Proximal formative assessment, the just-in-time elicitation of students\u27 ideas that informs ongoing instruction, is usually associated with the instructor in a formal classroom setting. However, the elicitation, assessment, and subsequent instruction that characterize proximal formative assessment are also seen in discourse among peers. We present a case in which secondary teachers in a professional development course at SPU are discussing energy flow in refrigerators. In this episode, a peer is invited to share her thinking (elicitation). Her idea that refrigerators move heat from a relatively cold compartment to a hotter environment is inappropriately judged as incorrect (assessment). The  instruction  (peer explanation) that follows is based on the second law of thermodynamics, and acts as corrective rather than collaborative

Close, Hunter G.

Frank, Brian W.

Harrer, Benedikt W.

Scherr, Rachel E.

Wittmann, Michael C.

English

San Jose State University

San Jose State University
SJSU ScholarWorks
Faculty Publications Physics and Astronomy
January 2012
Elements of Proximal Formative Assessment in
Learners’ Discourse about Energy
Benedikt W. Harrer
University of Maine - Main, benedikt.harrer@sjsu.edu
Rachel E. Scherr
Seattle Pacific University
Michael C. Wittmann
University of Maine - Main
Hunter G. Close
Texas State University - San Marcos
Brian W. Frank
Middle Tennessee State University
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/physics_astron_pub
Part of the Physics Commons, and the Science and Mathematics Education Commons
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Recommended Citation
Benedikt W. Harrer, Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, Hunter G. Close, and Brian W. Frank. "Elements of Proximal Formative
Assessment in Learners’ Discourse about Energy" AIP Conference Proceedings (2012): 203-206.
Elements of Proximal Formative Assessment in Learners’
Discourse about Energy
Benedikt W. Harrer∗, Rachel E. Scherr†, Michael C. Wittmann∗, Hunter G. Close∗∗
and Brian W. Frank‡
∗Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469
†Department of Physics, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA 98119
∗∗Department of Physics, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666
‡Department of Physics and Astronomy, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132
Abstract. Proximal formative assessment, the just-in-time elicitation of students’ ideas that informs ongoing instruction,
is usually associated with the instructor in a formal classroom setting. However, the elicitation, assessment, and subsequent
instruction that characterize proximal formative assessment are also seen in discourse among peers. We present a case in which
secondary teachers in a professional development course at SPU are discussing energy flow in refrigerators. In this episode, a
peer is invited to share her thinking (elicitation). Her idea that refrigerators move heat from a relatively cold compartment to
a hotter environment is inappropriately judged as incorrect (assessment). The "instruction" (peer explanation) that follows is
based on the second law of thermodynamics, and acts as corrective rather than collaborative.
Keywords: proximal formative assessment, energy, professional development, discourse
PACS: 01.40.Fk, 01.40.jh, 01.40.E-
INTRODUCTION
Formative assessment is the process of assessing stu-
dents’ learning in order to inform ongoing instruction
that is supposed to help the students reach their learn-
ing goals. In comparison to formal classroom assessment
activities (quizzes, tests, homework, etc.) which can in-
form instruction on a day-to-day basis, proximal forma-
tive assessment [1] refers to informal [2], interaction-
embedded [3] practices of formative assessment that help
the teacher to productively structure the learning environ-
ment in the moment.
The term proximal formative assessment was intro-
duced by Erickson [1] to mean any actions a teacher
might take in order to find "locally available evidence of
student learning." These actions lead to the just-in-time
elicitation of a student’s idea, the evaluation and assess-
ment of this idea, and an immediate response (e.g. an
instructional piece) that helps the student further develop
her understanding.
In this paper, we argue that elements of proximal for-
mative assessment can also be seen in discourse among
teachers in a professional development environment.
Tapping into these already existing resources could be of
value for future implementations of teacher professional
development concerning proximal formative assessment.
We take a closer look at the case of three secondary
teachers (pseudonyms Donna, Mark and Victoria) during
an initial discussion about energy dynamics in a refriger-
ator. The teachers worked together in a group during a
summer professional development course at Seattle Pa-
cific University. The course was offered as part of the
Energy Project, a professional development and physics
education research program for the teaching and learning
of energy [4].
