Connecticut Science Coordinators I Understand, We Understand, You Understand: Trends in Science Content Sense-Making

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Connecticut Science Coordinators I Understand,
We Understand, You Understand Trends in Science
Content Sense-Making
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What to look for in presentation

• Need to know
• develop a connection between sense-making
  strategies and standards
• Trends in common standards
• organize how to frame trends in standards,
  emphasizing sense-making
• Concrete Example of trends
• show research-based strategies that reflect
  trend in standards

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Connecting Sense-making to Standards
Action Ill show you three standards in quick
fashion.
Task What is your immediate, visceral response
after reading these example standards? Write it
as a question.
English (Common Standards National Governor's
Association) Write arguments focused on
discipline-specific content. a. Introduce precise
claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate
or opposing claims, and create an organization
that establishes clear relationships among the
claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
Complex Cognitive Skills
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Connecting Sense-making to Standards
Complex Cognitive Skills (draw arrows on your own)
Math (Common Standards NGA) Calculate and
interpret the average rate of change of a
function (presented symbolically or as a table)
over a specified interval. Estimate the rate of
change from a graph. (modeling standard)
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Connecting Sense-making to Standards
Connecticut Science Standards Scientific
inquiry is a thoughtful and coordinated attempt
to search out, describe, explain and predict
natural phenomena. Identify questions that
can be answered through scientific
investigation. Read, interpret and examine the
credibility and validity of scientific claims in
different sources of information. Formulate a
testable hypothesis and demonstrate logical
connections between the scientific concepts
guiding the hypothesis and the design of the
experiment. Design and conduct appropriate
types of scientific investigations to answer
different questions make observations and gather
data.
Complex Cognitive Skills (underline on your own)
Task What is your immediate, visceral response
after reading these example standards? Write it
as a question.
Share Read what you wrote to a person next to
you.
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Trends in Sense-making
Open school Self paced Spiral
Classic subjects
Outcome-based
Objectives
1800
1900
50s
2000
Post-Sputnik BSCS PSSC ESCP IPS ChemStudy
Experience
Standards
Critical thinking skills
Cultural Literacy
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Trends in Sense-making
I Understand
We Understand
You Understand
model
transfer
social/situated cognition
constructivism
constructed knowledge of individual
reproduced knowledge
shared knowledge equity
focus
grain size
population
small group classroom
individual
adapting to teacher school knowledge
adapting to group its shared understanding
adapting to challenges to amount validity of
prior knowledge
change agent
parts of cell and their interdependence
inquiry requires sharing findings ideas with
others
example standard
learn from mistakes self motivation executive
control
number of standards decreases
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Trends in Sense-making

• Language from National Academy of Sciences and
  Achieve (next generation of national standards)
• New Standards will
• include new developments in cognitive science
• blend current understanding of teaching and
  learning with new developments in science
• provide key tools for understanding or
  investigating more complex ideas and problem
  solving

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Trends in Sense-making
Synergistic
Systematic
Strategic
Instructional Model
Motivation
Cognitive Management
Metacognition
Content Organization
teacher Moves
3Ms
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Trends in Sense-making

• Systematic
• Overarching, repeated patterns of interdependent
  feedback among components of program
• 5E ? Inquiry ? Multidisciplinary
• Strategic
• Applying cognitive tools explicitly at pivotal
  times toward long-term goals
• Motivation ? Metacognition ? teacher Moves
• Synergistic
• Emerging properties (increasingly expert-like
  conceptual framework metacognitively aware)
• Learn how to learn science content
• Application of science learning to math, social
  studies, language arts, and world of work

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Systematic Sense-making Tools

• Instructional Models
• 5E
• Project-based
• spiral
• Cognitive Management
• Inquiry approach
• Cognitive Load
• Cognitive Apprentice
• Content Organization
• Multidisciplinary
• Domain specific
• Thematic

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Strategic
Strategic
Tools
Metacognition
Motivation
teacher Moves
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Moves

• Highlight comments and caption (sketch, graph,
  chart interpretation)
• Focus Question with investigation design
  (minds-on labs)
• Explanation template (evidence, claim,
  reasoning)
• Chunking (parse activities for formative
  assessment)
• Manage cognitive load (increase germane,
  decrease extraneous)
• page management (proximity of information and
  interpretation)
• problem type (worked-out, reverse, completion,
  edit, open ended)
• level of guided inquiry hands-on, small group,
  notebook
• Manage subject-independent versus dependent
  methods
• dont assume kids know strategies (complex
  cognitive skills implicit in standards)

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Metacognition

• Think, Share, Revise, Advise (TSAR) (turn and
  talk protocol)
• Analogy maps (transfer tool)
• Notebooking (active mental processing tool)
• Revision strategies (knowledge as a
  work-in-progress)
• Active translation among forms of representation
  (cognitive flexibility)
• Reading/literacy strategies
• Assessment (dynamic versus static)
• Alternative explanations (assessing plausibility
  and reasonableness)
• Learn from mistakes
• Knowing difference between memorization and
  understanding

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Motivation

• Autonomy (Im not a puppet)
• investigation design
• feedback from nature
• prior knowledge
• Mastery (I can do this and do it well)
• models
• conceptual framework (expert versus novice)
• practice, rehearsal, drill
• Purpose (I have a meaningful reason to do this)
• for self
• for others
• knowing why we do an activity

