Kristin L. Gunckel

Addressing Challenges in Developing Learning Progressions For Environmental Science Literacy

In a world where human actions increasingly affect the natural systems on which all life depends, we need educated citizens who can participate in personal and public decisions about environmental issues. The effects of global warming have widereaching ramifications. No longer can policy decisions be made by a select few. For example, decisions about how to distribute water so that urban, agricultural, and natural ecosystems have adequate water supplies or about whether to tax carbon emissions require that citizens understand scientific arguments about the effects of their actions.

Mediators of a Preservice Teacher’s Use of the Inquiry-Application Instructional Model

This paper reports on one preservice teacher’s use of the Inquiry-Application Instructional Model (I-AIM) to plan and teach an instructional sequence on photosynthesis to 5th-grade students. Analysis of the preservice teacher’s planned and enacted instructional sequences and interviews shows that the preservice teacher was successful in leveraging the conceptual change but not the inquiry aspects of the I-AIM. The mediators of this preservice teacher’s use of the I-AIM included her approach to teaching science, the curriculum materials she had available, and the meanings she made of the underlying frameworks. Understanding the mediators of preservice teachers’ uses of instructional models can inform teacher educators’ approaches to supporting preservice teachers in using instructional models for organizing science instructional sequences.

Research-Based Geology and Paleontology Education for Elementary- and Secondary-School Students

Fifth and sixth graders at Hancock Field Station, Fossil, Oregon, participate in hands-on, long-term research projects designed to provide students with an understanding of scientific processes and concepts. Students participating in the Slanting Leaf Beds Project systematically collect paleobotanical specimens from a well bedded, lacustrine tuff in the Oligocene John Day Formation, Oregon, and, guided by field-station instructors, develop questions and hypotheses, collect and test data, and formulate conclusions. Working in pairs, the students sample an outcrop, determine the exact location of sampled fossils, and make tentative identifications. Group data are pooled and compared to data compiled by previous groups. The students then analyze the data collected and present their conclusions to a large group of their peers. The project provides students with hands-on experience, reveals basic geologic and paleontologic principles, exposes students to the scientific process, illustrates strengths and weakne...

Teachers’ use of learning progression-based formative assessment in water instruction

ABSTRACT While learning progressions (LPs) hold promise as instructional tools, researchers are still in the early stages of understanding how teachers use LPs in formative assessment practices. We report on a study that assessed teachers’ proficiency in using a LP for student ideas about hydrologic systems. Research questions were: (a) what were teachers’ levels of proficiency for using LP-based formative assessment practices and (b) how were teachers’ proficiencies evident in the use of these practices in their classrooms? Drawing on written assessments, item response theory was employed to assess proficiency in the practices of setting learning goals, interpreting student ideas, and responding to ideas with instruction. In addition, two case studies provided examples of how teachers used the practices. Most teachers adopted a didactic approach, emphasizing interpreting ideas as right or wrong and identifying goals and responses focused on transmission of factual science ideas. This study provides insights concerning how science teachers adopt LP-based formative assessment practices and can inform the design of professional development and curriculum materials to support teachers in enacting LP-based instruction.

Sustancias en el agua: progresiones de aprendizaje para diseñar intervenciones curriculares

Abstract In this article, we present a learning progression framework for connecting chemistry curriculum to student reasoning about substances mixing in water and moving through environmental systems. We argue that model-based understanding of solutions and suspensions is necessary for informed engagement in public debate about environmental issues. Curriculum and instruction that supports students in developing this model-based reasoning must be responsive to student ways of viewing the world and support students in developing more model-based perspectives. We present an evidence-based learning progression for substances in water and propose principles for curriculum design and teaching of general chemistry topics based on this learning progression that attends to student thinking. We contend that a focus on students’ meaning-making processes can inform the development and influence of chemistry knowledge in the public debate about water resources and environmental issues about water.

7 Reasons for Accommodating Transgender Students at School.

Schools have become ground zero for clashes over transgender rights, and critics are denouncing academic institutions — and more recently, the Obama administration — for supporting transgender students in their right to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. This article responds to the seven most common claims made by critics and explains why these arguments are problematic.