DATA AND METHODOLOGY
The three teachers in our episode had already spent much
time thinking about energy in simple situations like a
hand pushing a box across a floor or an oscillating cart
on a spring.
At the beginning of the instructional session surround-
ing the episode, the instructors introduce a new, more
complex scenario. The teachers are supposed to find out
about the energy dynamics in a refrigerator, starting out
with what they already know about refrigerators from ev-
eryday experience.
In order to understand learners’ ideas and arguments in
group settings, we benefit from attending not only to the
words spoken, but also to other communicative channels
like prosody (rhythm and tone of speech) and gestures.
[5, 6]
We use a microethnographic approach to analyze
Donna’s, Mark’s and Victoria’s talk and bodily action
[7], with video recordings as our primary data sources
[8]. In a detailed moment-by-moment analysis of a 1.5-
min episode of their video-recorded interaction, we will
identify the teachers’ ideas, show evidence for their com-2011 Physics Education Research ConferenceAIP Conf. Proc. 1413, 203-206 (2012); doi: 10.1063/1.3680030©   2012 American Institute of Physics 978-0-7354-0990-3/$30.00203
mitments to these ideas, and show how this interaction
contains elements of proximal formative assessment.
ELEMENTS OF PROXIMAL
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Elicitation: "What are you thinking?"
Donna and Mark had started thinking about the energy
dynamics in a refrigerator from the inside. Donna had
pointed out that there are coils on the inside of the
refrigerator, and another set of (hot) coils in the back.
In the minutes before our episode, Mark had explained
that there is a liquid inside the coils that circulates
through them. According to Mark, thermal energy flows
from the contents of the inside compartment of the re-
frigerator into the liquid in the coils. The liquid moves to
the back of the refrigerator where the heat flows from the
liquid into the environment. Mark’s physically accurate
explanation of the mechanism for this is that the inside of
the refrigerator has to be at a higher temperature than the
liquid, whereas the liquid has to be hotter than the envi-
ronment. The thermal energy "always has to go from hot
to cold." Donna had agreed to this statement of Mark’s.
Their conversation lasts several minutes, during which
Victoria is silent. When Donna and Mark seem to reach
a "dead end" in their discussion, Donna tries to directly
elicit Victoria’s thinking by inviting her to share her ideas
with the group: "Victoria, what are you thinking?" (Table
1, line 1)
Victoria responds that she doesn’t think her answer
is meaningful, but that in her opinion, the energy flows
from cold to hot (line 2). In the further discourse between
the three teachers (lines 3-11), Victoria elaborates on her
idea. From the transcript, we can infer that she thinks
thermal energy flows from cold to hot in a refrigerator.
The heat flow from cold to hot is not a spontaneous
process. Electrical energy has to be spent in order to
make it happen (line 8).
Assessment: "Wait..."
Although Victoria starts to explain her idea during
her first statement (line 2), Mark cuts her off and says
"Wait..." maybe realizing that her idea is different from
his and Donna’s.
This realization seems similar to the result of an
assessment: The student’s idea was compared to the
teacher’s idea, the classroom standard or learning goal.
Mark’s assessment of Victoria’s idea seems to be com-
pleted after line 3: He does not elicit or acknowledge fur-
ther explanations. Our microanalysis of Victoria’s utter-
TABLE 1. Verbal transcript of the video episode
1 Donna: Does that... Victoria, what are you think-
ing?
2 Victoria: Umm... I am thinking that I don’t have
a meaningful answer. So, I know the en-
ergy flows from the cold to the hot. And
this happened just because...
3 Mark: Wait...
4 Victoria: Yeah
5 Mark: No, (Donna: No) energy always goes
from hot to cold (Donna together with
Mark: ...to cold).
6 Victoria: There is... Inside of the refrigerator, it’s
colder than outside.
7 Mark: Yes.
8 Victoria: So, somehow, you spend energy, right?
The electrical energy, to make, uhm, ther-
mal energy to go from the cold to the hot.
9 Victoria: Which apparently doesn’t make any
sense, but this, if I would ask my stu-
dents, this is what they are going to... to
know.
