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Abstract This study explores the role of unconventional forms of classroom assessments in expanding minoritized students' opportunities to learn (OTL) in high school physics classrooms. In this research + practice partnership project, high school physics teachers and researchers co‐designed a unit about momentum to expand minoritized students' meaningful OTL. Specifically, the unit was designed to (a) expand what it means to learn and be good at science using unconventional forms of assessment, (b) facilitate students to leverage everyday experiences, concerns, and home languages to do science, and (c) support teachers to facilitate meaningful dialogical interactions. The analysis focused on examining minoritized students' OTLs mediated by intentionally designed, curriculum‐embedded, unconventional forms of assessments. The participants were a total of 76 students in 11th or 12th grade. Data were gathered in the form of student assessment tasks, a science identity survey, and interviews. Data analysis entailed: (a) statistical analysis of student performance measured by conventional and unconventional assessments and (b) qualitative analysis of two Latinx students' experiences with the co‐designed curriculum and assessments. The findings suggest that the use of unconventional forms of curriculum‐embedded assessment can increase minoritized students' OTLifthe assessment facilitates minoritized students to personally and deeply relate themselves to academic tasks.
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“We need to step it up—We are basically the future”: Latinx young women co‐construct science storylines in high school chemistry
Abstract Researchers and practitioners in the United States increasingly promote phenomena‐based instruction in science that supports the development of a coherent storyline throughout the unit. Questions aboutwhois constructing the science storyline andhowstill remain. Employing a qualitative ethnographic case study approach, we explore how three Latinx female students authentically contribute in their high school chemistry class and change the science storyline originally developed by the teacher. Data include over 950 min of video recordings, student artifacts, and interviews collected from a unit about reaction rate, which was contextualized by students' experiences with a local wildfire. The analysis points to three instructional moves that appear to play an important role in shifting the collective storyline: connecting to Latinx students' personal concerns, moving across multiple figured worlds, and recognizing students' epistemological contributions. Implications for supporting minoritized students are discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1846227
- PAR ID:
- 10478547
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Research in Science Teaching
- Volume:
- 61
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0022-4308
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 873-904
- Size(s):
- p. 873-904
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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