Formative assessments using text messages to develop students’ ability to provide causal reasoning in general chemistry

Formative assessment is critical in providing students the opportunity to self-assess their content knowledge and providing data to inform instructional decisions. It also provides students with information about course expectations. If, as called for in numerous science instruction reform efforts, we expect students to be able to apply their chemistry knowledge to analyze data and construct coherent explanations, then not only must summative assessments include items that require this of students, but students must also be provided with frequent and ongoing opportunities to individually practice this difficult task and receive feedback. Although online homework systems can be quite effective at providing students with feedback regarding their mastery of basic skills, it is typically less useful in providing meaningful feedback on constructed student explanations. This study examined the impact of providing students with frequent out-of-class formative assessment activities initiated by text messages. Student responses were then used to facilitate in-class instruction. Increased student participation in these formative assessment tasks correlated positively with success on exams even after accounting for student prior knowledge. There was also evidence that students increased their ability to construct complete explanation over the course of the semester. All results were consistent across two different institutions and three instructors

Kinematics Card Sort Activity: Insight into Students’ Thinking

Kinematics is a topic students are unknowingly aware of well before entering the physics classroom. Students observe motion on a daily basis. They are constantly interpreting and making sense of their observations, unintentionally building their own understanding of kinematics before receiving any formal instruction. Unfortunately, when students take their prior conceptions to understand a new situation, they often do so in a way that inaccurately connects their learning. We were motivated to identify strategies to help our students make accurate connections to their prior knowledge and understand kinematics at a deeper level. To do this, we integrated a formative assessment card sort into a kinematic graphing unit within an introductory high school physics course. Throughout the activities, we required students to document and reflect upon their thinking. This allowed their learning to build upon their own previously held conceptual understanding, which provided an avenue for cognitive growth. By taking a more direct approach to eliciting student reasoning, we hoped to improve student learning and guide our assessment of their learning. Physicists use graphs as a second language and our students are often unable to “speak” that language due to a lack of conceptual understanding. Students are proficient in graphing skills when they are able to apply learned patterns to memorize trends. However, when deeper interpretation of graphs is required, students struggle. We believe this is, in part, because students’ preconceptions are inhibiting their ability to form an accurate understanding of kinematic graphs. For example, once students learn one type of graph, they often incorrectly relate it to a newly learned type of graph. Additionally, students have difficulty separating the shape of a graph from the path of motion. When students see an upward sloping position-time graph, they often think it means the object is traveling uphill. Other studies have looked at different methods for teaching kinematic graphs, but in this paper we focus on using a Card Sort activity to help make students’ thinking explicit to themselves and their teachers

Starchy Surveillance

Students start learning about photosynthesis in early grade school, yet it is a topic they still struggle with in college. Misconceptions and lack of a deep understanding of photosynthesis may result from a paucity of quality science labs that address photosynthesis using inquiry. A quick internet search reveals that although a number of photosynthesis lessons are widely available, very few engage students in activities that allow them to actively construct an understanding of the principles of photosynthesis. Rather, most are cookbook style confirmation labs. The lesson presented here requires students to answer fundamental questions underlying photosynthesis using data they collected. This yields a deeper understanding and aligns with NGSS as students conduct an investigation and then use evidence to support their claims and make connections to other science topics

Connecting the Visible World with the Invisible: Particulate Diagrams Deepen Student Understanding of Chemistry

Research suggests that connecting the visible (macroscopic) world of chemical phenomena to the invisible (particulate) world of atoms and molecules enhances student understanding in chemistry (Birk and Yezierski 2006; Gabel, Samuel, and Hunn 1987; Johnstone 1993; Nakhleh 1992). This approach aligns with the science standards (see box, p. 58) and is fundamental to the redesigned AP Chemistry curriculum. However, chemistry is usually taught at the abstract symbolic level, rarely incorporating particulate-level instruction. This article addresses that shortcoming by describing how to use particulate diagrams in a chemistry course

Food and Energy for All

When asked what plants need for photosynthesis, many students can correctly recall the reaction equation and state that plants require CO2, H2O, and light. Many students, however, do not understand that these reactants are the raw materials plants use to make sugars and instead believe that they are food for plants. Moreover, when questioned further, students often voice the idea that plants get their food from the soil (Kestler 2014). This is consistent with findings that fewer than half of current middle and high school students have a correct understanding of the process of photosynthesis (AAAS 2015). We developed this lesson to help students confront their misconceptions about photosynthesis and what constitutes food for plants. Photosynthesis is a complex process that requires a unit of instruction including multiple student experiences. Therefore, we use this lesson as an introduction to the unit on matter and energy in organisms and ecosystems so that students develop a better understanding of the reactants of photosynthesis. We wanted students to investigate how different variables typically mistaken for plant food (e.g., CO2, H2O, light, soil) affect photosynthesis, with the goal of helping students develop an understanding that photosynthesis is a chemical process that produces food for plants. We modified a demonstration (Fox, Gaynor, and Shillcock 1999) that allows for an estimation of the rate of photosynthesis by timing how long it takes punched-out spinach-leaf disks to rise to the top of a solution due to the production of oxygen gas. In our modification, students perform the original demonstration in small groups and then develop their own follow-up investigations to explore the effects of other variables on the rate of photosynthesis, using the initial procedures as a model (see Online Supplemental Materials for a complete teacher guide)