10 Mark: Yeah, I mean I think...
11 Victoria: If it’s really warm outside, then you’ll
hear the refrigerator just working hard
to make the inside much colder than the
outside.
12 Mark: Right.
13 Donna: Yeah.
14 Victoria: OK.
15 Donna: But it’s not because energy flows from
cold to hot (Victoria: No, no.). It’s be-
cause it’s hot to cold.
16 Victoria: But...
ances in a later section will show that her idea is correct
and appropriate.
However, Mark and Donna, who had previously estab-
lished their commitment to the idea that thermal energy
always goes from hot to cold (see above), react nega-
tively to Victoria’s statement: they shake their heads in
unison and repeatedly say "no." These actions, as well as
their definitive and complacent intonation of their idea
about the direction of heat flow,1 give evidence of their
assessment of Victoria’s idea.
1 The pitch contour of Mark’s statement can be categorized into the
"Low Drop" tone group in the system of O’Connor and Arnold [9].
Statements associated with this tone group generally sound definite and
complete. Since Mark emphasizes the first syllable of the word "en-
ergy," his statement contains a "head," which suggests that it carries
strength and power. According to O’Connor and Arnold, "This power
may lend itself to utterances of a categoric, weighty, judicial, consid-
ered kind." [9] pg. 48; emphases in the original.204
Response: "No, energy always goes from
hot to cold."
After hearing Victoria’s initial statement of her idea
and comparing it to their own, Donna and Mark shake
their heads in disagreement and Mark states that "en-
ergy always goes from hot to cold," which is repeated by
Donna later on. Mark and Donna’s statement has much
scientific merit and is in that sense a valuable instruc-
tional response.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, ther-
mal energy can only spontaneously flow in one direction,
from an object at relatively higher temperature to an ob-
ject at relatively lower temperature. Although Donna and
Mark do not explicitly mention spontaneous heat flow,
their notion of heat flowing from warmer to colder ob-
jects without any kind of agent seems to imply spontane-
ity. In any case, they are correct in referring to this law
when they talk about the heat transfer from the relatively
colder compartment inside a refrigerator to the refriger-
ant, and from the refrigerant into the relatively hotter en-
vironment.
Also, it is a valid approach to the thinking about en-
ergy dynamics in refrigerators, to start out considering
the actual physical parts of the refrigerator that one can
see/feel: The coils inside a refrigerator take up heat from
a finger if touched, the moisture on the skin freezes, the
finger is "stuck" to the coils. Similarly, the skin of the fin-
ger gets warm if the coils in the back of the refrigerator
are touched, since heat is transferred from the refrigerant
to the finger.
Making more meaning of Victoria’s answer
As mentioned above, Donna and Mark do not elicit
further elaborations on Victoria’s idea, and they do not
acknowledge her repeated attempts to explain herself.
However, although Victoria said that she didn’t have a
meaningful answer (line 2), we were already able to
identify her idea of energy going from cold to hot in
a refrigerator. In this section, we analyze gestures and
prosody to provide additional meaning to her response.
In addition to her verbal utterances, Victoria’s gestures
also illustrate her idea. When she says "make the inside,"
(line 11) Victoria uses her left hand to perform a repeated
grasping gesture in front of her. The words "much colder
than the outside" (line 11) are accompanied by releasing
gestures to the right of her body that looks like she is
dropping something or throwing it away. It seems like
the grasping gesture illustrates taking out thermal energy
from the colder inside (which is located in front of her)
and the releasing gesture shows giving off the picked up
thermal energy into the warmer outside (which is located
to the right front of her body).
Victoria’s gestures seem to communicate her thinking
about the mechanism by which the inside of the refriger-
ator is being made "much colder than the outside." This
supports her idea that something has to do work to move
thermal energy from the cold (inside) to the hot (outside).
This idea is valid. Macroscopically speaking, thermal
energy flows from cold to hot in a refrigerator; that is
the unique thermodynamic property of the device. The
heat flow from cold to hot is not a spontaneous process.
