Author: Kent

Handouts are available below

Big Idea

I’m focusing more on using STEAM (that’s Science, Tech, Engineering, Art, and Math) with my classes this half of the year. And, here’s an assignment I did with my Grade 8 students recently where they had fun using STEAM to learn the characteristics of living things and predator/prey relationships for science and to learn machine learning and artificial intelligence for tech and engineering, percentages for math, and, for art, experiment with modifying images to try to fool the machine. It was all done using a free and simple online application called Teachable Machine

First, a bit of context: this STEAM assignment was part of a lesson I was teaching on the characteristics of living things – that is, how all living things use energy, reproduce, grow, produce waste, and respond to their environment. And, I wondered, can an artificially intelligent machine or program be considered living if it can respond to its environment, reproduce itself, etc. That’s when I found Teachable Machine. 

STEAM: Characteristics of Living Things x Artificial Intelligence

Go online, do a search for Teachable Machine and head to the website. Press the “get started” link. Select the image challenge and select the standard image model.

For my students’ assignment, I wanted them to each choose an animal from a list that I gave them and teach the machine to think like that animal. That meant that their machine should be able to identify whether an image would be that of a predator, a prey, or neither to their chosen animal. Click on the handouts to find the details I provided to students.

For example, I’m going to teach my machine to think like a raccoon. This will require that I (1) change the folder labels from Class 1 and Class 2 to Predator and Prey; (2) upload images of both predator and prey animals for a raccoon to the corresponding folders; and, (3) click the Train Model button, which will teach the machine to identify any future images I present as either predator or prey – based on what has been placed into the folders.

Now,  when future images are uploaded, the machine will identify the percentage it believes the image is a predator and the percentage it believes the image is a prey.

After this is all done, I get students to download a copy of their work as a file – and yes, you can do that – and email it to me so I can assess and test their programs. I also get students to modify images of both predator and prey animals and give these images to the machine to Preview to see what modifications would be needed to turn a prey image into a predator or vice versa. Or, you could also black out an image and gradually reveal it to see what minimum information would be needed for the machine to correctly classify something as predator or prey.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Ep43 Handout – Teachable Machine Assignment

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Handouts are available below

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Here’s a bellringer or ice breaker and takes between 5 and 15 minutes while getting 3 tasks done: gets people talking, gets people to formulate an argument, and gets people to consider bias. So, whether this is something you want to do on the 1st day after a long break or on the last day before a long break – when kids are getting wily – or any time in between, this ice breaker works great. And it’s just one simple question: “Is this a sandwich?”

First, some context: I recently spoke with the English Department Head at my school as to how she teaches bias because I’m trying to incorporate more liberal arts in my STEAM lessons. And, since teaching bias is something in the science curriculum, decided to speak to the English Department head. During our conversation, she told me about this ice breaker, which she does with her students and, recently, I did with mine. And, I’ve tried it with my Science 9 and Science 10 students and they all have a good debate.

CER Ice Breaker: Is this a Sandwich, Soup or Salad?

Imagine all foods are classified under 3 categories: sandwich, soup, or salad. Then, present students with different food items and get them to classify them. For example, I’ve shown students a picture of a cheeseburger and asked them, is this a sandwich, soup, or salad? For their answer, I get students to also practice using CER to craft an argument. Most students would argue a cheeseburger is a sandwich because a cheeseburger has two pieces of bread with a meat patty, cheese, and other fillers between those pieces of bread. By definition, students would say, a sandwich is just two pieces of bread with filling between them.

Then, I present something else like, for example, the following items found in our staff refrigerator: chips and salsa and I ask, “Is this a sandwich, soup, or salad?” Some people may argue it’s a salad because salsa is just a bunch of veggies mixed together and the chip can be the crouton. But, could it be considered a sandwich if I used the salsa as filling between two chips? Could salsa be considered a soup if it’s extra watery (and the chip, therefore, is just the crackers that go along with the soup? You can do this with other foods like pizza, lasagna, etc – the possibilities are limitless.

