JoinAll Book Chapters
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Cooperative Learning and Assessment
Cooperative learning in its simplest sense is two or more students working together on an assignment. In an expanded definition, cooperative learning becomes an opportunity for students to interact with one another intellectually and socially under ...
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Writing, as we all know, is an integral part of any discipline. And, because of the important role that writing up lab reports and research plays in the field of science, you must help your students work on writing throughout the year. This chapter...
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Adapting Labs and Troubleshooting
A great deal of information is available on how children learn—brain research, multiple intelligence aspects, concrete versus abstract thinking, environmental stimuli, and so on—but one key feature can be gleaned from all of the studies, and that...
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One common misconception in the middle school science classroom is that students magically will know how to do many of the seemingly easy tasks teachers assign. In reality, even the simple direction of using written resources to gain background info...
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One of the most challenging activities in the middle school science lab is taking measurements. A simple ruler can send students into a questioning mob around a teacher, not unlike a shark-feeding frenzy. Student activities that require using and r...
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This section includes resources that any new teacher would want to have at their fingertips. It offers reproducible lists, quizzes, and forms. These resources will assist in making the first year of teaching a smooth and successful one....
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This section offers practical resources that will be quite valuable during those first few months of teaching middle school science. Here you will find recipes that include salt crystals, culture medium, fun putty, and the ever-popular "oobleck". T...
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The Importance of Everyday Assessment
Assessment for learning is set in the context of conflicts and synergies with the other purposes of assessments. The core ideas are that it is characterized by the day-to-day use of evidence to guide students’ learning and that everyday practice mu...
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As a context for thinking about the claims made in this book, some of the circumstances that have influenced the demand for and character of assessment in general are noted. The argument is then made that the substantial lack of coherence in today’...
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Learning Through Assessment: Assessment for Learning in the Science Classroom
This chapter presents an extended example from a middle school science classroom of what assessment that supports learning looks like. In the example, the teacher models assessment for learning by talking about learning with her students; showing sam...
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Examining student work is an essential aspect of teaching, yet it is easy to miss opportunities to learn about how students are interpreting—or misinterpreting—the lessons we present to them. In this chapter the author shares insights concerning ...
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This chapter provides an overview of frameworks that teachers can use to conduct assessments of students’ engagement in scientific inquiry. The author examines two factors that are central to such assessment. One factor is the design of classroom l...
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Using Questioning to Assess and Foster Student Thinking
Questioning can be used to probe for understanding, to initiate inquiry, and to promote development of understanding. The results from questioning, listening, and assessment also can be used by teachers to promote their own growth as professionals. T...
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Involving Students in Assessment
While much of the responsibility for classroom assessment lies with teachers, students also play an important role in meaningful assessment activity. Bringing students into the assessment process is a critical dimension of facilitating student learni...
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Reporting Progress to Parents and Others: Beyond Grades
As science education moves increasingly in the direction of teaching to standards, teachers call for classroom assessment techniques that provide a richer source of “rigorous and wise diagnostic information.” Student-to-student comparisons and si...
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Working with Teachers in Assessment-Related Professional Development
Professional development related to everyday classroom interactions can require a shift in the teacher’s priorities in the classroom from a focus on managing activity and behavior to a mind-set of managing learning opportunities. This essay looks c...
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Reconsidering Large-Scale Assessment to Heighten Its Relevance to Learning
In contrast to classroom assessments that can provide immediate feedback in the context of ongoing instruction, large-scale assessments are necessarily broader survey instruments, administered once-per-year and standardized to ensure comparability ac...
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Although this terrific interdisciplinary, cooperative-learning science experience began primarily as a language arts assignment to compare the leadership skills of two fascinating men, it grew to encompass an exploration of ice's properties and taugh...
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At the beginning of the 21st century, education seems dominated by talk about educational outcomes and their assessment. This chapter serves to demystify these topics. This free selection includes the Preface, Table of Contents, an About the Author p...
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This chapter highlights documents such as the National Science Education Standards that were designed to be achievable by all students, no matter their background or characteristics. Project 2061: Science for all Americans and Project 2061: Benchmark...