Something - in household refrigerators, an electric motor
- has to do work in order to make it happen. [10]
The intonation of her statement, "I know the energy
flows from the cold to the hot" (line 2) suggests that
she strongly believes in her idea. The word "know" is
prolonged, and the intonation contour resembles the pat-
tern "rise-fall-rise" (Fig. 1), similar to somebody saying
"duh" (Fig. 2). [11]
The length of the word draws attention to it. It seems
to be the most important word in the sentence. Also, the
complex pitch contour suggests importance and stress of
this word. This, combined with the fact that the into-
nation is so similar to the typical pitch contour of the
word "duh," suggests that Victoria believes that she re-
ally knows that the "energy flows from the cold to the
hot," and that this statement is so obvious that Donna
and Mark would be foolish not to believe it.
FIGURE 1. Intonation contour of Victoria’s utterance of
"know." Graph created using [12]
FIGURE 2. Intonation contour of "duh." Audio sample
downloaded from merriam-webster.com, graph created using
[12]205
Had Mark and Donna attended to all modes of the
ongoing communication, they might have been better
able to recognize the quality of Victoria’s statement, and
react accordingly. Victoria’s idea is physically accurate.
Further elicitation of the reasons behind her commitment
might have helped Donna and Mark to better understand
her idea and see the value in it.
CONCLUSION
We have found elements of proximal formative assess-
ment in the discourse among three teachers in a profes-
sional development environment. The three steps, elic-
itation of ideas, assessment, and response are not only
carried out by instructors in formal classroom environ-
ments, but also in the peer discourse of teachers.
Our analysis of the video recording of Donna, Mark,
and Victoria has illustrated how the hasty and maybe
inappropriate judgment of an idea can lead to a rather
corrective attempt of teaching a different idea.
Using multimodal analysis we were able to recon-
struct a more complex picture of Victoria’s thinking than
Donna and Mark were able to. We paid attention not only
to Victoria’s verbal utterances (transcript), but also her
gestures and her prosody. She firmly believes in her idea
that something has to take out thermal energy from the
colder compartment and release it into the hotter envi-
ronment, and therefore energy flows from cold to hot in
a refrigerator.
Both ideas are completely valid and appropriate. Rec-
onciling the microscopic and macroscopic view of en-
ergy flow is a crucial step in understanding how refriger-
ators work. Since a collaborative effort to construct un-
derstanding was prevented, a learning opportunity was
missed.
We think that it is an important part of proximal forma-
tive assessment to attend to all modes of communication
and reserve judgment on a learner’s idea until the idea
is well understood and its strengths and weaknesses are
known. We suggest that exploration of a learner’s com-
mitment to an idea can be a valuable source of informa-
tion. It may have the benefit of allowing for better eval-
uation of the learner’s idea and helping to find a more
appropriate response.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to the participants and instructors of
the Energy Project summer professional development
courses 2010 at SPU for letting us in on their thinking.
We would also like to thank Virginia Flood and Adam
Kaczynski (both University of Maine) for helpful and
productive discussions during the analysis.
REFERENCES
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Assessment of Student Learning,” in Evidence and
Decision Making, edited by P. Moss, Blackwell
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S. B. McKagan, “Using the Algebra Project Method to
Regiment Discourse in an Energy Course for Teachers,”
in Physics Education Research Conference 2010, edited
by C. Singh, M. Sabella, and S. Rebello, 2010, vol. 1289
of AIP Conference Proceedings, pp. 9–12.
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Scherr, “Energy in Action: The Construction of Physics
Ideas in Multiple Modes,” in Physics Education Research
Conference 2010, edited by C. Singh, M. Sabella,
and S. Rebello, 2010, vol. 1289 of AIP Conference
Proceedings, pp. 105–108.
6. R. E. Scherr, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 4, 010101
(2008).
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Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2005, chap. 15, pp.
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Addison Wesley Longman, San Francisco, California,
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Copyright of AIP Conference Proceedings is the property of American Institute of Physics and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.


