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I like that for practices should not necessarily follow a sequence for how science and engineering practices make up investigations. it follows the idea we learned about science being never ending in messy but interesting when discovering new learnings. AD

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I like that for practices should not necessarily follow a sequence for how science and engineering practices make up investigations. it follows the idea we learned about science being never ending in messy but interesting when discovering new learnings. AD

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This tool will be helpful when I decide to plan my own science unit in my classroom. It will ensure that the phenomenon I choose is rich enough and relevant enough for my students. MW

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This speaks to how we could adapt the scientific method to be more collaborative. Super important that students can see how their peers' arguments develop with input from others. Great opportunity for student reflection on the process of developing a claim! -ND

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using culturally responsive argumentation in scientific discussion (and as a formative assessment) is a collaborative process where students can challenge each other and bring in their diverse experiences in regard to their perspectives of the world/science. - JJ

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using culturally responsive argumentation in scientific discussion (and as a formative assessment) is a collaborative process where students can challenge each other and bring in their diverse experiences in regard to their perspectives of the world/science. - JJ

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The checklist makes choosing an anchor phenomenon easier. The criteria is helpful because I always feel like I don't necessarily know what to choose or focus on. This provides me a tool to know what qualifies something as a good phenomenon to explore. -JK

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Bringing in pictures of student lives, looking at them as a class, gauging student interest and choosing phenomena directly from there. Goes with Tool #31... can't find!

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Bringing in pictures of student lives, looking at them as a class, gauging student interest and choosing phenomena directly from there. Goes with Tool #31... can't find!

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-DW and AB

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This tool gives ideas and purposes for different ways to scaffold classroom discussion. I would like to try an analysis of data discussion in my classroom to get a sense of how students are analyzing data. MW

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I find this to be one of the most challenging for kids in Kindergarten to grasp. The demand of remembering their original thought, but then responding to someone else is hard. But I want to be persistent in giving them sentence stems and prompts to work on their ability to respond to eachother, not just the original question. -KC

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I find this to be one of the most challenging for kids in Kindergarten to grasp. The demand of remembering their original thought, but then responding to someone else is hard. But I want to be persistent in giving them sentence stems and prompts to work on their ability to respond to eachother, not just the original question. -KC

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I love the idea of getting students involve current science projects, so they know science is on going and ever changing. "citizen science projects" etc. BA

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Practice Brief #4 has a text box near the bottom on the right with various instructional models and how they connect or how they can be connected to NGSS. Gotta keep coming back here as the blurbs page gets expanded, as they've promised...
AMK

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Anchor phenomena can be both big questions and problems to solve. I'm used to working with big problems, but finding problems that don't yet have solutions seems way more valuable and relevant to student experience.

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Anchor phenomena can be both big questions and problems to solve. I'm used to working with big problems, but finding problems that don't yet have solutions seems way more valuable and relevant to student experience.

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- PL

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The flowchart felt super helpful! One thing I thought about as I read this article was how it connects to a previous article read about students engaging in authentic scientific discoveries (things that haven't been proven over and over again in school). When students have the opportunity to reason/debate/create experiments on their own, there is already much more room for productive discussion. -AG

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The importance of supporting and valuing students experience with discussion. 

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The importance of supporting and valuing students experience with discussion. 

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-DW & AB

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I like the idea of incorporating contemporary issues of science into the classroom. It will be a good way to get students civically engaged on what modern issues are important for scientists to solve and understand. I also think that it is inherently more interesting because students will be able to apply this knowledge to the world around them. JK

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This framework is encouraging to me because students should be allowed to linger in the investigation and discussion of science (dive into the parts that are interesting), not be "marched through the procedures". -LJ

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This framework is encouraging to me because students should be allowed to linger in the investigation and discussion of science (dive into the parts that are interesting), not be "marched through the procedures". -LJ

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I appreciate how this resource acknowledges the challenge of different comfort levels of sharing as well as the needs of ELL students and how cultural scientific talk is. It is a great resource for trying to balance those things while supporting students scientific learning through talk. - RD

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It is important to use informal formative assessments during lessons to ensure that students are building on each other's knowledge. This makes the learning less teacher-centric and more student-centric. MW

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I like being able to think a out science as something other than a fixed set of procedures. It is opposite to what I was taught, so it seems challenging right now. But I hope to be able to bring it all together in my own classroom.- 

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I like being able to think a out science as something other than a fixed set of procedures. It is opposite to what I was taught, so it seems challenging right now. But I hope to be able to bring it all together in my own classroom.- 

