As physical distancing continues and we persist in teaching our chemistry classes online, it behooves us as teachers to spend some time considering how we can purposefully observe and decipher the written work that our students submit.
If you know your chemistry, you can figure out how the bubbles get busted!
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Upon noticing the substance of their students chemical thinking, a teacher may decide to advance their students' thinking toward a curricular aim. Here we will consider the ways in which teachers may decide to do so according to our formative assessment model of enactment. This model was derived from rigorous analysis of classroom videos of experienced science teachers (many of whom are chemistry teachers, most are teacher leaders in their school district) doing formative assessment activities with their students.1 Excellent science teachers have a broad repertoire and use all of these different kinds of teaching moves in different moments, depending on the in-the-moment purposes that teachers have which are shaped by knowing the specific students and the challenges they are facing at that moment, as well as in the context of the overall lesson purposes. Excellent teachers decide to advance their students' thinking when they intend to move students toward specific learning goals by developing students’ understanding using their own or others’ ideas. These advancing acts may be categorized as more directive or more responsive in nature.
Upon noticing the substance of their students chemical thinking, their teacher may decide to elicit further ideas from their students. In eliciting acts, the teacher seeks to find out more about what a student knows and thinks. Here we will consider the ways in which teachers may decide to do so according to our formative assessment model of enactment. This model was derived from rigorous analysis of classroom videos of experienced science teachers (many of whom are chemistry teachers, most are teacher leaders in their school district) doing formative assessment activities with their students.1 Excellent science teachers have a broad repertoire and use all of these different kinds of teaching moves in different moments, depending on the in-the-moment purposes that teachers have which are shaped by knowing the specific students and the challenges they are facing at that moment, as well as in the context of the overall lesson purposes.
Upon noticing the substance of their students' chemical thinking, a teacher may decide to either advance their students' thinking or to elicit further chemical thinking toward a curricular aim. Here we will consider the stances that teachers may take in their noticing and interpreting according to the formative assessment model of enactment. This model was derived from rigorous analysis of classroom videos of experienced science teachers (many of whom are chemistry teachers, most are teacher leaders in their school district) doing formative assessment activities with their students. Excellent science teachers have a broad repertoire and use all of these different kinds of teaching moves in different moments, depending on the in-the-moment purposes that teachers have which are shaped by knowing the specific students and the challenges they are facing at that moment, as well as in the context of the overall lesson purposes.
Formative assessments can be used in a multitude of classroom settings, for a variety of purposes. When teachers consider their ultimate purposes for delivering their formative assessments, they can enhance the impact that the formative assessments have on their students and their future decisions in the classroom. Formative assessments that teachers write have a range of accessibility and ability to reveal student thinking. Their effectiveness depends on the purpose that the teacher has set for administering the formative assessment. A formative assessment to determine if a student knows a right answer vs understands a concept would be designed quite differently.
The aim of the formative assessment enactment model is to offer a practical resource for teachers to support students’ sense making. The model was derived from rigorous analysis of classroom videos of experienced science teachers doing formative assessment activities with their students. The model offers a structure of how different kinds of teaching moves are enacted, as well as characterizes the overall structure of formative assessment that science teachers enact. Excellent science teachers have a broad repertoire and use all of these different kinds of teaching moves in different moments, depending on the in-the-moment purposes that teachers have which are shaped by knowing the specific students and the challenges they are facing at that moment, as well as in the context of the overall lesson purposes.
