses students' abilities to observe properties of

objects and classify those objects into two groups.• This task is designed to take students approximately 10 minutes

to complete.• Review the task. What specific understanding does the task

assess?• Review the sample student work: How would you assess

student performance on this task?

What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this assessment task? Which assessment tasks would give you the

most information about how students think and understand? Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Task 3: Inclined Ladder, grade 3• Students determine the forces necessary to move a truck on an inclined

plane with weight and slope as variables. They then apply their understanding to identify the cheapest way to transport trash to local garbage disposal sites.

• The task assesses students' abilities to make simple observations, design an experiment, collect and interpret data, and apply their understanding to an additional situation.

• This task is designed to take students approximately 45-60 minutes to complete.

• Review the task. What specific understanding does the task assess?• Review the sample student work: How would you assess student

performance on this task?

What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this assessment task? Which assessment tasks would give you the

most information about how students think and understand? Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Task 4: Run for your life, Grade 4• After reading a story about a predatory event between a fox and

a rabbit, the student will draw a picture to show the pattern of animal tracks a scientist might find in the area after the event.

• The task assesses students' abilities to make generalized inferences from their reading, and apply their understanding.

• This task is designed to take students approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.

• Review the task. What specific understanding does the task assess?

• Review the sample student work: How would you assess student performance on this task?

What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this assessment task? Which assessment tasks would give you the

most information about how students think and understand? Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Task 5: Mythical Animals, Kinder• Students create an imaginary animal by assembling pictures of body parts from

pictures of real animals. Note: This task is one of three linked tasks. The others are "Who's Parts Do I Have?" and "Animals Piece by Piece.”

• This task assesses students' abilities to sort organisms and objects into groups according to their parts and describe how the groups are formed; record observations about parts of animals including wings, feet, heads, and tails; and identify parts that, when separated from the whole, may result in the part or the whole not working, such as cars without wheels, and plants without roots.

• This task is designed to take 3-4 class periods of 15 minutes each.

• Review the task. What specific understanding does the task assess?

• Review the sample student work: This task does not have samples of student work. Discuss what an ideal response would look like.

What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this assessment task? Which assessment tasks would give you the

most information about how students think and understand? Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Task 6: People Interacting with their environment:

Grade 4• Students explore the characteristics of different environments and the ways people and animals live those enviroments. They then apply their understanding to an additional situation.

• Review the task. What specific understanding does the task assess?

• Review the sample student work: How would you assess student performance on this task?

What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this assessment task? Which assessment tasks would give you the

most information about how students think and understand? Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Discussion

• What evidence of student understanding would you be able to find in student responses to this

assessment task? • Which assessment tasks would give you the most

information about how students think and understand?

• Which would you use in your classroom, and why?

Assessment TasksWhen planning, tweaking or selecting an assessment task, start with an assessment objective that explains what your students will be able to DO after your lesson. (use Blooms Taxonomy verbs)

The students will be able to identify and describe the

parts of a mealworm.

Assessment Objective Example:

Create your own Assessment

Work together in groups of 3-4. Select a GLCE appropriate for your placement:

• An assessment objectivea statement that explains what your students will be able to DO after your lesson. (Use one of the verbs from Bloom’s Taxonomy)

• An assessment taskShould reveal strengths and weaknesses in students’ mastery of the overall learning goal.

• A list of expected featuresShould include the critical points the students should include in their response to demonstrate meeting the GLCE.

(Choose a format that can be displayed for peer review)

Assessment Gallery Walk

As you review your classmates’ work, consider the following questions:

• Is the assessment objective related to the GLCE/ learning goal?

• Is the assessment objective focused on conceptual understanding rather than information recall?

• Will the assessment task reveal strengths and weaknesses in students’ mastery of the learning goal? (features of student responses)

• Is the assessment task age appropriate?

Designing Rubrics for Assessment Tasks

• Guiding questions– What do I want my students to know and

be able to do?– What does this look like?

