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Elementary Science Notebooks:

Helping Teachers with Formative Assessment

Pamela R. Aschbacher

California Institute of Technology

This work is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (REC 0106994). Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author and

do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF.

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Why Science Notebooks?• Many science educators advocate integration of literacy

and science to “keep” science in elementary school.• Writing-to-learn literature supports the idea of writing to

support learning in the content areas.HOWEVER...

• Few guidelines exist on what science notebooks should contain & how to use them effectively (portfolios redux).

• Teachers, district science coordinators, administrators, and teacher educators are asking for help.

• Our collaborative research to systematically explore models and provide evidence of what works.

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Conceptual Framework

•Activities focused on learning goals not just content coverage

•NB contents (writing opportunities) should map to & reinforce scientific inquiry processes

•NBs for formative assessment & learning:– Provide help to teacher in judging student work

– Allow teacher to give feedback to Ss to improve learning & encourage their meta-cognitive skills

– Provide teacher information to revise instruction

•Empower teachers so they can continue w/o us

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Design

Part of large, complex 3-year study:• collaborative design research & • quasi-experimental design

12 teachers in 3 districts for 2 yrs (subset for this talk)

Y1=develop ideas with other teachersY2=baseline measures on 12 teachers and classesY3=PD + outcome measures

• Curriculum context: Hands-on inquiry unit on electric circuits @ grade 4

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Data Sources• Teachers (both experienced & novice)

– Unit content knowledge test (MC)– Teacher interviews & debriefing discussions– Student notebooks (FB, OTL)--10/class– Classroom observations

• Students (n=240 in 2 years, 24 classes)– Science notebooks (content knowledge & inquiry

process skills)– CAT6– (Other measures not discussed in this talk)

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Professional Development2 workshop days (before & during unit) &

3 after-school study group meetings

Information, hands-on practice, & discussion:• Content knowledge in unit• Explicit: “big ideas” & relationships between

ideas; key lessons & essential learning goals• Reasoning about data to make knowledge

claims supported by evidence • How notebook entries map to scientific inquiry• Assessing student work in notebooks &

providing feedback• Revisiting ideas, revising practice

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Notebook Rubrics • S’s conceptual understanding of simple, series, &

parallel circuits• T’s feedback to student; • S’s response to FB• Research question is on science content• Data quality -- drawings clear & labeled so are

meaningful• Data examples -- sufficient to make knowledge claim• Data organization -- to help develop claim• Claim relates to science content of unit• Claim answers or relates to research question• Evidence supports claim

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Teachers’ Formative Assessment Focus

• From ratings of student notebooks:– Frequency of FB to students

– Quality of FB to students

– Student response to FB

• From coding of teacher interviews– Consistency of FB to students

– Focus on student understanding > activities

– Refer to NBs for evidence of student understanding

– Use NB evidence to plan revisions to teaching

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Related Classroom Practices(from observations)

• Teacher is curious about student thinking vs uses responses to keep their attention or judge facts or procedure as right/wrong

• Questions posed are deep, open ended vs shallow, fill-in-the-blank

• T waits for S to explain vs cut off and/or finish for them (S doesn’t get to process her thoughts)

• Information exchange is clear, accurate, precise vs vague, too general to use, confusing

• NB entries seen as valuable to stimulate Ss’ thinking, look back to reflect, communicate vs just a task.

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T1 (med CK, lo FAF): chatters, not curious, cuts off student, tells the “answer”

• T: Why is it lighting this time? Let’s look on the floor because it probably fell down….I need you not to yell…So what has to happen for it to light?…

• S: You have to• T: Show me. What did you do? You guys just

did this, so tell me. Put it into words. • S: You have to put one wire around the• T: The side. One has to be on the bottom.

Good job. One has to be on the side. Write it down. Write it down. Did you guys get it?

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T2 (med CK, hi FAF): curious, lets student talk, clarifies

T: I see someone’s that did light up. (pins drawing next to previous one on board). Explain what you did, because you got yours to light.

S: We put the bulb on the bottom side of the battery and then we put it on the bottom side of the wire.

T: Ok, but was anything else touching?

S: (explains more)

T: So the bottom of the bulb was touching the battery, and a wire was touching the bulb and the other end of the battery? Interesting.

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Ss had better data quality when Ts had more content knowledge

(Data Quality ratings averaged over 4 lessons)

Content KnowledgeHI Med LO

25% of NBs = “hi” DQ ratings

28% (T2)

28%

20% 45%

23%

5%

25%

10% (T1)

25%

15%

3%

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Ss understood concepts better when Ts had CK & used formative assessment

KEY: LO MED HI NB CIRCUIT CONCEPT SCORES (C,S,P)

HI CK Med CK LO CK

CSP CSP (T2)

CSP

CSP CSP

CSP

CSP

CSP

CSP (T1)

CSP

CSP

CSP

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What Teachers Needed• Less is more; focus on learning> coverage• A curious, inquiry-approach to teaching

(formative assessment in disguise): what ARE those Ss thinking? What evidence shows they understand? How can I make it better?

• Knowledge of science content & unit (or teaching & FB will be wrong &/or nil)

• Knowledge of scientific inquiry process -- e.g. questions; systematic, organized & accurate; reason w/ data to develop knowledge claims.

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Challenges• Low priority for science in elementary school

• Little incentive for deep improvement in instruction (including formative assessment); little PD in science

• Curriculum inadequacies (e.g. lack: of clear learning goals, conceptual relationships, inquiry science process)

• Perceived student inability or “resistance” to deeper thinking & writing (“they don’t want to write”)

---> Limits teacher improvement in:

• content knowledge

• assessing Ss

• giving FB

• using “data” to revise practice