Elements of Proximal Formative Assessment in Learners’ Discourse about Energy

SJSU ScholarWorks

San Jose State UniversitySJSU ScholarWorksFaculty Publications Physics and AstronomyJanuary 2012Elements of Proximal Formative Assessment inLearners’ Discourse about EnergyBenedikt W. HarrerUniversity of Maine - Main, benedikt.harrer@sjsu.eduRachel E. ScherrSeattle Pacific UniversityMichael C. WittmannUniversity of Maine - MainHunter G. CloseTexas State University - San MarcosBrian W. FrankMiddle Tennessee State UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/physics_astron_pubPart of the Physics Commons, and the Science and Mathematics Education CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Physics and Astronomy at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion inFaculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@sjsu.edu.Recommended CitationBenedikt W. Harrer, Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, Hunter G. Close, and Brian W. Frank. "Elements of Proximal FormativeAssessment in Learners’ Discourse about Energy" AIP Conference Proceedings (2012): 203-206.Elements of Proximal Formative Assessment in Learners’Discourse about EnergyBenedikt W. Harrer∗, Rachel E. Scherr†, Michael C. Wittmann∗, Hunter G. Close∗∗and Brian W. Frank‡∗Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469†Department of Physics, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA 98119∗∗Department of Physics, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666‡Department of Physics and Astronomy, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132Abstract. Proximal formative assessment, the just-in-time elicitation of students’ ideas that informs ongoing instruction,is usually associated with the instructor in a formal classroom setting. However, the elicitation, assessment, and subsequentinstruction that characterize proximal formative assessment are also seen in discourse among peers. We present a case in whichsecondary teachers in a professional development course at SPU are discussing energy flow in refrigerators. In this episode, apeer is invited to share her thinking (elicitation). Her idea that refrigerators move heat from a relatively cold compartment toa hotter environment is inappropriately judged as incorrect (assessment). The "instruction" (peer explanation) that follows isbased on the second law of thermodynamics, and acts as corrective rather than collaborative.Keywords: proximal formative assessment, energy, professional development, discoursePACS: 01.40.Fk, 01.40.jh, 01.40.E-INTRODUCTIONFormative assessment is the process of assessing stu-dents’ learning in order to inform ongoing instructionthat is supposed to help the students reach their learn-ing goals. In comparison to formal classroom assessmentactivities (quizzes, tests, homework, etc.) which can in-form instruction on a day-to-day basis, proximal forma-tive assessment [1] refers to informal [2], interaction-embedded [3] practices of formative assessment that helpthe teacher to productively structure the learning environ-ment in the moment.The term proximal formative assessment was intro-duced by Erickson [1] to mean any actions a teachermight take in order to find "locally available evidence ofstudent learning." These actions lead to the just-in-timeelicitation of a student’s idea, the evaluation and assess-ment of this idea, and an immediate response (e.g. aninstructional piece) that helps the student further developher understanding.In this paper, we argue that elements of proximal for-mative assessment can also be seen in discourse amongteachers in a professional development environment.Tapping into these already existing resources could be ofvalue for future implementations of teacher professionaldevelopment concerning proximal formative assessment.We take a closer look at the case of three secondaryteachers (pseudonyms Donna, Mark and Victoria) duringan initial discussion about energy dynamics in a refriger-ator. The teachers worked together in a group during asummer professional development course at Seattle Pa-cific University. The course was offered as part of theEnergy Project, a professional development and physicseducation research program for the teaching and learningof energy [4].DATA AND METHODOLOGYThe three teachers in our episode had already spent muchtime thinking about energy in simple situations like ahand pushing a box across a floor or an oscillating carton a spring.At the beginning of the instructional session surround-ing the episode, the instructors introduce a new, morecomplex scenario. The teachers are supposed to find outabout the energy dynamics in a refrigerator, starting outwith what they already know about refrigerators from ev-eryday experience.In order to understand learners’ ideas and arguments ingroup settings, we benefit from attending not only to thewords spoken, but also to other communicative channelslike prosody (rhythm and tone of speech) and gestures.