CAT 23-Directed Paraphrasing

Teacher:

Nancy Bryant

Context:

This week we have been studying the history of the atom. We have discussed Aristotle, Democritus, Thomson, Rutherford, Dalton, and Bohr.

Background:

The direct paraphrase CAT gave the students an opportunity to explain in their own words what they had learned that day.  It was also kind of a game, since they were supposed to be telling a younger student about an experiment.  I thought this class would most benefit from some reform, and I know that asking them to paraphrase a concept also helps their analysis and critical thinking skills, which are both long term goals for the class. My goal in this discussion is to convince students that we can study atoms even though we can’t see them, and to help them understand how we know there are positive and negative charges in an atom.

Task:

After discussing Thomson and Rutherford’s experiments I told the class that I wanted them to give feedback on an index card.  They would not receive a grade and they did not need to put their names on them. The assignment was, “In four or five sentences, paraphrase Thomson’s experiment.  You are writing to a 7^th grade student who refuses to believe that electrons are real because he can’t see them.”  I gave them about 5 minutes to write their responses. Each of the responses was logged in the chart based on how the student stated each concept.  The five concepts are listed below.

Concept #1 -Thomson did not know what composed atoms

Concept #2- The cathode ray tube was filled with atoms

Concept #3 - Like charges repel- unlike charges attract,

Concept #4- The beam of gas moved toward the positive plate and away from the negative plate

Concept #5-Because the beam of gas was attracted to the positive plate, the beam must have negative charges in it.

Results:

I see three types of responses in this activity.  One type of response is the student who begins well with some background information, but then seems to lose sight of the conclusion he is trying to reach.

The second category, in which the explanation had no background, but started with the …fact that like charges repel and unlike charges attract.

background information and also arrived at the conclusion stated in some way

Closing the Loop:

I read through the student responses before the next class, made notes on each card, and returned the cards to the students.  I told them that I had learned that we needed to focus more on the conclusion of each experiment so that they could understand its importance.  We discussed Thomson’s experiment again, with the students supplying the steps of the experiment verbally.  I also led an activity that day which led the students to draw conclusions based on their observations, hoping to give them practice in critical thinking.

Reflection:

This activity definitely has helped me understand how I need to constantly reform teaching methods to help students learn more completely.  In the past I would have assumed that most of the students understood the concepts revealed in Thomson’s experiment and then I would have continued on to other topics.  One issue I have discovered is that most students take longer to master the material than I ever believe possible. If I use this assessment technique again- which I plan to do- I will narrow the question more or add more prompts.  Another option would be to change the question to be more basic and just use question #3 in a different form.

Examples:

Source:

Angelo, T.A. & Cross, P.K. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Acknowledgement: The author completed this assessment while a student at Montana State University

Approximate Analogies

Ionic and Covalent Bonds

Teacher:

Mark McGaugh

Context:

I decided to do this activity while going over mixtures and compounds.

Background:

Many students had trouble with knowing when two substances had actually bonded. The class performed activities such as dissolving salt into water, boiling the water away, and seeing the salt left behind. I explained the salt had never bonded to the water, but formed a homogeneous mixture. This is when I decided to use the approximate analogies technique.

Task:

I wrote on the board the simple prompt “Ionic bonds are to covalent bonds as __________ are to __________”.I listened to the discussions carefully and even facilitated them at a few points.

Results:

After discussing several examples I realized the concept that was never being mentioned was charge. None of the students grasped that ionic bonds were being held together by two charged particles.

Closing the Loop:

Luckily I had some magnets in the classroom. I explained to the class that each magnet had two ends, one with a positive charge and one with a negative charge. To avoid any unnecessary confusion I mentioned nothing about north and south poles. I passed out the magnets and explained that when like charges were facing one another they magnets repulsed one another and when opposite charges faced one another the magnets came together. To make a connection with ionic bonds I told them that the cations and anions, made by electron transfer, are of opposite charge and are attracted just like magnets. Next I took out some rope and pointed out it was not charged. I explained that covalent bonds electrons were shared, which was like tying two atoms together with a rope, and that covalent bonds have no charge.