And, how do we tie it back to bias? Well, how you classify chips and salsa depends on what you’ve been exposed to. And, that’s part of what forms our biases. If we’ve always seen super wet, watery, pasty salsa, we might argue that chips and salsa is a soup. If we’ve always seen fresh, diced veggies tossed together to make a salsa, then we’d say that salsa is a salad.

And if we extrapolate this to science, there is bias in our experiments too. If we only ever sample a small population for our studies, then our results will always be biased towards that population. In fact, all experiments have bias in them – it just depends on how much is present and what its influence is. I get students to discuss bias in experimental design in a case study I give them. You can find this case study in my handouts.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Ep42 Handout – Is This a Sandwich?

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Handouts are available below

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What’s the best pro-d you had in 2022? Today, I want to share the best pro-d I’ve had this year regarding assessment – specifically, standards based assessment. And, this was all done without hiring an expert or speaker or quietly sitting through another workshop. However, you will need the company of a few colleagues. Long story short, the best pro-d regarding assessment I had this year had my colleagues and I discussing case studies, marking assignments and tests together, and sharing and discussing our resources.

3 Activities to do for Pro-D on Assessment

Number 1:  Discuss case studies. Here’s one we discussed on our last pro-d day:

“James is in your class and he’s missed a lot of classes this term. As a result, James has numerous missing assignments and tests this term. Furthermore, many of his absences are unexcused. If James shows up at the end of the term and demonstrates his learning on the alternate, “make-up” assignments created by you, would you assess James as “Proficient” or “Extending” this term for his curricular standards? Why?”

The case study above is based on something we’ve all probably experienced as science teachers – a student coming in at the end of term, scrambling to get marks in, and that’s what’s so great about case studies because they’re authentic and we’ve all had our own ways of dealing with those same issues which makes for great discussion and learning. I’ve come up with some more science focused ones in our handouts below.

Number 2:  Mark something together. For example, with my department, I gave colleagues a copy of a student’s final exam – the written portion – and asked colleagues to mark each response using a 4 point proficiency scale from emerging, developing, proficient, and extending. Turns out, we didn’t all agree that number 6 was a proficient response or number 2 was a developing one. However, we were within one level of each other, which good enough because the point of this exercise is to show whether or not we are similar in what we’re looking for in a response. If I say a response is an extending response while another colleague says it’s a proficient one, then that’s all good – we’re close enough. However, if I say a response is an extending response while another colleague says it’s a developing one, then that’s something we should discuss and hash out.

Number 3:  Share and discuss sample work. During our last meeting during our pro-d day, I asked department members to bring two different tests or assignments that were used to assess two different science standards. One colleague brought a test and talked about how the extended response questions were used to assess application, while another colleague shared a project that was also used to assess application. And, I shared a project as well and how it assessed application too. What’s interesting is how we assess application through such different contexts and real examples. What does extending or proficient look like on an extended response question or in my project or my colleague’s project? That’s something that could definitely push my practice forward.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Standards Based Assessment Case Studies in Science Ed.

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Handouts are available below

Big Idea

How do you assess work habits? It sounds like a simple thing to do – we think we know good work habits when we see it – but what does it look like? Today, I’m sharing some things my colleagues have shared on how I can improve assessing work habits. Long story short, I can use work habit rubrics, provide different ways for students to demonstrate work habits, and conference with individual students to better understand what success looks like for them.

Strategies in Assessing Work Habits

Number 1: Use a rubric to assess work habits. Below is one from a high school in BC. The rubric shows that work habits include attendance and punctuality, preparedness, responsibility, and initiative and it goes further to explain what good, satisfactory, and needs improvement would look like for each category. I would be responsible for letting my students know about this rubric at the beginning of term so they know what I’m looking for. One colleague suggested I develop a work habits rubric with my classes instead of using one that is already pre-made. This would do double duty: let students know what is being assessed in work habits while also giving students voice as to what should be assessed.

Number 2: Give a greater diversity of practices students can do to demonstrate work habits. For example, an English teacher at my school has students come in during flex time to get help with and work on essay drafts. This colleague counts this as work habits because it demonstrates ownership of work and an interest to put in the work to improve. This could translate into my science class with regards to the engineering and design projects I give students. For example, right now, some of my students are working on a bath bombs project – where they’re tinkering with the formulations to achieve a specific result. In the same way as my colleague who teaches English, I could open up my room during flex time to allow students to work on or get help with their bath bomb formulations too before the project is due. This is not something that I would traditionally be able to measure if I were just checking for completion of assignments.