[5, 6]We use a microethnographic approach to analyzeDonna’s, Mark’s and Victoria’s talk and bodily action[7], with video recordings as our primary data sources[8]. In a detailed moment-by-moment analysis of a 1.5-min episode of their video-recorded interaction, we willidentify the teachers’ ideas, show evidence for their com-2011 Physics Education Research ConferenceAIP Conf. Proc. 1413, 203-206 (2012); doi: 10.1063/1.3680030©   2012 American Institute of Physics 978-0-7354-0990-3/$30.00203mitments to these ideas, and show how this interactioncontains elements of proximal formative assessment.ELEMENTS OF PROXIMALFORMATIVE ASSESSMENTElicitation: "What are you thinking?"Donna and Mark had started thinking about the energydynamics in a refrigerator from the inside. Donna hadpointed out that there are coils on the inside of therefrigerator, and another set of (hot) coils in the back.In the minutes before our episode, Mark had explainedthat there is a liquid inside the coils that circulatesthrough them. According to Mark, thermal energy flowsfrom the contents of the inside compartment of the re-frigerator into the liquid in the coils. The liquid moves tothe back of the refrigerator where the heat flows from theliquid into the environment. Mark’s physically accurateexplanation of the mechanism for this is that the inside ofthe refrigerator has to be at a higher temperature than theliquid, whereas the liquid has to be hotter than the envi-ronment. The thermal energy "always has to go from hotto cold." Donna had agreed to this statement of Mark’s.Their conversation lasts several minutes, during whichVictoria is silent. When Donna and Mark seem to reacha "dead end" in their discussion, Donna tries to directlyelicit Victoria’s thinking by inviting her to share her ideaswith the group: "Victoria, what are you thinking?" (Table1, line 1)Victoria responds that she doesn’t think her answeris meaningful, but that in her opinion, the energy flowsfrom cold to hot (line 2). In the further discourse betweenthe three teachers (lines 3-11), Victoria elaborates on heridea. From the transcript, we can infer that she thinksthermal energy flows from cold to hot in a refrigerator.The heat flow from cold to hot is not a spontaneousprocess. Electrical energy has to be spent in order tomake it happen (line 8).Assessment: "Wait..."Although Victoria starts to explain her idea duringher first statement (line 2), Mark cuts her off and says"Wait..." maybe realizing that her idea is different fromhis and Donna’s.This realization seems similar to the result of anassessment: The student’s idea was compared to theteacher’s idea, the classroom standard or learning goal.Mark’s assessment of Victoria’s idea seems to be com-pleted after line 3: He does not elicit or acknowledge fur-ther explanations. Our microanalysis of Victoria’s utter-TABLE 1. Verbal transcript of the video episode1 Donna: Does that... Victoria, what are you think-ing?2 Victoria: Umm... I am thinking that I don’t havea meaningful answer. So, I know the en-ergy flows from the cold to the hot. Andthis happened just because...3 Mark: Wait...4 Victoria: Yeah5 Mark: No, (Donna: No) energy always goesfrom hot to cold (Donna together withMark: ...to cold).6 Victoria: There is... Inside of the refrigerator, it’scolder than outside.7 Mark: Yes.8 Victoria: So, somehow, you spend energy, right?The electrical energy, to make, uhm, ther-mal energy to go from the cold to the hot.9 Victoria: Which apparently doesn’t make anysense, but this, if I would ask my stu-dents, this is what they are going to... toknow.10 Mark: Yeah, I mean I think...11 Victoria: If it’s really warm outside, then you’llhear the refrigerator just working hardto make the inside much colder than theoutside.12 Mark: Right.13 Donna: Yeah.14 Victoria: OK.15 Donna: But it’s not because energy flows fromcold to hot (Victoria: No, no.). It’s be-cause it’s hot to cold.16 Victoria: But...ances in a later section will show that her idea is correctand appropriate.However, Mark and Donna, who had previously estab-lished their commitment to the idea that thermal energyalways goes from hot to cold (see above), react nega-tively to Victoria’s statement: they shake their heads inunison and repeatedly say "no." These actions, as well astheir definitive and complacent intonation of their ideaabout the direction of heat flow,1 give evidence of theirassessment of Victoria’s idea.1 The pitch contour of Mark’s statement can be categorized into the"Low