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The scientific method not only describes inaccurately how science works, but also distorts the meaning of words such as "theory" and "law." A theory, in science, is a widely applicable explanation. A law is a generalization or pattern derived directl...
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General Instructional Approaches
Advocates of STS—science-technology-society—approaches believe that the science curriculum should pay special attention to science-based social issues. They envision K-12 science classes being best when focusing on the boundary between science an...
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This chapter presents several models of instruction from cooperative learning to inquiry-based instruction. It concludes with the 5E Model of instruction, pioneered by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS 1993....
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Pedagogy means teaching and teaching is what teachers do. It's a fancy word with a simple meaning. In reality, the distinction between pedagogy and curriculum can be a bit difficult because what is taught and how it is taught are deeply intertwined. ...
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Assessment, broadly defined, means information gathering. Grading (or evaluating) students is certainly one type of assessment. Tests, portfolios, and lab practicals are all assessment devices. However, teachers assess students in other ways. When te...
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The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (2002) defines “diversity” in this way: “In education, discussions about diversity involve recognizing a variety of student needs including those of ethnicity, language, socioeconomic c...
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As is the case with the other chapters in this book, each entry in this chapter should stand on its own. However, more than in other chapters, the ideas presented in this chapter tend to build on each other. Ideas that began with Piaget were later ch...
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This chapter presents research concepts featuring qualitative, quantitative, and action research. Qualitative research generally involves a researcher combining observation, interview, and analysis of various documents. Quantitative research represen...
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This chapter discusses teacher education from the preservice teachers—the period when they are learning to teach as undergraduate or graduate students—to induction—the period when they are making the transition from student teacher to an experi...
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This section offers insights about the uniqueness of teaching in a two-year college. Hello! Is Anybody Out There? explores one commonality that exists among many two-year colleges—isolation, including the social, financial, and political isolation ...
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Natural Forces of Decay and Renewal
Through biodegradation, dead plants and animals get broken down and so do the waste products they produce while living. For plants, these waste products include dead leaves and the remnants of seeds and blossoms. For animals, wastes include excrement...
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This section covers understanding biodegradation, including biodegradation protocols providing specific instruction on research. The section also provides techniques in interactive research for developing experiments and field studies using the proto...
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This section outlines possible assessment criteria for student research, as well as example assessment rubrics for posters and written reports. Engaging in peer review provides both opportunities and challenges for assessment. Some of the assessment ...
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Decay and Renewal presents an inquiry-based approach to studying biodegradation, the assortment of biological processes that cause organic matter to decay. Biodegradation occurs in nature and in human-engineered systems to prevent or clean up envir...
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Biodegradation Protocols: Introduction to Research
This section presents 14 research protocols. Using one or more of these protocols, students will be able to design and carry out their own experiments. Students will also experience some of the ways in which scientists work together to discuss ideas,...
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Interactive Research: Experiments and Field Studies
This section provides advice to help students choose from a wide range of ideas for research projects. It also provides a series of worksheets designed to guide progress through the various steps of designing and carrying out an experiment, presentin...
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Interactive Research: Wastewater Treatment Design Challenge
When engineers and scientists design systems for wastewater treatment, they must meet certain criteria concerning treatment effectiveness, and they must work within specified constraints such as cost. This section gives step-by-step directions for an...
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Understanding Invasion Ecology: Introduction
How can a single species of insect pose a threat to millions of acres of forests, orchards, and street trees? What can we do about the Asian longhorned beetle and other plants and animals that invade our farms, cities, and forests? The study of ecolo...
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Understanding Invasion Ecology
This section emphasizes one of the three main branches of ecology—population, community, and ecosystem. Extensive, real-life examples of how ecological concepts and principles can be applied to problems with invasive species are included. It also i...
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In assessing student research, clearly defined "right" or "wrong" answers rarely exist. Instead, the goal of assessment is to evaluate the process used by students and the conceptual understandings they have achieved through research experiences. Thi...