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I love the idea of using protocols for students. Before STR, I had never experienced these protocols as a means of discussion, and what they've helped us do, is to get inside our peers' brains. In classrooms, teachers often feel as if they're not yet ready to "trust" their students to have discussions on their own, but the listening triad would be an excellent means of orienting students to the content in a way that is cohesive and collaborative. -AG

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I would love to try more of open-ended questions that focus on the strength of the evidence used to generate claims. i feel like, i need to build opportunities for more curiosity and meaningful questioning in my placement. BA

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The "Student Talk Flowchart" has some awesome suggestions for eliciting student ideas and orienting students to each other. I especially like the "Claim-Pass" activity where students write a claim and then their classmates add pieces of evidence--could be used in any subject!! -ND

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This article is building on the discussion we had around phenomenon and what is a 'good' phenomenon. I want to work in my practice to elicit the phenomenon we teach from the interests of my students. I also like the idea that the phenomenon is something that can't be "googlable" In our immediate gratification world it is so important to involve deeper investigation. -MA

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This article is building on the discussion we had around phenomenon and what is a 'good' phenomenon. I want to work in my practice to elicit the phenomenon we teach from the interests of my students. I also like the idea that the phenomenon is something that can't be "googlable" In our immediate gratification world it is so important to involve deeper investigation. -MA

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I love the student talk flow chart! Super helpful resource for determining what format lends well to your purpose for discussion and how to make it science focused and equitable. - RD

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I have actively been trying to step away from this in my teaching practice. It is challenging to fully lesson plan but it has lead to a lot of talk time for students, letting all of them take a turn. I still anticipate responses (though many of them have exceeded my expectations) and have directions I want the conversation to go. I've been trying to make sure when the students get to that "right answer" that I want to expand on, I let the conversation keep going a little longer.
-MD

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In order to be culturally responsive to our students, we must consider our assessments and how they connect with students' learning. In particular, the ESRU mode of assessment that this article talks about orients the assessment to be more like a conversation, where there is room for students to revise their thinking, argue their thinking and reason with their peers. This also helps build on classroom community. -AG

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Engaging my students in a citizen science project would be an ideal way to combine science and social studies, showing them that they have agency in making change in their community and that science can be a means for that. -VL

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Engaging my students in a citizen science project would be an ideal way to combine science and social studies, showing them that they have agency in making change in their community and that science can be a means for that. -VL

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I want to create norms around talking about strengths and weaknesses of claims. I want students to be able to talk with each other about claims that they've made and if they think their claims are valid/how they can be stronger. -cm

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What is an example of a good anchor? -ND

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What is an example of a good anchor? -ND

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( how can formative assessment support culturally responsive)  I think that the building on the ideas, interests, and experiences of students in the formation of argumentation  supports the idea of seeking out students fonds of knowledge. When we actively seek the formation of argumentation we ensure that they develop strong identities as science learners but also validate their experiences and understandings, making learning more equitable. 

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( how can formative assessment support culturally responsive)  I think that the building on the ideas, interests, and experiences of students in the formation of argumentation  supports the idea of seeking out students fonds of knowledge. When we actively seek the formation of argumentation we ensure that they develop strong identities as science learners but also validate their experiences and understandings, making learning more equitable. 

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I like this list of qualities because I am interested in creating some of my own units and having parameters to which I am beholden to would help in lesson planning. 

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I like this list of qualities because I am interested in creating some of my own units and having parameters to which I am beholden to would help in lesson planning. 

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This method of teaching science more closely resembles how scientists work in reality, and teaches students to adjust their conclusions when given new data. MW

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Using conversation to allow students to draw on their funds of knowledge and cultural experiences. Setting up science as a place fro discussion, rather than a set of facts. -DW & AB

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Using conversation to allow students to draw on their funds of knowledge and cultural experiences. Setting up science as a place fro discussion, rather than a set of facts. -DW & AB

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I think this method really positions the students as competent sense makers and incorporates their interests and values rather than just trying to pour information into their brains - RD

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I really like the idea of incorporating students' home discourse practices in meaningful ways during scientific discussions around various phenomenon. I think that will help students that traditionally feel marginalized or intimidated during these discussions to feel more comfortable and more willing to engage. -JK