Number 3: Conference with students to reevaluate what success looks like to each student. A colleague who works in the special ed program mentioned that, for some kids, getting to school is a huge win. Perhaps, that can be recognized in their work habit. Thus, in my mind, I’m seeing that work habits are flexible – they can be evaluated against a rubric, but also adapted for individual cases. But, this would need me to know the student, what they’re struggling with, and what they’re doing to overcome it.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Work Habits Rubric – Burnaby North Secondary

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Handouts are available below

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In my last post, I spoke about how I’m using Standards Based Assessment (or SBA) with my classes. Thanks to Kirstin Laird-Osterhout on Facebook, who posted “Thanks! Any tips for a district that still uses letter grades and percentages?” Today, I’m sharing how I’m using SBA with my Physics 11 and 12 classes while still reporting a letter grade and percentage for each student. Long story short, I’ve had to change the weighting system I use for grades, use my professional judgment to develop a scale that converts proficiencies to percentages, and conference with students more regularly.

Converting Standards Based Assessment to Percentages

Number 1: Change traditional grade or mark distribution from tests and assignments to proficiency in standards. For example, for my Physics 12 class, before SBA, student mark distribution was based on 20% labs and assignments and 80% tests and quizzes. Now, with SBA, student mark distribution is weighted equally across the 5 standards (process and analyze, communication, evaluation, apply and innovate, question and predict). By giving equal weight to all the standards, I am saying that all aspects – like scientific thinking, planning and conducting experiments, communicating scientific ideas using words, etc. – are equally important in Physics and not just the calculations or a handful of other things that appear on tests.

Number 2: Use professional judgment to develop a conversion scale that converts proficiencies in standards to percentages. For me, at the end of term, I give an overall proficiency for each standard. Then, I look over all the standards and convert this to a percentage. To me, a student who is proficient across all standards is a high B student (approximately 84%). A student who is extending in all areas is a high A (approximately 98%) student. A student who is developing across all areas is a high C+ student (approximately 70%). For students who are in between (for example, have some proficient and some extending), they would be a low to mid- A student (between 88% to 94%).

Number 3: Conference with students regularly when doing SBA. Conferencing allows me to clarify to students how they can improve to progress to the next proficiency level. Conferencing also allows students to reflect upon their own learning. For example, I’ve had students write a reflection for me at the end of term about their own learning – where they’re strong, where they’ve improved, and where they need to continue to work on. I also ask students to write down what percentage they feel they’ve achieved based on the proficiency scales and my conversion tables. And if I’ve done a good job communicating throughout the term about proficiencies and what to demonstrate at each level, students should be able to come up with a percentage on their own that is pretty close to what I would have assigned for them.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Proficiencies to Percentages – Sample Conversions

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Handouts are available below

Big Idea

I’ve been doing standards based assessment – also known as standards based grading – with my classes for the past 4 years. Today, I want to share a few things I’ve learned in doing Standards Based Assessment (or SBA, for short). Long story short, SBA has changed my practice for the better and it’s because it’s made what I do in my practice more intentional and more explicit and it’s given students more opportunities to practice science skills.

Things I Learned Doing Standards-Based Assessment

Number 1: I need to be more intentional with how I assess students. For example, how do my tests assess science standards? And, how many test questions do I need to ask before I can say a student is developing or proficient or extending? One thing I started doing was reformatting my tests so that I categorized questions by the standard or skill I was assessing. Looking back on my tests forced me to review the questions I asked, to take out the ones that didn’t assess standards, and to create some new questions that did.

As a result, my tests are now shorter and more efficient. Before SBA, my tests generally had 20 to 30 multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions. Now, I have roughly 7 to 9 questions per test.

