TfR Seminar: Session 13

1. TfR Seminar: Session 13 Evidence, Models, and Explanation

2. Do Now! (2 min) • Take out all session 13 Handouts, please! • Take out completed Handouts 12.8 and 12.9, the planning investigations strategy implementation planning and reflection sheets • Review your work in preparation for the discussion in your strategy discussion.

3. Session 13 Objectives • PRACTICE Least Invasive Behavior Classroom Management Strategies and Effective Engagement Strategies • ANALYZE the unifying concept of evidence, models, and explanation. • BUILD a continuum showing how the concept develops in the standards in each major discipline, noting where the related topics are introduced, developed, and mastered. • IDENTIFY common misconceptions and values about evidence, models, and explanation, hypothesize places within the curriculum where these misconceptions may have developed, and develop strategies for teaching content in a way that corrects the misconceptions. • EXAMINE and select effective strategies for teaching students to make inferences and communicate

4. Session Agenda

5. Strategy Implementation Pairs • Will and Laura • Chris and Ann Marie • Ashley and Adrianna • Jessica and Caitlin • Alison, and Travis • Michael and Blake

6. Strategy Debrief • (6minutes ) Meet with your strategy partner and follow the directions for the strategy debrief on Handout 13.1. • Remember you will be using all of the strategy planning and reflection work for an analysis during Session 15, so you should keep them all in an organized fashion.

7. Transition • As you try out new instructional strategies, it is essential that you evaluate them in the context of your students’ skills and learning goals. • Lets practice classroom management and demonstrate how we use models

8. Session Agenda

9. Least Invasive Intervention ( 3 min) Student misbehavior should be addressed directly and consistently using the least invasive form of intervention: • Nonverbal correction • Positive group correction • Anonymous individual correction • Private individual correction • Lightning-quick public correction

10. Practice Classroom Management Protocol • Review look for indicators • View Video, score on look for tool (11 min) • https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/new-teacher-classroom-management • Debrief video ( 3 min) • Assemble in groups of 6, role play teacher and students

11. Classroom Management (20 min) • Assign order of presentation.(teacher) • Each “student” draws a behavior card • This indicates the behavior they will role play during the presentation • Each “teacher” explains the model they brought to todays session (2 min) • 1 min debrief after each presentation • Repeat until all are done

12. Debrief Practice • What are your next steps? • How will your practice be impacted by this practice?

13. Transition • Next we will analyze the way the different disciplines treat scientific evidence, models, and explanation. • We will see how you can use models in yourclassrooms to help your students understand science concepts.

14. Session Agenda

15. Section 1: Overview of Unifying Concept: Evidence, Models, and Explanation • Take out Handout 13.2, which you read for homework, use your written notes on Handout 13.2 to review briefly the main points of the unifying concept evidence, models, and explanation. • Guiding Question: How do models help students to understand and explain the world and how it works? • ( 2 min) On Handout 13.3, describe two of the models which were presented in the last activity ( one should be yours).

16. Share Out (5 min) Use the chart on Handout 13.3 as a guide • Describe the model • What Type of model is it? • Which Standards and topics can the model be used to explain? • How can the model be used to teach students? • What Age- or developmental-specific modifications could we make? • What are the Limitations of the model?

17. Debrief ( 3 min) • How do models help students to understand and explain the world and how it works?

18. Transition • We will now experience using a model that represents the relative distances of the planets from the sun as a way to deepen understanding of the solar system. • As we participate in this activity, think about how this activity impacts your understanding of the concepts, and how it could impact your students’ understanding.

19. Models of Planetary Orbits in the Solar System • As you experience the model, you should consider how it would help students learn, along with adaptations for different grade levels, limitations, and so on. • Record your thoughts on Handout 13.3. • The model we will look at represents the orbital distances of the planets in the solar system, it combines different types of models: mathematical, interactive, and physical.

20. Assemble into groups ( 30 sec ) Groups • Will, Laura, Ashley and Travis ( Mercury, Venus and Earth) • Chris, Alison, Jessica and Michael (Mars, Saturn) • Ann Marie, Adrianna, Caitlin and Blake (Uranus, Neptune)

21. 2 Questions to Frame the Activity • These questions can help students begin thinking about the size of the solar system as well as methods of finding out about the size. ■ How big is the sun? ■ How do we know? Turn and Talk ( 1 min) Share out ( 3 min) Explain answers

22. Using the Model • Take out Handout 13.4. • Groups will work together to build a scale model of the planetary orbits in the solar system. • In your groups you will calculate a scale for the orbits of your assigned planets based on the Sun’s diameter, 1,391,900 km, being equivalent to 10 mm or .01 m. • Post your answers n the chart paper

23. Classroom Instruction • Read Step 2 • ( 1 min) Turn and Talk: discuss some ideas for classroom instruction • (2 min) Share Out

24. Construct the Model • As a class, mark where the planets are positioned based on the scaled chart they created. ■ Use a tape measure to make measurements. ■ Represent the different planets using markers, different colored tape, stickers, or paper with the planet names. ■ Have different groups mark the distances for certain planets. ■ All distances should originate from the same location.

25. Debrief • ( 4 min)Discuss your questions in your group and post your responses on chart paper • Handout 13.4 • Group 1 Question a • Group 2 Questions b and c • Group 3 Question d

26. Gallery Walk • ( 3 min) • 1 minute per poster • Use stickies • For questions or glows

27. Transition ■ Models allow students to understand scientific concepts visually, physically, and mathematically. ■ Secondary science teachers use different forms of models to build explanations. These models and explanations are more concrete at the lower grades and develop to a more abstract and theoretical level as students mature. ■ Different forms of models support understanding of different topics and concepts. • For example, topics that deal with structure require physical models, such as scale models of bridges or three-dimensional models of DNA, while topics that deal with calculations need mathematical models, such as those that represent forces or half-life. ■ In the next section, we will now evaluate the final unifying concept continuum for evidence, models, and explanation.

