I wasn't sure where to post our blog about the Science Probe, so I hope this is ok.
Group Members: Mike, Ciara, Allen, Tricia, and Kacie
In general our group was pleased with the probes. They will be useful to be used within a unit and they are a good starter for writing a lesson. There is a lot of room for us to develop the probes into lessons that will work for our students. We liked the amount of resources that were provided at the end of each probe idea, having those resources already put together for us can save valuable time. Each probe suggestion seemed to be aimed at getting students to explore and form their own opinions, and be able to explain them. Two of the probes we looked at could be connected to each other, and the book even provided important things to make sure students understand. For example; observation always comes before exploration, and "erosion" and "weathering" are not interchangeable words. We felt that the suggestions were grade level appropriate, and we were confident that we would be able to teach the probes effectively. Our group felt that this book will be an important resource to have in the classroom.
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Group Members: Cassie, Jenny, Mara.
The overall theme of our probes is mass and changing states. The first probe that we discussed was “The Rusty Nails”. The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about a common chemical change. The task is designed to find out if students think rusting is a change in which mass decreases, due to an intuitive notion of rusting. Through more discussion we thought the answer would be that mass stayed the same, however the correct answer is that mass increases due to oxidation. The related concepts to this probe are chemical change, oxidation, and mass or weight. The next probe we discussed was “Is it Melting?” The purpose of this probe is to discuss the difference between melting and dissolving. The students need to realize that for melting to occur their needs to be energy. When a substance dissolves two different materials are involved. The related concepts are melting, dissolving, change of state, and physical change and heat. The final probe we discussed was “Ice Cubes in a Bag”. The purpose of this probe was to elicit students’ idea of the concept of mass staying the same when nothing interferes with the changing of state. The related concepts of this probe are conservation of matter, mass, volume, change in state, closed system, atoms, and molecules.
We thought these three probes all correlate and could be taught in progression. They could be an individual lesson within a unit which discusses change of mass and its properties. We liked the idea that they book offers suggestions for different grade levels and includes benchmarks. Also we liked that the first page could be made into a worksheet for small group discussion if needed.
Group Members: Janna Gulman, Damian Patterson, Adrienne Young, Nichole Kenfield
After reading Mara's comments we discussed our topic themes again and came to the conclusion that there was not an overall theme. #1 Can it Reflect dealt with light absorption, reflection, scattering, etc... It was a good introduction to the concept of light and a good way for a teacher to get a preassessment of student misconceptions. We discussed the Modifications that could be used while conducting the probe. We also discussed conducting experiments such as having students bounce a ball on a smooth surface vs. a rough surface obsering how the ball bounces and then relating it to how light scatters and reflects.
#2 Objects and Temperatures dealt with the differences between heat and temperature. Students share the common misconception that certain material will be a different temperature even if left in the same ambient conditions. The idea that heat and temperature differ is an abstract concept that students can still struggle with in highschool and may need to be exposed to the idea multiple times.
#3 Beach Sand dealt with where sand comes from and can be used as a preassessment to weathering, erosion, and the rock cycle. This probe tackles the misconception that sand comes from the ocean and helps build a basic knowledge of how moutains have eroded over time to eventually end up as sand at the beach. There are other exceptions to how sand is formed, such as coral beaches. However, this probe addresses how sand is formed at a basic level as a result of weathering of landforms.
#4 Cookie Crumbles deals with how shape change does not effect mass. The term mass may be a difficult concept for younger children to grasp to the term weight was recommended for the grades K-5. We discussed many experiments that can be conducted following the probe such as having students construct a form using Legos and comparing its weight to the combined weight of the individual pieces. This would be a supliment to using an actual cookie that students may be tempted to eat which would skew the data. This could facilitate inquiry based learning in which students form a prediction, gather data, and communicate their findings.
Group members: Therese, Destine, Aaron, Maggie, Audrey, and Kim
After looking over and discussing all of our probes, we realized that each probe dealt with a different concept. The probe "Ice Cubes in a Bag" dealt with conservation of matter, "The Rusty Nails" dealt with chemical changes and their effects on matter,"Making Sound" dealt with vibrations and sound, "Talking about Gravity" dealt with gravity, "Gazing at the Moon" dealt with phases of the moon, and lastly, the probe "Is it Melting" dealt with physical change. So, overall there was no main theme. However, we felt that this variety of concepts throughout the book was beneficial. It gives teachers a chance to search through many different concepts and choose one that best fits what they are looking for.
Some commonalities with the probes are that they can all be used as a form of a formative assessment. All of the probes list related ideas in NSES and in Benchmarks for Science Literacy. There are related articles for each probe and each probe has multi-level curricular and insructional considerations. Also, for all the probes very few materials are needed and those that are seem to be very common and easy to get ahold of with a few exceptions (e.g. vacuum).