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Thinking about the video of the spider, it is evident the ways in which science is much less linear than the scientific method we are often taught/teaching. It would be interesting to have students conduct an experiment of their interest, formulate hypotheses, and pass their experiment on to another group in the class so that groups can compare. Students may see different results or differences in hypotheses and have the opportunity to reason and build on each others ideas. -AG

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This is starting a great conversation about the type of discussions we are having in our classrooms. I like how it talks about incorporating the students house experiences and methods of discussion into the classroom.       -MA

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This is starting a great conversation about the type of discussions we are having in our classrooms. I like how it talks about incorporating the students house experiences and methods of discussion into the classroom.       -MA

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I want to try more group work with my students and the discussion diamond would be a solid way to keep each student engaged and accountable for contributing their ideas. -VL

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I want to try more group work with my students and the discussion diamond would be a solid way to keep each student engaged and accountable for contributing their ideas. -VL

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The flowchart is a really easy way to understand moves that teachers can use to make sure student thinking is at the center of the activity.  And the 80% teacher talk vs 20% student talk is a crazy statistic!-KC

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The flowchart is a really easy way to understand moves that teachers can use to make sure student thinking is at the center of the activity.  And the 80% teacher talk vs 20% student talk is a crazy statistic!-KC

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I like that this incorporates student's personal interests and the needs of their community. I'd like to know more about how to encourage kids to express scientific interest within the framework of acknowledging (potentially through research) issues that affect their communities. -LD

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"Scientific fields are quickly expanding, but the topics of science instruction are typically fixed."  I'd love to be using contemporary issues in science or science in the news to engage the kids, but isn't pur job as elementary teachers to teach the building blocks?
I'd hope to be able to make a content connection from whatever cool thing the cutting edge is, and then present what we're doing as the early steps on that path, but it may not always line up.
AMK

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Using talk to support linguistic growth in a low stress peer to peer setting. Also setting a purpose for a discussion and choosing the format based on that. -DW & AB

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Using talk to support linguistic growth in a low stress peer to peer setting. Also setting a purpose for a discussion and choosing the format based on that. -DW & AB

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WIthin this topic, there was an interesting article about 8 year olds publishing scientific journal on bees. It shows that students can be scientists and make notable new discoveries that adults may not have yet thought about. Specifically, the inquiring mind of children tackles ideas that adults may have long thought to be already confirmed. -AG

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I like the idea of taking basic science concepts and applying them to contemporary events. This is one way of making our content relevant for our students. MW

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The flowchart here seems really helpful in defining the *purpose* of a given science talk.

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The flowchart here seems really helpful in defining the *purpose* of a given science talk.

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- PL

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I like that with contemporary science students have the opportunity to make real contribution to scientific fields rather than ONLY exploring phenomenon we already for the most part understand. -RD

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I'm interested in the "citizen science" projects on scistarter.com - getting students involved in science projects that people are currently working on seems cool! Also, I'm committing to listening to the science friday podcast so as an adult I am getting more exposure to science news/ideas that I can bring into my classroom. -JJ

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One piece of argumentation-based discussions is to discuss open-ended questions that focus on the evidence used to create claims. I like that there isn't "one right answer". -LJ

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One piece of argumentation-based discussions is to discuss open-ended questions that focus on the evidence used to create claims. I like that there isn't "one right answer". -LJ

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I want get away from the idea of "right" answer in my classroom.  Answers should be framed as exploring or ideas which can be neither right or wrong. -cm

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I like that with contemporary subjects students have an additional buy in of dealing with subjects that are currently happening. Contemporary subjects also most likely allow more references to look up because it is current. -SJ

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I like that with contemporary subjects students have an additional buy in of dealing with subjects that are currently happening. Contemporary subjects also most likely allow more references to look up because it is current. -SJ

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How can I foster curiosity and learning in my classroom? Through talk! : StemTeachingTools

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Learning happens through talking. And yet, student talk typically makes up less than 20% of the time spent in science class, and of that small amount of time, very little is focused on student sensemaking. However, specific instructional approaches-or 'talk activities'-can be used to support students' three-dimensional science learning.

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Practice Brief 28 -- Topics:Instruction
Qualities of a Good Anchor Phenomenon for a Coherent Sequence of Science Lessons

This tool was created in response to a felt need among educators working at Research + Practice Collaboratory project sites where educators and researchers are partnering to develop and adapt curriculum materials to support implementation of the NRC Framework vision. At these sites, educators often found it difficult to select phenomena and design problems to anchor their lessons, yet also found that the selection of phenomena/design problems was critical to their students' learning. In response, Research + Practice Collaboratory members created this short resource to help educators working to adopt this new vision for science education as they select anchor phenomena and engineering design problems.