28. Session Agenda

29. Break Time! 6:25-6:35

30. Session Agenda

31. Take out Handout 13.7 • On the first page of Handout 13.7, note : • example on evidence and explanation • how it develops from a basic application of evidence in explanations to a more complex understanding and evaluation of different evidence that build compelling explanations. • In the next row, shaded, the examples of the planetary orbital scale model are shown, • first as a simple mathematical scale model in the middle school, • then as a more complex application of this scale model for high school. • Use the second page of Handout 13.7 for note-taking on the unifying concept.

32. Pair and Compare • Find a partner and compare the continuums that you both completed for homework ( 30 sec) • Discuss differences and revise until you have reached a Conesus on one continuum. (3 min) • Combine with 1 other pair and repeat the process until you have a single continuum for a group of 4. ( 3 min) • Post your final draft

33. Gallery Walk • Look at each poster ( 1min/each) • Summarize the development of the unifying concept across the grades in the areas for the process skills and models. • Volunteer share ( 3 min)

34. “Start, Continue, Stop,” Debrief • Debrief the continua for the unifying concept of evidence, models, and explanation within your groups using “start, continue, and stop” explained on Handout 13.9. • ( 2 min)Individually reflect on Your Next Steps • ( 2 min) Then share with a partner within your group one thing you will start doing, one thing you will continue doing, and one thing you will stop doing as a result of your new learning.

35. Misconceptions Connecting to Evidence and Explanations • Why is understanding students’ preconceptionsand preferred learning styles important? • Handout 13.10 lists common misconceptions that secondary science students may hold about models and science process skills related to evidence and explanation. ( 3 min) • Review this list and place a check mark next to the misconceptions that you have predominantly observed in your classrooms • And reflect on how you have helped students to understand concepts better.

36. Minds of Their Own, Lesson 2: Lessons from Thin Air: Why Are Some Ideas so Difficult? • Take out Handout 13.11, which you completed for homework • What were the student explanations for the mass of the mature tree? • What is the scientific explanation? • What are the sources of student misconceptions? • What classroom instruction did the teacher or interviewer provide to reveal and redirect misconceptions? • What other ideas do you have?

37. Redirecting misconceptions: • Students need to be effectively instructed in understanding the particulate properties of matter, including gases. • Show age-appropriate videos that explicitly visualize gases and their properties • Teachers can provide other hands-on/minds-on activities that allow students to understand photosynthesis as a chemical reaction that uses matter to produce other matter. • Teachers need to provide opportunities for students to connect different knowledge, concepts, and skills to other knowledge, concepts, and skills so they can develop sound scientific explanations.

38. Transition • Student understanding of evidence will influence how accurately they will formulate explanations of scientific concepts. • In the next section, participants will experience strategies to develop students’ abilities to make inferences from evidence and alternative explanations and to communicate their scientific arguments.

39. Session Agenda

40. Implementing Effective Strategies for Making Inferences and Communicating Scientific Arguments • While evidence, models, and explanation is a unifying concept, these three things are also critical components of the science process skills. • In science, students record data and drawings as they gather evidence of their experimentation. • They present models in the form of plans, diagrams, and equations in their science notebooks. • Students then use their evidence and models to make inferences and support their explanations.

41. Think and Write ( 1min) • What Challenges do your students face when drawing conclusions and discussing an experiment in a lab report. • Write those challenges on a sticky note and put it on the table in front of you.

42. Student challenges with explanations, conclusions, and discussion ofexperiments: Call out and Identify with • Students do not include the evidence in the explanation. • Students do not discuss patterns, trends, or anomalies in the data. • Student-written discussions are not connected to the problem/hypothesis of the experiment. • Students do not provide an explanation of their findings. • Students do not discuss any new ideas or questions encountered in the experiment. • Students have errors in their evidence and therefore come to incorrect conclusions.

43. Handout 13.12 • Using concrete and guiding questions to support students. • Volunteer read aloud the description in the box on the top of the handout. • Compare the two sets of questions for similarities and differences: concrete questions and guiding questions

44. Reassemble into Strategy Groups • ( 5 min) Discuss concrete questions and guiding questions and complete Handout 13.13.

45. Debrief ( 3 min) • What are the commonalities between the two sets of questions? • What elements are unique to the concrete questions? • What elements are unique to the guiding questions? • When and for what purpose would you use concrete questions with your students? • When and for what purpose would you use guiding questions?

46. Communicating Scientific Arguments with Lab Report Conclusions • Looking at a writing strategy using criteria charts and text analysis to help students to clarify the expectations for a piece of writing using examples. • Handout 13.14a • The criteria listed in the left column align to the rubric you have been using to score the lab reports. • Some details have been added here to make the criteria list for the conclusion more helpful as a guide to writing a conclusion.

47. Reviewing a student sample • Read the sample student lab report on Handout 13.14b. • Note any of the criteria on the list.

48. Think Aloud Modeling ( 3 min) • This is how a student might self- or peer-evaluate a conclusion to determine whether it has the needed elements or needs to be revised. • This is a model for how a teacher would conduct a think-aloud with secondary students. • Mark your own text and take notes on Handout 13.14a as the think-aloud is modeled.

49. Why Think Aloud? • Doing so demonstrates practical ways of approaching difficult problems and helps students to be metacognitive when engaging in complex thinking processes. • Effective teachers think aloud on a regular basis to model this process for students.

50. Making Application • How might you use the criteria chart in your classes to develop students’ abilities to communicate their scientific arguments? • How might you support students learning English with applying what they saw in the think-aloud to the process of analyzing their own or their peer’s conclusion?