For the most part, we feel that the main point of the probes is to help teachers break common misconceptions students have and to aid in the development of a quality lesson. We felt each probe was a good starting point for a lesson and would allow students the oppurtunity to participate in an inquiry based lesson developed by the teacher.
Group Members: Jessica B., Lauren, Patty, and Leslie R.
All of our probes fit in the life, earth, and space science assessment. There are many alternative frameworks in science, and all four of the probes we looked at give students the opportunity to really think deeply about their ideas before the upcoming instruction. Two of these formative assessments had the same theme of rock erosion: “Beach Sand” and “Mountain Age.” Both of these probes are great elicitation tools in helping to ignite a discussion about the causes and effects of erosion. For the “Beach Sand,” we thought that it would be more engaging to bring in some sand during the probe for the students to observe and draw ideas from. It was interesting to see that even as college students, we still had misconceptions about where sand really comes from! Our third probe is titled “Human Body Basic.” This assessment taught us that students have the common misconception that cells are not the basic unit of function and structure. I liked the suggestions that the book gives for instruction, especially the one where they recommend using analogies; for example, the human body could represent a shopping mall. The last probe we discussed is titled “Going Through Phases.” We especially liked this probe because it gave eight alternative frameworks to choose from instead of three or four like the others. The purpose of this probe is to find out if students understand the role of light reflection and the positional relationship between the Earth, Moon, and Sun and why we see different phases of the moon. Because this concept is difficult for even adults to understand, we thought that it would be helpful for students to observe a physical model of the Earth, Moon, and Sun during the probe. All in all, we really enjoyed these probes and found them very useful in starting a lesson!
Group Members: Tara, Maralee, Samantha, & Lindy
Our group found the assessment probes to be very useful in learning the existing knowledge of students. We found that the probes assessed in a way that was usually visual and not too difficult for the teacher to carry out. The probes are also a great way to get students thinking about their own thoughts and conceptions. We discussed how the probes were easy to modify to fit different grade levels. The probes also offered many ideas for lesson plans.
Some of our probes included, "The Rusty Nails", "Ice Cubes in a Bag", and "Lemonade". We found that the visuals used to begin the assessments would be successful in stimulating student ideas rather than a simple explanation. The other probes we discussed were, "Is it made of cells", "Is it Living", and "Is it made of molecules". In these assessments, it was suggested that students could use card sorting activities to do the assessment rather than doing the worksheet. All together, the probes seemed very changeable to better engage students. With the flexibility of the assessments, students might be more inclined to discuss and participate in the learning process.
Group memebers: Dani, Tiffany, Tootsie, Jamie, Emily
Our probes each dealt with a different concept. We all agreed that the probes are a great way to introduce a concept, get students thinking, and see what misconceptions students may have. Below is a list of our probes and explanations of them.
Cookie Crumbles: Conservation of mass- In this probe, students guess if the mass of a whole cookie is the same as the mass of the same cookie crumbled. Students would then weigh the cookie before it is crumbled and after, to see that the mass stays the same. Other ways to demonstrate this are with ice cubes and legos. We thought this probe would be most useful in early elementary grades, but could also be modified to fit upper grades too.
Objects and Temp: Have students guess out of metal, glass, wood and cotton, which object is the coolest. Most students (including all of us) think that metal or glass is the coolest, but in reality, all the temperatures are the same because of the measure of kinetic energy and all object are exposed to the same environmental conditions. The objects feel warmer and cooler to the touch because energy flows from warmer objects to cooler ones. Objects like metal conduct heat from your hand faster, making the metal feel cooler than an object.
Making Sound: This probe explored how vibrations create sound and how sometimes it is the air that is creating the vibration. It was easy to wee how students can be "tricked" by the list of items as some are more obvious in what is vibrating. At first, it seemed like a trick list, because our initial thoughts were that all involve vibration. However, it seems like an appropriate probe if the concept is not yet developed, for elementary and even high school students.
Can Reflect Light: This probe asked students to think about objects that reflect light. Upon first glance, one would think that only shiny objects and mirrors reflect light. Going onto the explanation, students would discover that all visible objects that don't give off light reflect it. We found it interesting to know that shinny objects reflect light at a different angle, while dull objects scatter light.
Is it made of molecules:
This probe was to get students thinking about what kinds of objects are made up of one or more molecules. Jamie brought in cards that had a list of objects on each one to get the group to physically see the separation of the objects that were made up of one or more atoms, vs. the ones that were not. We thought that, having the cards was a great way to asses students without having them do another worksheet.