• Alignment with– Task/assignment– Learning goals– Expectations

• Analytic or Holistic

Designing a Rubric

• Step 1: Develop a list of qualities that the learner should demonstrate proficiency in by completing an assessment task– no limit to the number of criteria that can be included in a

rubric– Criteria should connect to: learning goals and students’

developmental levels• Step 2: Refine your list so that it is fair, accurate and reasonable

– Are you asking for too much or too little?– Are the criteria aligned well with your goals and what you have taught?– Do the criteria really capture what you want to measure?

• Step 3: Expand on the dimensions of quality and proficiency– What is high quality versus low quality?– A good way to get started is to think about how the attributes of a truly

superb performance

• Step 4: The final step toward filling in the grid of the rubric is to benchmark the remaining levels of mastery or gradations of quality.

Holistic: Examples from PALS

Analytic: Example from BSCS

• Ecosystems model project: Students are to model their ecosystem. The model should include appropriate living and non-living organisms present. The paper should include an appropriate description of their ecosystem including the climate, what living and non-living organisms are present, how the living organisms meet their needs for survival, and example of a food chain or web that exists in this environment, what types of changes could take place, what those changes could do to the populations within that ecosystem, and what microbes might be present that may drastically effect the ecosystem.

Return to the assessment you designed earlier (gallery walk)• Design a rubric

– Holistic OR Analytic• Justify why you selected holistic or

analytic• Produce a “sample” piece of student

work that reflects high achievement and low achievement

Making sense of student work from your lesson!

Assessment Analysis and Reflection Task

Such a task gives you experience with assessment & provides us with an assessment of your growth as a teacher! I have been asked to collect your work so that we can examine it and also compare it across all sections of 401.

What you need:

• Your “big lesson plan”• Samples of student work• A partner – you can choose to look at

your own or a classmate’s student work. If you do not have samples of your own students’ work, partner with someone who does.

Part I. Steps for Analyzing Students’ Post-Assessment Responses

• Read through all students’ responses to get an idea of the range of student ideas.

• Construct a rubric for analyzing your assessment task. The rubric should reflect your expected task response features as well as the range of student responses.

• Score student responses and based on the results, categorize all students by high, medium and low proficiency. Students who do not respond to a task are to be placed in a non-response category.

• Choose one to two students from each group (high, medium and low category) for further analysis.

STOP: Discuss

• What surprised you about the range of student ideas? Did more or less students “get it” than you anticipated?

• How did your rubric help you figure out who “got it”? After scoring student work, how might you revise your rubric to make it more effective in getting you the information you need?

• Part II. Examining and Reporting on Patterns in Your Analysis

• Analysis of students’ learning: Examine the understandings of the students in the high, medium and low categories.

• Please address the following questions (see handout), focusing on evidence based on the 6 selected students’ work: – How did students’ different proficiency levels understand different aspects of

the learning goal(s) as reflected in the task response features? – Were certain features more problematic than others? If appropriate, please

comment on other evidence you might have about your students' learning. – Where did the students end up in their understanding of the goal(s)? What

ideas were generally understood? What naïve ideas remain? Your response should explore students’ strengths and weaknesses, their responses to the particular assessment features (which aspects did they seem to master and which ones did they struggle with?) to help you identify specific ways in which your lesson was successful in supporting students’ mastery of your learning goals.

– Discuss the next steps you would take as a teacher based on the evidence you gathered and analyzed regarding student learning.

STOP: Discuss

• What were some of the things you did well as a teacher during this lesson?

• To what extent did you see students’ growth with respect to the science content based on evidence from your science talk which provided insight on students’ prior knowledge (for example, anticipated misconceptions, challenges, etc.)?

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what changes would you make? Why?

• What have you learned from this experience that will influence your teaching of other science lessons in the future?

Connecting to the field

• Think of an instance where your mentor teacher used:– Diagnostic/pre-assessment– Formative assessment– Summative assessment

• What was the assessment? What information did the assessment target? How was that information used to shape instruction (if at all)?