Content from the Slides
Essential Question: How can you effectively use formative assessment probes and strategies to inform Science/STEM teaching and promote learning for all students?
Formative Assessment Definition in a Nutshell: The act of collecting information about students’ thinking and learning to inform instruction and provide feedback to the student while simultaneously promoting learning.It is assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning; and- often it is assessment as learning!
Formative assessment is a feedback process that includes: Understanding what students are thinking at any point in an instructional cycle and feeding that information back into informed instructional decisions.
Categories of Misconceptions:
• Preconceptions
• Taught Conceptual Misunderstandings
• Intuitive Rules
• Context Limitation
• Factual Misconceptions
• Common Myths and Cultural Beliefs
• Pseudoscientific Ideas and Science Denialism
• Vernacular Misconceptions
Preconception from Everyday Experience: Commonly held ideas students bring to their learning from their everyday interactions with the natural world. These are often established before students are taught the scientific ideas.
“Taught” Conceptual Misunderstandings: Misunderstandings students develop when they are taught concepts or procedures but interpret them in their own way that makes sense to them. Includes overgeneralizations. Conceptual misunderstandings often go undetected by the teacher when formative assessment is not an integral part of teachers’ practice.
Context Limitation: When students fail to transfer their learning from the classroom examples to other examples or are limited in their idea development when only one context is used in instruction.
Vernacular Misconceptions: Based on the way we use words or phrases in our every day language that have a different meaning in science or mathematics or similar scientific words that are frequently confused.
Scientists Idea Comparison for “Is It a Model?” Card Sort: A model of something is a simplified imitation of it that we hope can help us understand it better. A model may be a device, a plan, a drawing, an equation, a computer program, or even just a mental image. Whether models are physical, mathematical, or conceptual, their value lies in suggesting how things either do work or might work.
Photo of the Crooked Swing: