Recently, my district made a commitment to helping its teachers reflect and rethink their grading and assessment practices. One of the phrases I kept hearing throughout our staff professional development sessions was authentic assessment.
All too often teachers use POGIL activities as worksheets when the teacher is absent, busy work to review a topic, or handouts for homework. However, using the POGIL activities in this manner does not allow the students to reap all the benefits of the activity.
I attended a professional development session on NGSS by Brett Moulding and Nicole Paulson based on the book they wrote with Rodger Bybee, A Vision and Plan for Science Teaching and Learning.
One main focus of the NGSS is for students to communicate explanations describing the causes of phenomena they have investigated, accompanied with arguments that provide compelling reasons to accept the explanation.
In my class, I use the illustration of a mountain to help students push through the challenges of chemistry. Stoichiometry is the top of chemistry mountain.
A few years ago, I started volunteering at an elementary school’s science night. Those kids literally run from table to table to see and experience and do all kinds of different things from handling walking sticks from Madagascar to making bouncy balls from glue. Their enthusiasm and curiosity is contagious.
Something about Ben Mecheam's Blog, "Using Evidence to Determine the Correct Chemical Equation: a Stoichiometric Investigation" really got my interest.