Instructional sequences are more coherent when students investigate compelling natural phenomena (in science) or work on meaningful design problems (in engineering) by engaging in the science and engineering practices. We refer to these phenomena and design problems here as 'anchors.'

This short tool, "Qualities of a Good Anchor Phenomenon for a Coherent Sequence of Science Lessons," outlines criteria to consider when selecting an anchor phenomena or design problem to fit with the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education vision.
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Authors:

BY WILLIAM R. PENUEL AND PHILIP BELL - MARCH 2016

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STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-22 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1920249 (previously through Awards #1238253 and #1854059). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Qualities of a Good Anchor Phenomenon for a Coherent Sequence of Science Lessons : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Practice Brief 28 -- Topics:Instruction This tool was created in response to a felt need among educators working at Research + Practice Collaboratory project sites where educators and researchers are partnering to develop and adapt curriculum materials to support implementation of the NRC Framework vision.

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Practice Brief 25 -- Topics: Equity Assessment Instruction Practices Culture

How can formative assessment support culturally responsive argumentation in a classroom community?

Teachers need to understand and build on the cultural resources (knowledge, interests, experiences) students bring to the practice of scientific argumentation to increase engagement and inclusion, especially students from non-dominant communities.

District Staff & PD Providers should support teachers in integrating formative assessment with argumentation to promote inclusive science and engineering learning.

School Leaders should promote and resource the use of different forms of classroom-based formative assessment in the learning of scientific practices.

What Is The Issue?

Argumentation has long been seen as an important practice in science and thus in science education. Formative assessment can be used to help students value the contributions and perspectives of others as they engage in argumentation to make sense of natural phenomena. Educators can use these strategies to help foster argumentation that is culturally responsive, meaning it draws from and respects students' cultural resources, backgrounds, and personal experiences. Culturally responsive formative assessment happens within a community of learners where the teacher has cultivated explicit norms for increasing student-centered discourse, making decisions for their own purposes through democratic processes, and using clear guidelines for maintaining mutual respect.

Authors:

BY DEB MORRISON AND ANGELA HAYDEL DEBARGER - MARCH 2016

Reflection Questions

How do you engage students in constructing arguments from evidence? What cultural resources do you draw upon?

What kinds of evidence are considered valuable from a scientific perspective and from your students' perspectives?

What experiences do your students need to become more effective at discussing and critiquing each other's arguments? What kind of classroom norms and discourse strategies would help?

Things to Consider

In order to leverage the personal and cultural resources all students bring to scientific argumentation, three components of formative assessment can help students engage in this practice:

Eliciting Argumentation. As you select phenomena as the focus of lessons, try to choose ones that offer multiple entry points for students to share their initial ideas and draw from interest-driven student investigations. In constructing preliminary arguments, prior experiences may be a strong influence on students' perspectives. Explore these experiences-as well as family, community, and broader cultural connections-as resources and sources of authority.

Interpreting the Quality of Argumentation. After students develop initial evidence-based arguments, students and teachers should actively identify the strengths and weaknesses of claims, evidence, and reasoning in arguments. Developing students' practice of argumentation also requires attending to how students are engaged in making sense of each other's ideas: Are students productively critiquing each others' arguments and using evidence to do so?

Responding to and Improving Argumentation Instruction. Argumentation should include classroom conversations about what different communities value as strong evidence (including, but not limited to, different groups within the scientific community). These are opportunities to discuss why students find different sources of evidence more or less compelling. It can be useful to have explicit conversations about controversies and social issues that influence debates about scientific ideas. Students can be encouraged to revise their arguments to strengthen the scientific relevance of them.

Attending to Equity

Recommended Actions You Can Take

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STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-19 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research + Practice Collaboratory (Award #1238253). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How can formative assessment support culturally responsive argumentation in a classroom community? : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Practice Brief 25 -- Topics: Equity Assessment Instruction Practices Culture Teachers need to understand and build on the cultural resources (knowledge, interests, experiences) students bring to the practice of scientific argumentation to increase engagement and inclusion, especially students from non-dominant communities.

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Practice Brief 17 -- Topics:Instruction Equity Practices
Beyond the Written C-E-R: Supporting Classroom Argumentative Talk about Investigations

Teachers should explore a variety of argumentation practices and foster discussions where students coordinate claims and evidence, reflecting how scientists talk about investigations and results.

