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  • Turning Tests Into Tasks

    Journal Article |

    Learn how to build a summative performance assessment from a standardized test question.

  • Faculty Learning at the Individual and Group Level

    Journal Article |

    Unaware of the diverse challenges faced by students, faculty can unintentionally create environments that discourage student persistence especially for students who are historically underrepresented in STEM. However,…

  • How Can DNA Help Exonerate Those Wrongly Convicted?

    Journal Article |

  • When Can We See Makali‘i?

    Journal Article |

  • Let's Build a Fast Car

    Journal Article |

  • Giant Sequoia Tree

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the transformation of matter. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that most of the matter that makes up the wood of a tree…

  • Superhero Physics

    Journal Article |

  • Seedlings in a Jar

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about conservation of matter in a closed system after a transformation of matter from seed to seedling has taken place. The probe is designed to reveal…

  • Chicken Eggs

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about food, transformation of matter, growth and development, conservation of mass, and systems. The concepts underlying this probe are complex. It is…

  • Chicken Eggs

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about food, transformation of matter, growth and development, conservation of mass, and systems. The concepts underlying this probe are complex. It is…

  • Earth’s Mass

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the cycling of matter. The probe can be used to determine whether students recognize that once-living matter breaks down and cycles through…

  • Is It Food?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about food. The probe is designed to find out if students use a scientific definition of food to distinguish food items from nonfood items.

  • Integrating Engineering Design in Undergraduate Biology Using a Life Science Design Task

    Journal Article |

    This study examines the initial integration of engineering design in an introductory preservice elementary biology content course using a life science design task focused on composting.

  • Is It Food for Plants?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the product of photosynthesis. The probe is designed to reveal (1) whether students recognize that the food a plant makes is the food it uses and (…

  • Where Does Oil Come From?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about an important fossil fuel used by humans. The probe is designed to reveal how students trace oil back to its original source of material.

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