Drop" tone group in the system of O’Connor and Arnold [9].Statements associated with this tone group generally sound definite andcomplete. Since Mark emphasizes the first syllable of the word "en-ergy," his statement contains a "head," which suggests that it carriesstrength and power. According to O’Connor and Arnold, "This powermay lend itself to utterances of a categoric, weighty, judicial, consid-ered kind." [9] pg. 48; emphases in the original.204Response: "No, energy always goes fromhot to cold."After hearing Victoria’s initial statement of her ideaand comparing it to their own, Donna and Mark shaketheir heads in disagreement and Mark states that "en-ergy always goes from hot to cold," which is repeated byDonna later on. Mark and Donna’s statement has muchscientific merit and is in that sense a valuable instruc-tional response.According to the second law of thermodynamics, ther-mal energy can only spontaneously flow in one direction,from an object at relatively higher temperature to an ob-ject at relatively lower temperature. Although Donna andMark do not explicitly mention spontaneous heat flow,their notion of heat flowing from warmer to colder ob-jects without any kind of agent seems to imply spontane-ity. In any case, they are correct in referring to this lawwhen they talk about the heat transfer from the relativelycolder compartment inside a refrigerator to the refriger-ant, and from the refrigerant into the relatively hotter en-vironment.Also, it is a valid approach to the thinking about en-ergy dynamics in refrigerators, to start out consideringthe actual physical parts of the refrigerator that one cansee/feel: The coils inside a refrigerator take up heat froma finger if touched, the moisture on the skin freezes, thefinger is "stuck" to the coils. Similarly, the skin of the fin-ger gets warm if the coils in the back of the refrigeratorare touched, since heat is transferred from the refrigerantto the finger.Making more meaning of Victoria’s answerAs mentioned above, Donna and Mark do not elicitfurther elaborations on Victoria’s idea, and they do notacknowledge her repeated attempts to explain herself.However, although Victoria said that she didn’t have ameaningful answer (line 2), we were already able toidentify her idea of energy going from cold to hot ina refrigerator. In this section, we analyze gestures andprosody to provide additional meaning to her response.In addition to her verbal utterances, Victoria’s gesturesalso illustrate her idea. When she says "make the inside,"(line 11) Victoria uses her left hand to perform a repeatedgrasping gesture in front of her. The words "much colderthan the outside" (line 11) are accompanied by releasinggestures to the right of her body that looks like she isdropping something or throwing it away. It seems likethe grasping gesture illustrates taking out thermal energyfrom the colder inside (which is located in front of her)and the releasing gesture shows giving off the picked upthermal energy into the warmer outside (which is locatedto the right front of her body).Victoria’s gestures seem to communicate her thinkingabout the mechanism by which the inside of the refriger-ator is being made "much colder than the outside." Thissupports her idea that something has to do work to movethermal energy from the cold (inside) to the hot (outside).This idea is valid. Macroscopically speaking, thermalenergy flows from cold to hot in a refrigerator; that isthe unique thermodynamic property of the device. Theheat flow from cold to hot is not a spontaneous process.Something - in household refrigerators, an electric motor- has to do work in order to make it happen. [10]The intonation of her statement, "I know the energyflows from the cold to the hot" (line 2) suggests thatshe strongly believes in her idea. The word "know" isprolonged, and the intonation contour resembles the pat-tern "rise-fall-rise" (Fig. 1), similar to somebody saying"duh" (Fig. 2). [11]The length of the word draws attention to it. It seemsto be the most important word in the sentence. Also, thecomplex pitch contour suggests importance and stress ofthis word. This, combined with the fact that the into-nation is so similar to the typical pitch contour of theword "duh," suggests that Victoria believes that she re-ally knows that the "energy flows from the cold to thehot," and that this statement is so obvious that Donnaand Mark would be foolish not to believe it.FIGURE 1. Intonation contour of Victoria’s utterance of"know." Graph created using [12]FIGURE 2. Intonation contour of "duh." Audio sampledownloaded from merriam-webster.com, graph created using[12]205Had Mark and Donna attended to all modes of theongoing communication, they might have been betterable to