District staff & PD providers should provide PD for educators about different argumentation discussion strategies and share related resources.

School leaders should help teachers observe strategies in different classrooms for facilitating evidencebased discussions across content areas.

What Is The Issue?

Argumentation, a central scientific practice, relies on the coordination of claims, evidence, and reasoning (C-E-R). C-E-R scaffolds can help students compose a written argument for an investigation. However, there are additional important dimensions to argumentation beyond individually written claims. Classroom discussions that require students to make evidence-based claims and collectively build understanding also reflect argumentation. Several types of discussions can be used and can help build a supportive classroom culture.

Authors:

BY JEANNE CHOWNING & TANA PETERMAN - MARCH 2015

Reflection Questions

How can your classroom and lab activities be modified to provide opportunities for argumentation in these discussion formats?

How much time are students provided to discuss their science ideas with each other?

What are your strategies for focusing whole class discussions away from personal critique and towards the critical analysis of explanatory ideas?

Things to Consider

Argumentation is central to productive science learning. The following discussion formats can be used to engage students in argumentation around research design, data, and scientific models that explain phenomena. Written C-E-R scaffolds can be used in any of them.

1. Collaborative small group discussions can be rich contexts for students to share and work through science ideas. However, it is often difficult for teachers to monitor students' developing understanding. Small group protocols (e.g., discussion diamonds, listening triads) support students in sharing their thinking while giving the teacher an artifact that documents the discussion.

2. Collaborative research design is when scientists engage in creating experimental procedures or engineers address design problems. They often consult with one another to debate the merits of various solutions and approaches. Classroom discussions can center on how to optimize an experimental procedure or design solution. For example, after introducing a question, students or teams of students can devise experimental procedures to try to answer the question. Many step-by-step lab activities can be modified to allow students to create their own procedures and discuss them before deciding on a shared class procedure. Students can create different approaches, test them, and collaboratively discuss pros and cons of each prior to deciding the most effective procedure to use as a class.

3. Analysis of data and conceptual model-building is a type of discussion commonly used by scientists in "lab meetings." In the classroom, students can gather and evaluate evidence for their claims related to the implications of various results (e.g., for explaining their observations of phases of the moon). Students can either interpret published experimental data or data from their own experiments in small groups or as a class. Such discussion connects the argumentation practice to the practices of developing and using models of analyzing and interpreting data. This is a great way for them to work out their differing conceptual ideas, refine criteria for scientific evidence, and work towards a consensus explanation.

Attending to Equity

Students may experience both similarities and differences between discussion styles practiced amongst their families and broader cultural communities and those found in schools. Teachers can open with a preliminary conversation that raises questions about argumentation practices across different settings that students experience, and consciously structure the classroom to honor students' different forms of argument. Even just starting a discussion about the many meanings of the term "argumentation" can be productive.

Recommended Actions You Can Take

ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS

STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-19 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research + Practice Collaboratory (Award #1238253). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beyond the Written C-E-R: Supporting Classroom Argumentative Talk about Investigations : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Practice Brief 17 -- Topics:Instruction Equity Practices Teachers should explore a variety of argumentation practices and foster discussions where students coordinate claims and evidence, reflecting how scientists talk about investigations and results. District staff & PD providers should provide PD for educators about different argumentation discussion strategies and share related resources.

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Practice Brief 16 -- Topics:Assessment InformalEd Instruction
Research Brief: The Informal Formative Assessment Cycle as a Model for Teacher Practice

Ruiz-primo, M. A., & Furtak, E. M. (2007). Exploring teachers' informal formative assessment practices and students' understanding in the context of scientific inquiry. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44(1), 57-84. doi:10.1002/tea.20163

Summary

Informal formative assessment in the classroom takes place when a teacher elicits student thinking and makes immediate use of this knowledge in instruction. In this study, researchers studied three teachers with varying informal assessment practices to explore the nature of informal formative assessment and its connection to student learning.

Authors:

BY VANESSA DE LEON & ANNIE ALLEN - MAY 2015

Theoretical Background

Formative assessment (FA) refers to assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning, allowing teachers to use knowledge of student understandings to inform their ongoing instruction (Black, 1993). Ruiz- Primo and Furtak claim that formative assessments can be seen as falling on a continuum from formal to informal. They define informal formative assessments as ongoing strategies that help teachers acquire information from students that can immediately be used in instruction. In the table below (adapted from p. 60 in their paper), the authors usefully distinguish informal and formal formative assessment strategies.