Overall, we all really enjoyed the probes, and liked the way they go about introducing a concept. We all are want to, and are looking forward to implementing some of the probes into real classrooms.
Group Members- Cody, Chuad, Tracey, Lacey
I typed this once and wanted to review it… My computer didn’t want to let me… It chose to erase my blog instead… So I typed it in word so I can save it… in rich text of course. What a valuable learning experience at 2:00 a.m. Technology rocks my socks off!
As a group, we decided these assessment probes provide a very useful tool in targeting a child’s current level of understanding. We also discovered our own level of understanding of these science concepts. We explored “Ice Cubes in a Bag”, “Rusty Nails”, “Gazing at the Moon”, and “Is it Melting?” We had realized, when explaining our reasons behind which answer we chose, that some of us justified our reasoning based on past misconceptions of basic science concepts. The probes help target individual learning abilities because students have to justify their own answers based on past experiences.
-“Ice Cubes in a Bag” was based on concepts about the conservation of matter and changing the state of matter. Our group realized the importance of open and closed systems, and how they have a significant impact on experimental results. In a closed system, ice in a bag will have the same mass as it changes into water given that no molecules are lost.
-“Rusty Nails” focused on concepts of oxidation and change due to chemical reactions. Our group understood the idea of oxidization, but was not sure whether the iron gained mass from the oxygen molecules, or if the water gained the mass of the iron. But since the oxidized iron is still on the nail, the rusted nail will have more mass than a nail without rust. The chemical reaction of iron and oxygen produces iron oxide, which adds the mass of oxygen molecules to the iron nail.
-“Gazing at the moon” was based on concepts about the moon’s phases and its relation to the earth and sun. Our group had trouble grasping the fact that the entire world will always see the same phase of the moon. The example about calendars helped us understand that moon phases are universal. (or at least “earthiversal”)
-“Is it Melting” focused on the concepts of melting and dissolving. Our group agreed that melting involves only one material, which changes state because of a heat source. We decided that the most important concept from this probe is to be able to distinguish the difference between melting and dissolving. Dissolving involves two materials that mix and break up, melting only involves one material.
Group Members: Jennie, Bob, Joan, Meg, Felicia, Scott
Our probes dealt with several different topics including light reflection, living things, the moon,etc.. We found that the probes "Mitten Problem", "Lemonade", and "Birthday Candles" all providing hands-on activities that would give the students a concrete visual of the experiment. We felt these probes were more inquiry based and student centered. They gave simple introductions to concepts without confusing the students. These allow the students to take their pre-conceived notions and expand on them after their new experience. These probes also help students apply knowledge to real life situations and keep them thinking about science.
The other probes that we looked at were "Functions of Living Things" and "Gazing at the Moon". We found while exploring these probes that they are not as intensely inquiry based and more teacher centered. They are covering very abstract concepts without being able to "show" a concrete model. These probes are more for assessment of what the students know and understand. This makes it harder for a teacher to break students pre-conceived notions without having an actual model to show the students.
Group Members: Bryn, De'Anna, Helena, and Kaela.
Our group focused on using the probes for fourth to sixth graders to assess their knowledge of the conservation of mass, the content of matter, and chemical changes. We started with my probe, intitled "The Rusty Nails." This proved to be a great probe for my group because everyone chose an incorrect answer and were absolutely sure they were right-and provided convincing explanations! The answers that the mass would stay the same and that the nails would lose mass came from everyday experiences with rusting and previous concepts of mass conservation. We had a great discussion on how everyday observations can lead to incorrect scientific conclustions. The probe was designed to assess student knowledge of rusting as a chemical change.
De'Anna presented the probe, "Ice Cubes in a Bag". All of us knew that the mass would stay the same, but discussed possible answers students would give based on experiences they may have had. For example, we could see students assuming that because ice floats it would have less mass than when the same amount of ice melts into water. This probe dealt with the conservation of mass.
Kaela presented "Is it made of molecules?". The probe assessed student knowledge of what composes matter and the hierachy of matter's components. As we discussed the probe, it became clear that students would have trouble with the abstract nature of atoms and molecules, and well-designed activities would be needed to address these difficult concepts.
Helena presented the "Lemonade" probe, which also dealth with the idea of conservation of mass, even when it cannot be seen. While all of answered the question correctly, we could see how confusing the dissolving of the sugar would be to students in relation to the conservation of mass. We thought that using a colored substance like kool-aid instead of the sugar or using something that would not dissolve, like a penny, would help students understand the concept better before moving on to sugar and the concept of dissolving.
Everyone in the group agreed that the book will be an invaluable resource in our future classrooms.
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