Amelia Wenk Gotwals

Assessing Students’ Progressing Abilities To Construct Scientific Explanations

Learning science does not just consist of memorizing a body of facts; rather, the development of scientific knowledge is a dynamic endeavor that represents a complex interplay of content and scientific practices (National Research Council [NRC], 2007). While policy documents and standards of the 1990s listed content standards and practice standards (often called inquiry standards) separately (e.g., NRC, 1996), more recent standards and policy documents emphasize that science knowledge is a fusion of content and practices (NRC, 2011). Despite this shift, policy documents do not provide clear guidelines on how to guide students towards knowledge that is a fusion of content and practices (Songer, Kelcey, & Gotwals, 2009).

Supporting Kindergartners’ Science Talk in the Context of an Integrated Science and Disciplinary Literacy Curriculum

Given the growing evidence of limited attention to science, disciplinary literacy, and oral language in elementary classrooms serving low-income children, this study focused on designing and testing an integrated science and disciplinary language and literacy curriculum aligned with NGSS and CCSS ELA standards for kindergarten. We used design-based implementation research (DBIR) to create curriculum materials to support children’s science talk and conducted a quasi-experimental study to examine children’s (N = 147) oral language outcomes. Kindergartners receiving the curriculum outperformed children in business-as-usual kindergarten classrooms in their ability to make claims, give evidence-based supports, knowledge of receptive science vocabulary, and use of vocabulary in a science context. Findings indicate that with appropriate scaffolding and support, kindergartners can engage in sophisticated science talk and that integrated curriculum materials can impact young children’s science learning and science discourse.

It's 1000 Degrees in Here When I Teach: Providing Preservice Teachers with an Extended Opportunity to Approximate Ambitious Instruction.

Teacher educators have a challenging task of designing opportunities for preservice teachers (PSTs) to learn ambitious science teaching (AST). However, with limited time in methods courses and the complexities of AST, opportunities for PSTs to “try out” ambitious instruction are difficult to construct and analyze. To address this problem, we describe our enactment of a type of extended pedagogical rehearsal that we call “macroteaching” in a secondary science methods course. Framed as a design experiment, we codeveloped macroteaching with the PSTs during methods class, examining how we all learned about AST given the extended learning opportunity. The results of this study, including that PSTs are not afraid of the uncertainty about what students might say and do, suggest that extended rehearsals of AST provide PSTs and the course instructors with opportunities to advance their teaching and vision of the profession in a methods class.

Where are we now? Learning progressions and formative assessment

ABSTRACT In this commentary, I consider the three empirical studies in this special issue based on two main aspects: (a) the nature of the learning progressions and (b) what formative assessment practice(s) were investigated. Specifically, I describe differences among the learning progressions in terms of scope and grain size. I also identify three constellations of formative assessment practices and examine their investigation in the three studies. Finally, I consider implications of differences in the learning progressions for how teachers might use them for various formative assessment practices. Findings from the studies suggest that specific types of learning progressions, partnered with other supports like curricula and professional development, may encourage teachers to move from a stance of “diagnose and fix” toward a learning progression stance of “identify and use.”