The authors offer a model of "assessment conversation" (Duschl & Gitomer, 1997) in which teachers elicit, recognize, and use student thinking and engagement during instruction. They identify four parts of this informal formative assessment cycle, which they call an "ESRU Cycle".

Teacher Elicits Response

Student Responds

Teacher Recognizes Student Response

Teacher Uses Student Response

Differences Between Formal and Informal Formative Assessment Practices
Formal: Designed to provide evidence about students' learning

Gathering

Interpreting

Acting

Teacher Collects or brings together information from students at a planned time

Teacher takes time to analyze information collected from students

Teacher plans an action to help students achieve learning goals

Example: giving quizzes or embedded assignments

Example: reading student work and providing written comments to all students

Example: writing or changing lesson plans to address the state of student learning

Informal: Evidence of learning generated during daily activities

Eliciting

Recognizing

Using

Teacher brings out or develops information in the form of a verbal response from students

Teacher reacts on the fly by recognizing students' responses and comparing them to accepted scientific ideas

Teacher immediately makes use of information from the students during the course of the ongoing classroom narrative

Example: asking students to formulate explanations or to provide evidence

Example: repeating or revoicing students' responses

Example: asking students to elaborate on their responses, explaining learning goals, promoting argumentation

Research Design

Using the "assessment conversation" model, the authors set out to address two research questions: (1) Can this model help to distinguish the quality of informal assessment practices across teachers? (2) Can the quality of teachers' informal formative assessment practices be linked to student performance? The authors studied the classroom assessment conversations of three 6th/7th grade science teachers. Teachers video recorded lessons they taught in a physical sciences unit using an inquiry-based curriculum, Foundational Approaches to Science Teaching (FAST).

The authors analyzed informal classroom assessment conversations to see how they fit with the ESRU cycle (Elicit, Student Response, Recognize, Use). Additionally, the researchers measured student learning with a multiple choice pre-test and a 38- item multiple-choice test after the investigation was completed. Researchers concluded that teachers who had whole-class conversations that were more consistent with the ESRU cycle had higher learning gains for students. Notably, it was the final step of the cycle (Use) that was vital for gains to be made.

Classroom Example of an Informal Assessment Conversation

This transcript is excerpted from Danielle's class shown in Table 7 in Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2007, p. 73:

1. Danielle: So the first three things you want to do, very important things, you want to label your vertical axis, you want to label your horizontal axis, and then you want to give the whole graph a title. And we've done that.

2. So, taking a look at this, am I ready to go? Can I start plotting my points?

3. Student: No.

4. Danielle: Why not?

5. Student: You didn't...

6. Danielle: What do we need to do? Eric?

7. Student: Put the scale.

8. Danielle: The scales. What do you mean by scales?

9. Student: The numbers.

10. Danielle: "The numbers." Good. Excellent. I liked that you used the word "scales," it's a very scientific word. So, yes, we need to figure out what the scales are, what we should number the different axes.

Reflection Questions

Read and reflect on this transcript from Danielle's classroom from Ruiz-Primo & Furtak's article. Where do you see the steps of the ESRU cycle in action? What is each step accomplishing for the teacher and for the students?

What examples of this kind of formative assessment can you think of from your own or others' classroom practice? Which aspects of the ESRU cycle are easier and which are more challenging to accomplish?

What strategies do you use to give voice to all students in these kinds of informal assessment conversations?

What supports do teachers need to enact robust informal formative assessment in their classrooms?

Implications for Practice

For teachers: We suggest that less attention be paid to rote procedures in the science classroom, and more attention be paid to knowledge generation in order for students to fully experience scientific inquiry. Further, we suggest that instructional responsiveness-i.e., teachers' ability to take students' ideas and use them to inform instruction and guide learning based on their existing understandings-is essential.

For teacher education and professional development: We suggest that content knowledge alone is not enough to conduct informal formative assessment. Rather, attention to the stages of the ESRU cycle is vital. Additionally, being explicit with pre- and in-service teachers about the differences in a ESRU model versus a traditional IRE/F model (Teacher Initiation, Student Response, Teacher Evaluation/Feedback) of classroom discussion is important for eliciting information to improve student learning. As a result, it is imperative that teachers are provided with the tools necessary to integrate assessment into the course of daily instruction to enact inquiry-based reforms.

Related Briefs

Related Research

Black, P. (1993). Formative and summative assessment by teachers. Studies in Science Education, 21, 49-97.