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Concrete Example

• Highlight Comments and Caption, TSAR, page
  management, note booking, chunking for formative
  assessment, turn and talk protocol, active
  translation among forms of representation,
  autonomy
• Content Force and motion
• Context collision forces

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Think Which vehicle applies a greater force when
they hit each other? Write an answer that
includes why you think the way you do.
Share read what you wrote to peer.
Advise ask for and give advice to peer.
Revise your original thinking based on peer
feedback (use different colored pen highlight
circle).
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Assumptions Clay ball is massless force
meter (more squish more force) perfectly flat
bumpers (like two books hitting)
Truck
Car
Clay ball
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What I see What it means
What I see What it means
Ball squished a certain amount from
Ball squished a certain amount from right to left
Ball experienced a force from right to left
caused by car
Before squish
After squish
What I see What it means
Caption This sketch shows . (see next slide
for complete caption example).
Revise your original prediction based on advice
from teacher. Use a different color pen.
First, lets agree on what we did NOT see.
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Highlight Comments and Caption

• Caption
• Combine minimum-sized sense-making units
  (highlight comments) into full sentences based on
  evidence (great for low-level language and ESL
  students).
• Combine full sentences into a meaningful
  paragraph.
• Writing is to verbal language as gourmet cooking
  is to fast food.
• Include introduction and comparisons for
  higher-level writing.

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Place caption under sketch and highlight comments
on same page.
Topic sentence (what are we looking at?)
Caption
This sketch shows a clay ball
before and after being squished between books of
different mass.
Highlight comment 1 evidence reason linked to
claim sense making.
I saw some squish on the right.
Since squish only occurs when theres a force,
this means the car applied a force to the truck.
Highlight comment 2
I also saw some squish on the left. This means
the truck applied some force to the car.
I saw the same amount of squish on both sides.
This means the amount of force applied from each
vehicle is the same, but in opposite directions.
Highlight comment 3
Would you be satisfied with this caption, plus
highlight comments and sketch as a formative
assessment?
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Science Content Take-aways

• Forces occur in pairs, equal in size and opposite
  in direction (Newtons 3rd Law)
• Test yourself A grasshopper and windshield
  collide head-on on the interstate. Which applies
  a greater force? Invent a tug of war question?
  
• Learning value of scientific models Mentally
  place a tiny clay ball between any two objects.
• Force pairs are not net forces!

F net ma
Forces act on one object
Forces act on two objects
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Wrap Up

• Need to know
• Its one thing to write good standards, its
  another to _________.
• Trends in common standards
• I Understand, We Understand, You Understand
• 3 Ss
• 3 Ms
• Concrete Example of Near-term trend
• Forces and Motion (highlight comments and
  Caption, page management, chunking, motivation)

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Contact Information
Audience questions ?

• Dave Pinkerton, Ph.D.
• kdpinkerton_at_yahoo.com
• 970.641.2584

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Reference Electronic Journal of Science
Teaching VOL 1, NO 3. Sept 1998
What I see
Upward trend in posttest notebook class shows
largest gains (effect size 1.25)
What it means
Teaching associated with notebook class could
reliably increase student achievement compared to
hands-on and small group teaching
increasing germane cognitive load
Effect size 1.25
Force Concept Inventory
What I see
Pretest scores almost equal
What it means
Kids started with about the same
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What I see
Effect size .47
Inquiry-based has greater slope than commonplace
teaching (effect size .47)
What it means
Teaching associated with guided inquiry could
reliably increase student achievement compared to
common place teaching
Achievement gap Common place YES Inquiry NO
Reference JRST VOL. 47, NO. 3, PP. 276301 (2010)
This graph shows how pre posttests scores
correlate for inquiry-based and then commonplace
classes. Inquiry-based has a greater slope than
commonplace. This means kids in the
inquiry-based class achieve .47 standard
deviations better, regardless of their starting
score.
Caption
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1.89 sd higher
What I see
RTOP SCORE
What it means
Caption
This graph shows
MEASURING THE EFFICACY AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
OF RESEARCH-BASED INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS IN HIGH
SCHOOL MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE An Interim
Report of Achieved Relative Treatment Strength
Joseph Taylor, Susan Kowalski, Steven Getty,
Christopher Wilson, and Janet Carlson - Center
for Research Evaluation, BSCS.
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Strategic Sense-making Tools

• Moves (for guided inquiry)
• Chunking (parse activities for formative
  assessment)
• Page management (proximity of information and
  interpretation)
• Problem type (worked-out, reverse, completion,
  edit, open ended)
• Assessment (feedback not judgment work in
  progress)
• Cognitive load management (germane vs extraneous)
• Active translation among forms of representation
• Notebooking
• Metacognition (personal responsibility for
  sense-making)
• Sense-making strategies (TSAR, highlight comments
  and caption, analogy maps, focus question
  w/investigation design, evidence-claim-reason,
  T-tables)
• Motivation (personal responsibility for effort)
• Autonomy (Im not a puppet)
• Mastery (I can do this and do it well)
• Purpose (I have a meaningful reason to do this)