recognize the quality of Victoria’s statement, andreact accordingly. Victoria’s idea is physically accurate.Further elicitation of the reasons behind her commitmentmight have helped Donna and Mark to better understandher idea and see the value in it.CONCLUSIONWe have found elements of proximal formative assess-ment in the discourse among three teachers in a profes-sional development environment. The three steps, elic-itation of ideas, assessment, and response are not onlycarried out by instructors in formal classroom environ-ments, but also in the peer discourse of teachers.Our analysis of the video recording of Donna, Mark,and Victoria has illustrated how the hasty and maybeinappropriate judgment of an idea can lead to a rathercorrective attempt of teaching a different idea.Using multimodal analysis we were able to recon-struct a more complex picture of Victoria’s thinking thanDonna and Mark were able to. We paid attention not onlyto Victoria’s verbal utterances (transcript), but also hergestures and her prosody. She firmly believes in her ideathat something has to take out thermal energy from thecolder compartment and release it into the hotter envi-ronment, and therefore energy flows from cold to hot ina refrigerator.Both ideas are completely valid and appropriate. Rec-onciling the microscopic and macroscopic view of en-ergy flow is a crucial step in understanding how refriger-ators work. Since a collaborative effort to construct un-derstanding was prevented, a learning opportunity wasmissed.We think that it is an important part of proximal forma-tive assessment to attend to all modes of communicationand reserve judgment on a learner’s idea until the ideais well understood and its strengths and weaknesses areknown. We suggest that exploration of a learner’s com-mitment to an idea can be a valuable source of informa-tion. It may have the benefit of allowing for better eval-uation of the learner’s idea and helping to find a moreappropriate response.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe are grateful to the participants and instructors ofthe Energy Project summer professional developmentcourses 2010 at SPU for letting us in on their thinking.We would also like to thank Virginia Flood and AdamKaczynski (both University of Maine) for helpful andproductive discussions during the analysis.REFERENCES1. F. Erickson, “Some Thoughts on "Proximal" FormativeAssessment of Student Learning,” in Evidence andDecision Making, edited by P. Moss, BlackwellPublishing, Malden, MA, 2007, vol. 106 of NationalSociety for the Study of Education yearbook, pp. 186–216.2. M. A. Ruiz-Primo, and E. M. Furtak, Journal of Researchin Science Teaching 44, 57–84 (2007).3. R. P. Durán, Review of Research in Education 32, 292–327(2008).4. H. G. Close, L. S. DeWater, E. W. Close, R. E. Scherr, andS. B. McKagan, “Using the Algebra Project Method toRegiment Discourse in an Energy Course for Teachers,”in Physics Education Research Conference 2010, editedby C. Singh, M. Sabella, and S. Rebello, 2010, vol. 1289of AIP Conference Proceedings, pp. 9–12.5. E. W. Close, H. G. Close, S. B. McKagan, and R. E.Scherr, “Energy in Action: The Construction of PhysicsIdeas in Multiple Modes,” in Physics Education ResearchConference 2010, edited by C. Singh, M. Sabella,and S. Rebello, 2010, vol. 1289 of AIP ConferenceProceedings, pp. 105–108.6. R. E. Scherr, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 4, 010101(2008).7. J. Streeck, and S. Mehus, “Microethnography: The Studyof Practices,” in Handbook of Language and SocialInteraction, edited by K. L. Fitch, and R. E. Sanders,Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2005, chap. 15, pp.381–404.8. B. Jordan, and A. Henderson, The Journal of the LearningSciences 4, 39–103 (1995).9. J. D. O’Connor, and G. F. Arnold, Intonation of ColloquialEnglish, Longman Group Ltd., London, 1973, 2nd edn.10. D. V. Schroeder, Introduction to Thermal Physics,Addison Wesley Longman, San Francisco, California,2000.11. N. Constant, English rise-fall-rise: A study in thesemantics and pragmatics of intonation (2006), URLhttp://www.yikes.com/~noah/thesis/Constant_RFR.pdf, unpublished Masters Thesis.12. P. Boersma, and D. Weenink, Praat: doing phoneticsby computer [computer program] (2011), URLhttp://www.praat.org/, version 5.2.25.206Copyright of AIP Conference Proceedings is the property of American Institute of Physics and its content maynot be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express writtenpermission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

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Elements of Proximal Formative Assessment in Learners’ Discourse about Energy

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