Duschl, R.A., & Gitomer, D.H. 1997. Strategies and challenges to changing the focus of assessment and instruction in science classrooms. Educational Assessment, 4, 37-73.

Attending to Equity

Formative assessment practices gives students chances to get meaningful feedback in a low-stakes environment, which supports their learning and helps them develop confidence in their ability to express their understanding.

Give voice to all students in order to fully engage students in inquiry-based lessons and effectively implement informal formative assessment practices with them.

Welcome and integrate students' own experiences as part of the learning environment and development of knowledge.

ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS

STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-19 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research + Practice Collaboratory (Award #1238253). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

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Research Brief: The Informal Formative Assessment Cycle as a Model for Teacher Practice : StemTeachingTools

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Practice Brief 16 -- Topics:Assessment InformalEd Instruction Ruiz-primo, M. A., & Furtak, E. M. (2007). Exploring teachers' informal formative assessment practices and students' understanding in the context of scientific inquiry. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44(1), 57-84. doi:10.1002/tea.20163 Informal formative assessment in the classroom takes place when a teacher elicits student thinking and makes immediate use of this knowledge in instruction.

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Practice Brief 6 -- Topics:InformalEd Instruction Equity
How Can I Get My Students to Learn Science by Productively Talking with Each Other?

Teachers should routinely support students in "sense-making" talk to help them work through their understanding while engaging in the science and engineering practices.

District staff and PD providers should provide models of productive talk in PD and as an integral part of enacting curriculum materials.

School leaders should observe productive science talk in classrooms and provide support to teachers as they develop talk facilitation skills.

What is the Issue?

Talking is integral to human learning. The science and engineering practices described in the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education highlight that scientists and engineers routinely communicate through talk-not merely to share their final form products-but to make sense of their work and to gather feedback and refine their ideas as the work unfolds. Learners benefit from such accountable talk as well, but it can be tricky to scaffold and manage productive discourse in the classroom.

Authors:

RICH BACOLOR, TAMMY COOK-ENDRES, TIFFANY LEE & ANNIE ALLEN

Reflection Questions

What do you think productive classroom talk looks like? What is your role in supporting that talk at different phases of student investigations?

What explicit and implicit social norms are at play in your classroom, and how can you effectively shift these to support productive talk?

What cultural styles of talk and sensemaking are present in your community of students that you should make room for in science learning conversations?

Things to Consider

The science and engineering practices in the NRC Framework are deeply social and require that students communicate. They involve reasoning with others and seeking a shared understanding of science phenomena. The goals of productive talk include: (1) sharing and clarifying one's own thinking, (2) listening to one another, (3) deepening one's own reasoning, and (4) thinking together.

Talk makes student thinking explicit and public-so that it can be engaged with, interpreted, built upon, and refined. Student ideas can then become resources for learning.

I-R-E (initiation, response, evaluation) is the dominant discourse pattern of classroom interactions, and it needs to change. In order to engage students in science and engineering practices, they need access to and experience with discourse-rich sensemaking conversations. Breaking the I-R-E pattern and integrating productive talk may require practice, preteaching, and scripting student roles and language. (STEM Teaching Tools #35 and #48 may be helpful.)

Students should be supported to make sense of complex natural phenomena. Rich discourse among students should be encouraged through thoughtful lesson sequences and skilled facilitation that position them as collaborative constructors of knowledge.

"In order to process, make sense of, and learn from their ideas, observations, and experiences, students must talk about them... Talk forces students to think about and articulate their ideas. Talk can also provide an impetus for students to reflect on what they do-and do not-understand."

- Ready, Set, SCIENCE!

"We suggest that trying to present science [communication] in a culturally neutral way is like trying to paint a picture without taking a perspective."

- Doug Medin, psychologist

Attending to Equity

Recommended Actions You Can Take

Routinely focus instruction on student talk related to making sense of phenomena and their ideas. Read about making thinking visible through talk and argument, including how to establish classroom norms and use talk moves to cultivate learning conversations. Review the Talk Science Primer and use the Talk Move Checklist.

These classroom videos and supporting discourse primer highlight the use of different talk moves. Learn more about different approaches to managing classroom talk.

ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS

STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-19 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research + Practice Collaboratory (Award #1238253). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

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How Can I Get My Students to Learn Science by Productively Talking with Each Other? : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

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Practice Brief 6 -- Topics:InformalEd Instruction Equity Teachers should routinely support students in "sense-making" talk to help them work through their understanding while engaging in the science and engineering practices. District staff and PD providers should provide models of productive talk in PD and as an integral part of enacting curriculum materials.