Students’ Independent Use of Screencasts and Simulations to Construct Understanding of Solubility Concepts

As students increasingly use online chemistry animations and simulations, it is becoming more important to understand how students independently engage with such materials and to develop a set of best practices for students’ use of these resources outside of the classroom. Most of the literature examining students’ use of animations and simulations has focused on classroom use with some studies suggesting that better outcomes are obtained when students use simulations with minimal guidance while others indicate the need for appropriate scaffolding. This study examined differences with respect to (1) student understanding of the concept of dissolution of ionic and covalent compounds in water and (2) student use of electronic resources when students were asked to complete an assignment either by manipulating a simulation on their own or by watching a screencast in which an expert manipulated the same simulation. Comparison of students’ pre- and posttest scores, answers to assignment questions, near-transfer follow-up questions, and eye-tracking analysis suggested that students who viewed the screencast gained a better understanding of the dissolving process, including interactions with water at the particulate level, particularly for covalent compounds. Additionally, the eye tracking indicated that there were significant differences in the ways that the different treatment groups (screencast or simulation) used the electronic resources

Semi-quantitative Characterization of Secondary Science Teachers’ Use of Three-Dimensional Instruction

This quasi-experimental study evaluated middle- and high-school science teachers’ implementation of three-dimensional (3D) instruction as defined by the Next Generation Science Standards. Teachers participated in a long-term professional development (PD) program designed to increase their use of inquiry-based science instruction. We describe our semi-quantitative adaptation of the Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products: Science rubric version 2 (SQ-EQuIP) to facilitate the longitudinal evaluation of teacher practices with 3D instruction. SQ-EQuIP evaluations revealed that after two years, 80% of PD teachers implemented lessons where students were explicitly and coherently engaged in 3D learning, compared with 22% of comparison teachers. Further, in several cases lesson materials that should support student engagement in 3D learning were not implemented with fidelity. This discrepancy implies that PD developers must use the EQuIP not only to assess lesson or unit plans as intended by its creators, but to also evaluate the implementation of these materials from students’ perspective. The small sample size restricts claims of significance. However, observed trends between teacher groups indicate long-established best practices designed to increase teacher use of inquiry-based practices may also positively impact teacher use of 3D instructional practices

3, 2, 1 … Discovering Newton’s Laws

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” “Except when a bug hits your car window, the car must exert more force on the bug because Newton’s laws only apply in the physics classroom, right?” Students in our classrooms were able to pick out definitions as well as examples of Newton’s three laws; they could recite the laws and even solve for force, mass, and acceleration. However, when given “real world” questions, they would quickly revert to naive explanations. This frustration led to an examination of our approach to teaching Newton’s laws. Like many, we taught Newton’s laws in their numerical order—first, second, and then third. Students read about the laws, copied definitions, and became proficient with vocabulary before they applied the laws in a lab setting. This paper discusses how we transformed our teaching of Newton’s laws by flipping the order (3, 2, 1) and putting the activity before concept, as well as how these changes affected student outcomes

Tool Trouble: Challenges With Using Self-Report Data to Evaluate Long-Term Chemistry Teacher Professional Development

The purpose of this study was to compare the ability of different instruments, independently developed and traditionally used for measuring science teachers’ beliefs in short-term interventions, to longitudinally measure teachers’ changing beliefs. We compared the ability of three self-report instruments (Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument Form A [STEBI], Teaching of Science as Inquiry instrument [TSI], Inquiry Teaching Beliefs instrument [ITB]) and one observational instrument (Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol [RTOP]) to appropriately measure high school chemistry teachers’ beliefs as they engaged in a two and a half year professional development program. Collectively our findings from these four instruments, across three separate cohort of teachers (N =16), indicated conflicting changes in teacher beliefs. For example, the STEBI indicated teachers’ self-efficacy remained unchanged or increased while the TSI indicated a concurrent decrease in self-efficacy throughout the PD program. Additionally, the ITB seemed to indicate a decrease in teachers’ knowledge of inquiry while their interview data and RTOP scores indicated a concurrent increase in their knowledge of and ability to enact inquiry-based practices. We reconcile these conflicting results and discuss the implications these findings have for validly and reliably measuring science teacher belief changes within longer duration PD

Improving conceptual understanding of gas behavior through the use of screencasts and simulations

Engagement with particle-level simulations can help students visualize the motion and interactions of gas particles, thus helping them develop a more scientifically accurate mental model. Such engagement outside of class prior to formal instruction can help meet the needs of students from diverse backgrounds and provide instructors with a common experience upon which to build with further instruction. Yet, even with well-designed scaffolds, students may not attend to the most salient aspects of the simulation. In this case, a screencast where an instructor provides narrated use of the simulation and points students towards the important observations may provide additional benefits. This study, which is part of the larger ChemSims project, investigates the use of simulations and screencasts to support students’ developing understanding of gas properties by examining student learning gains