skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Supporting Alignments in Scientific Activity: Moving Across Question, Evidence, and Explanation
A core practice of science is planning and conducting investigations. This practice needs reconceptualizing, to account for where work happens between identifying a phenomenon and designing an investigation, and between gathering and analyzing data to support developing an explanation of that phenomenon (Manz et al., 2020). Teachers, supported by curriculum materials, need to engage students in becoming more involved in the decisions related to what data to choose as evidence, how to represent data to answer specific questions, and what conclusions can be drawn from data. We present results of a design study in which students investigated a dataset to answer a question about a major change to an ecosystem, using a technology tool, CODAP. We explore how the curriculum and teacher supported students in taking up different facets of data practices that support figuring out a phenomenon while moving between investigating and developing explanatory models.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2031468 2031459
PAR ID:
10541542
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Editor(s):
Blikstein, Paolo; Van_Aalst, Jan; Kizito, Rita; Brennan, Karen
Publisher / Repository:
International Society of the Learning Sciences
Date Published:
Page Range / eLocation ID:
321 to 328
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. This practitioner paper describes the Making Sense of Models (MSM) curriculum that bridges math and science learning through agent based modeling and rich computational thinking investigations that do not require teaching computer programming in middle school classrooms. The MSM curriculum supports students in the NGSS skill of reasoning about how and why a phenomenon happens. After developing decoding skills, students are able to assess the validity of a model based on comparing mechanisms in the model to what they learned about the phenomenon being modeled. The paper also describes how the MSM curriculum supports students’ ability to reason about scientific models and the real world. 
    more » « less
  2. A significant challenge physics faculty face teaching introductory labs is engaging students in authentic science practices. Another has been highlighted given the current global pandemic—how to engage students in our laboratory courses while maintaining appropriate social distancing and hygiene standards. We have chosen to answer these challenges by transforming our labs…twice. We discuss the rationale behind the first transformation to a practice-focused curriculum. In March 2020 we needed to transform our labs again, this time to accommodate online learning. This paper discusses two chief questions: “What are we doing to engage students in science practices?” and “How did we make all of this work online?” 
    more » « less
  3. As a core practice, teacher noticing of students' mathematical thinking is foundational to other teaching practices. Yet, this practice is difficult for preservice teachers (PSTs), particularly the component of interpreting students' thinking (e.g., Teuscher et al., 2017). We report on a study of our design of a specific approximation of teacher noticing task with the overarching goal of conceptualizing how to design approximations of practice that support PSTs' learning to notice student thinking in technology-mediated environments with a specific focus on interpreting students' mathematical thinking. Drawing on Grossman et al.'s (2009) Framework for Teaching Practice (i.e., pedagogies of practice), we provided decomposed opportunities for PSTs to engage with the practice of teacher noticing. We analyzed how our design choices led to different evidence of the PSTs' interpretations through professional development design study methods. Findings indicate that the PSTs frequently interpret what students understood. Yet, they were more challenged by interpreting what students did not yet understand. Furthermore, we found that providing lesson goals and asking the PSTs to respond to a prompt of deciding how to respond had the potential to elicit PSTs' interpretations of what the students did not yet understand. The study highlights the interplay between task design, prompt wording, and PSTs' interpretations, which emphasizes the complexity of developing teacher noticing 
    more » « less
  4. null (Ed.)
    Recent science education reforms, as described in the Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012), call for three-dimensional learning that engages students in scientific practices and the use of scientific lenses to learn science content. However, relatively little research at any grade level has focused on how students develop this kind of three-dimensional knowledge that includes crosscutting concepts. This paper aims to contribute to a growing knowledge base that describes how to engage students in three-dimensional learning by exploring to what extent elementary students represent the crosscutting concept systems and system models when engaged in the practice developing and using models as part of an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit. This paper answers the questions: How do students represent elements of crosscutting concepts in conceptual models of water systems? How do students’ representations of crosscutting concepts change related to different task-based scaffolds? To analyze students’ models, we developed and applied a descriptive coding scheme to describe how the students illustrated the flow of water. The results show important differences in how students represented system elements across models. Findings provide insight for the kinds of support that students might need in order to move towards the development of three-dimensional understandings of science content. 
    more » « less
  5. null (Ed.)
    This paper introduces project-based learning (PBL) features for developing technological, curricular, and pedagogical supports to engage students in computational thinking (CT) through modeling. CT is recognized as the collection of approaches that involve people in computational problem solving. CT supports students in deconstructing and reformulating a phenomenon such that it can be resolved using an information-processing agent (human or machine) to reach a scientifically appropriate explanation of a phenomenon. PBL allows students to learn by doing, to apply ideas, figure out how phenomena occur and solve challenging, compelling and complex problems. In doing so, students take part in authentic science practices similar to those of professionals in science or engineering, such as computational thinking. This paper includes 1) CT and its associated aspects, 2) The foundation of PBL, 3) PBL design features to support CT through modeling, and 4) a curriculum example and associated student models to illustrate how particular design features can be used for developing high school physical science materials, such as an evaporative cooling unit to promote the teaching and learning of CT. 
    more » « less