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Practices should not stand alone: How to sequence practices in a cascade to support student investigations : StemTeachingTools

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In a cascade of practices instructional approach, multiple practices may be combined and sequenced with one or more core ideas and crosscutting concepts to make up extended investigations. A cascade approach allows for a great variety of science and engineering investigations and supports students in making sense of the natural and built world.

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Why should students investigate contemporary science topics-and not just "settled" science? : StemTeachingTools

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Students are frequently asked to investigate "settled" science topics and to simply confirm what is already known, but they can learn "basic science" through contemporary topics. The integration of contemporary scientific problems into K-12 instruction can give learners exciting ways to learn and apply disciplinary core ideas of science, engage purposefully in the science and engineering practices, and even make meaningful contributions to science, engineering and/ or their communities through their investigations.

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Contemporary science is more interdisciplinary, allowing students more opportunity to investigate topics that are relevant to them as well as to collaborate. -JJ

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Contemporary science is more interdisciplinary, allowing students more opportunity to investigate topics that are relevant to them as well as to collaborate. -JJ

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I like how this website mentioned the benefit of using small manageable investigation 'cascade style' that can be continuously returned to throughout the year. 

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I like how this website mentioned the benefit of using small manageable investigation 'cascade style' that can be continuously returned to throughout the year. 

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-MM

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This mirrors a lot of the practices we have been learning in Math Methods. I think incorporating discussion around science ideas in the classroom is essential--I'm thinking about the idea of opening space for students to ask questions about any science topics that interest them and using discussion with classmates to debate ideas and narrow down questions. I'm wondering what kind of background/scaffolding/guidelines would be helpful in facilitating that open-ended discussion. -ND

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I like how this tool relates classroom science to equity. Science in relation to community issues sounds incredibly powerful.  

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I like how this tool relates classroom science to equity. Science in relation to community issues sounds incredibly powerful.  

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Entering a research position as an adult made me realize how important a skill productive arguing in science is. I did not have this skill or understand that it was a healthy part of science. Now, I see this as a crucial skill we should build with our students early because best collaboration in science can happen when students disagree and share their ideas. - cm

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This was a nice flowchart on the STEM Teaching Tool 16 that discussed Talk Activities that can be incorporated within the classroom.

http://stemteachingtools.org/assets/landscapes/taf.jpg

Oh wait... The flowchart is below.

-MM

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I'm interested in talking with my students about claim+evidence+reasoning=explanation, to break down the process of "explaining" things in a scientific way. This article was helping me think about ways to engage my students in this conversation: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/science-inquiry-claim-evidence-reasoning-eric-brunsell -JJ

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Quality anchor phenomena allow students to authentically explore a scientific concept/idea that is more complex (and interesting) than a fixed lesson they already know the answers to. - JJ

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Quality anchor phenomena allow students to authentically explore a scientific concept/idea that is more complex (and interesting) than a fixed lesson they already know the answers to. - JJ

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Something that I'm wondering about in the flow chart associated with this page (about the steps of an investigation) is around "designing a study." I feel like most science we do in my classroom already has the "study"/experiment portion laid out for students, and although we talk about why it is an appropriate study/why it helps us, they aren't really involved in the planning of the study. How can I open this part of investigation up so that students have voice & work through this step in the investigation process? -JJ

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I want to have a peer review process at the stage that students have collected data and made conclusions. I think this can show students how the cascade process of science is important because they may collectively see trends in data or come up with new questions to explore- cm

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I love the ppt that is associated with this page that breaks down in "student language" different activities/talk moves for science that gets students talking and working through scientific argumentation! I want to try some of these in science - and in other subject areas! -JJ

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I really like the idea of giving student's the ability to choose which anchor phenomena we will explore. This could be especially fun if students had to defend their choices, then vote. The process could inspire interest in each subject. -LD

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Good opportunity for co-teaching in science units.-SJ

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Good opportunity for co-teaching in science units.-SJ

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Project based instruction helps students appreciate and contribute to the edge of scientific understanding that does not follow rigid or prescribed steps -MM

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It feels like a really crucial part of this is establishing an atmosphere that celebrates mistakes and encourages students to listen to their peers with the intention of potentially revising their thinking. -LD

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I like that scientific instruction is practice focused  and it deals with on contemporary topics because it allows students to appreciate and make personal connections . AD