Reflection:

The activity cleared up one problem but left another one unsolved, why were they confusing compounds and mixtures?I do know that in the future I will cover electrical charge and get the magnets out at the start of the year.

Source:

Keeley, P,  Eberle, F. &Tugel, J. (2007). Uncovering Student Ideas in Science, Volume 2: 25 More Formative Assessment Probes. NSTA Press

Acknowledgement: The author completed this assessment while a student at Montana State University

CAT 1 Directed Paraphrasing Activity

Teacher:

Cheryl Hudson

Context:

The class chosen for the CAT 1 exercise is a 10^th grade biology class that has been working on osmosis.

Background:

The students had spent one week conducting an osmosis lab where they soaked an egg in different solutions each day in order to observe the direction of diffusion of water through a cell membrane. At the end of the lab, students answered analysis questions that facilitated their ability to classify each solution as hypertonic, hypotonic, or isotonic based upon the data.

Task:

The following Directed Paraphrasing Activity was conducted immediately prior to a unit test on cellular transport to determine if students could connect learning from a four-day osmosis lab to a realistic scenario they might face:

You overhear some middle school aged athletes talking about hydrating before exercise.  One athlete tells another, “You should drink two gallons of water before the game so you don’t become dehydrated”. How would you explain the problem with this advice to the young athletes?

Write your response to the athletes using at least four sentences.

Results:

Closing the Loop:

When the papers were returned to the students and the purpose of the classroom assessment was again related, the students were able to recognize the connection of the lab concepts and the situation of drinking too much water. Most students agreed that the biology curriculum would be more meaningful when presented with applications.

Reflection:

I probably did not emphasize clearly that the students should specifically connect what they learned in the osmosis lab to the issue of drinking too much water at the time of the Directed Paraphrasing task. If I only change one practice this semester, it will be to incorporate this type of classroom assessment for learning to help scaffold the ability of most of my students to apply lab concepts to different situations for every lab.  In addition, students will transcribe each application question and their answer in their science journal.

Source:

“This assessment was created based on guidelines from the following book: Doran, R., Chan, F. & Tami, P.  (2002). Science Educator’s Guide to Laboratory Assessment. Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association.

Acknowledgement:  The author completed this assessment while a student at Montana State University

Keeley’s misconception life science probe

Teacher:

Jessica Schultz

Context:

I selected my 10^th grade Biology class for this assessment,  We are about to begin the section on cells.

Background:

I selected my 10^th grade Biology class for this assessment because after working with them for over a year I have I have come to the conclusion that they have many misconceptions about the world around us. I chose this activity because I wanted to see what my students understood about cells and their size. I made the assumption that my students understood the concept about cells this activity helped me to see that about 50% of the students do not understand the concept of cell size.

Task:

I gave my students the life science assessment probe that was titled “Whale and Shrew”. It asked the students to compare the size of a cell in a whale and a shrew.

Results:

I was surprised to find out that half of the students had misconceptions about the size of a cell.

Closing the Loop:

After all the students had finished the worksheet I read over all the answers and decided to tell the students that they all had great answers and that we would be going into further depth on cell size the next class meeting. They all wanted to know if how they answered was correct or not. I explained them the concept of what a cell is and that a heart cell in one mammal is the same as another mammal. I told my students that we all have misconceptions about the world around us and that by learning about science we can uncover those misconceptions and find the truth.

Reflection:

The assessment went as expected but I truly did not think that 50% of my students would not understand the concept of cell size from one organism to another. When I do this activity I will do it exactly the same. I also plan on using other misconception probes in my other classes. This assessment impacted my teaching by showing me that my students have more misconceptions then I thought that they had

Source:

Acknowledgment: The author completed this assessment while a student at Montana State University