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Page history last edited by brunsell 13 years, 5 months ago

Helping students create evidence-based explanations of scientific phenomena is at the core of effective science teaching. 

 

Stephanie and Tim Slater have began using a "Backward Faded Scaffolding" approach to science inquiry in their introductory astronomy courses at the University of Wyoming.  They carefully sequence their laboratory activities (using web-based data archives) so that students move from being carefully guided through the inquiry process to eventually developing their own research question related to the data set.  In a lab experience, students generally start by looking at a set of data and determining if it supports a given conclusion.  Then, they are given a specific procedure to collect data and asked to generate a conclusion. Next, they are given a questio and have to determine how they will collect data.  Finally, students are expected to generate their own question, collect data, and develop a conclusion.  I worked with a high school science teacher to integrate these activities into the astronomy portion of his 10th grade earth science class.  Students dramatically improved their post-test performance when compared to a control group (we are currently working on writing up these results for publication).  Examples of these activities can be found here: http://www.uwyo.edu/caper/ The approach that they use has potential across many science disciplines.

 

Victor Sampson and Jonathon Grooms at Florida State University have created a "Generate an Argument Instructional Model" (See The Science Teacher, summer 2010) that follow a similar premise.  This approach focuses on providing students with real-world data and having them develop an argument (or explanation) based on the data.  Their approach uses the following steps:

 

  1. Teacher Identifies the task, problem or question and develops the student directions.
  2. Student groups generate a tentative argument based on the data.
  3. Student groups create a poster to display their argument and reasoning.  You could even have your students use Glogster for this.  Students view and interact with other groups.
  4. After holding a whole class discussion, students individually summarize their argument and reasoning using a writing prompt.

 

Generate an Argument Solar System Example:

 

You can find a wide variety of online data sources here.

 

I found this resource during a #scichat event.  I think it is a great format for lab reports that mimic actual scientific journal articles.  I think it would be really cool to find a way to have students peer review each others journal articles (especially the methodology and conclusion) -- just like what scientists really do!

 

Comments (9)

Shannon Knodel said

at 8:17 pm on Jun 22, 2010

I came upon some great articles on scaffolding as I was doing my lit review for 505 this spring. I was so intrigued that I almost changed my capstone project plan. If I was still teaching high school, I probably would have thought about this idea further, but I currently am teaching 7th and 8th grade and thought it would be more difficult at this age level, even though I do as much inquiry based lessons as I can with them.

brunsell said

at 10:31 pm on Jun 22, 2010

I think the "Generate an ARgument" instruction model would be perfect for a capstone project in middle or high school!

Brandon Fritz said

at 11:44 am on Jul 3, 2010

I like your comment about using glogster to display these arguments! I tend to be a little critical of glogster due to the numerous headaches I experienced this last spring. This is a great way to use glogster. Also, wallwisher would be good for this activity on a smaller scale...maybe....
Brandon

brunsell said

at 10:23 am on Jul 4, 2010

Brandon, The data analysis project re global warming & Iowa data sounds great. I am looking forward to checking it out!

Bill Laufer said

at 8:18 pm on Jul 5, 2010

A great source of real historical chemistry data: http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/
I was exposed to this site in college and am now using Boyle's data to prove Boyle's Law but there are dozens or hundreds of samples of the historical data used by figures in the history of chemistry. Check out classic calculations or classic papers on the site.

Jennifer Sherburn said

at 8:35 am on Jul 6, 2010

Bill-Thanks for the great chemistry resource! So much data in one spot!!!

david buck said

at 12:38 pm on Jul 6, 2010

The backwards-faded scaffolding model is something I'm looking at for my capstone on generating higher order questions in science. This is another exciting model--at some point I need to stop seeing good things for a while so I can think about WHAT I'M TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH. Eventually it will come to me, I'm sure.

Shannon Knodel said

at 11:51 pm on Jul 6, 2010

After reading the materials for this week, I remembered an activity that I did this year to introduce my 7th graders to Evolution, without using the word "Evolution". The activity is from http://www.nclark.net/Evolution_Puzzle.doc and a lot of it follows the Instructional Model for generating an argument. I will tweek the activity some more next year so it follows it more closely.

Kelly Burke said

at 11:17 am on Jul 7, 2010

Thanks for the link Shannon, I think this would even be fun for our non-major bio students.

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