Assessment Probes... does it matter?

This resource is a good starting point when deciding how to assess student understanding. The key idea is that teachers should use students’ experiences to learn and build upon. The resource... See More

This resource is a good starting point when deciding how to assess student understanding. The key idea is that teachers should use students’ experiences to learn and build upon. The resource states that we should be careful when assessing students to not correct their misconceptions but build in experiences that confront their conceptions, which lead to greater learning. This resource gives ideas on different ways to probe students to gain understanding. I would recommend this resource as a quick read and learning of one type of assessment to use in the classroom and specifically related to teaching and understanding matter.

Matter: Using Formative Assessment

This article is interesting in that it takes something that seems simple, like matter, and asks students about common items, asking them to explain if the item is matter and if so, then how ... See More

This article is interesting in that it takes something that seems simple, like matter, and asks students about common items, asking them to explain if the item is matter and if so, then how do they know it's matter. Some of the responses are enlightening in that you can see students' reasoning for qualifying an object as matter or not matter. I've often lamented that there is little to no professional development for elementary teachers in the area of science. This article proves that we need to train science teachers how to question students in order to determine why they come to the conclusions they do so that we can correct misunderstandings in the early years so they do not hold on to these misconceptions throughout their entire school years and into adulthood.