Number 2: I need to be more explicit with my rubrics. I use a lot of rubrics to assess extended response questions and assignments, and I need to constantly make clear to myself and students what students should be able to demonstrate at an emerging, developing, proficient, or extending proficiency level. For example, the BC ministry of education says that a student who is proficient can provide a complete response to a questions while a student who is extending can provide a sophisticated response. But, what’s the difference between a complete, proficient answer and a sophisticated, extending one? What does that look like? When I started doing SBA with my classes, I had to invest time into defining and redefining my rubrics and then communicating these to my students. But, once I ironed it all out, students had a better understanding of how to get from proficient to extending because the differences were now made clearer.

Number #3: I need to set up more opportunities for students to practice using the rubrics. This means that if I’m going to have a question on a test that has students write a prediction, then I’m going to need to give students an opportunity to write a prediction and evaluate it against the rubric I’m using. 

An awesome benefit to this practice is that it makes it easier for me to mark test questions because both my students and I know what to look for in a developing, proficient or extending response.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Starting Your Standards Based Assessment Journey

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Handouts are available below

Big Idea

Here’s another lab I’ve done with my students for the past few years that not only has them practice a useful lab skill – in this case, finding volume using water displacement – it also gets students to practice CER, which stands for Claim Evidence and Reasoning. This lab doesn’t need anything elaborate or complicated – all this lab needs is a ruler, a graduated cylinder, some cubes and prisms and, perhaps, an overflow can if you can get your hands on one.

The activity is made up of 1 big question I want students to investigate and answer: which way of measuring volume – direct measurement, water displacement, or overflow cans – gives the most accurate measurement and which one the least?

Activity: 3 Ways to Find Volume, Practice CER

Before the activity, I go over with students how to find the volume of regular shaped and irregular shaped objects using direct measurement and water displacement. I also show students how to use overflow cans, which is kind of fun if you can find them. An overflow can works similar to the water displacement method with a graduated cylinder. When setting up the overflow can, I first fill it up to the top and let water flow out the straw. When water stops flowing out, it’s ready to use. Now, when an item is dropped in, the volume of that object will cause the water level to rise and water will flow down the straw. I collect and measure the volume of water that overflowed, and this volume of water is equal to the volume of the object dropped in.

For the activity itself, students are given 3 or 4 regularly shaped objects and then asked to find the volume of the objects by using direct measurement, water displacement, and the overflow cans. I get students to fill out a table that looks like this. To answer the lab question, I get students to write a CER statement – complete with evidence and sound explanations. Students need to look at each measurement made for each object and consider which one is closest to the real volume. There is no one agreed upon answer. Some students say water displacement is most accurate because everything is contained in the cylinder, while others will say direct measurement is most accurate because you can make more precise measurements for each side. Some students say water displacement is least accurate because the water inside the graduated cylinder can splash out, while others say the overflow cans are least accurate because the droplets may not all drip down. The great thing is, there are many answers that can be made and we’re having students practice justifying their answers.

That’s how I’m doing it this year and it’s still a work in progress. How do you do it? Please email me a strategy or two – I’m interested to know. 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – Finding Volume and Practicing CER

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Handouts are available below

Big Idea

A great question will get students to connect and apply science in creative ways. I get a lot of positive feedback on my test questions, and since many teachers are having difficulty finding good extended response questions to use, in this post, I’m sharing 4 types of extended response questions I use on my tests so that you might make a few of your own.

Long story short, on my tests and quizzes, I use the following types of extended response questions: (1) the Competing theories question, (2) The Show and Tell question, (3) The Multiverse Question, and/or (4) The Analogous task question.

Type 1:  Competing Theories

In a competing theories question, students are given a theory and then asked if they agree or disagree with the theory. Or, they’re given 2 different theories explaining the same phenomenon and asked which one they agree with. Students need to tell me (a) whether they agree or disagree, (b) why they agree or disagree, and (c) to provide a counter example or an alternate explanation. Download the handout below for a sample Competing Theories question.

Type 2: Show and Tell

In a Show and tell question, students are asked to predict a trend. In their response, students need to first graph out their trend and then write a proper hypothesis statement that includes an If, then, because, and however statement.  Download the handout below for a sample Show and Tell question.

Type 3: Multiverse

In a Multiverse question, students are asked to solve a problem using what they’ve learned in class while following the rules of an alternate reality. In their response, students need to draw connections with what they learned in science class to the alternate reality. Download the handout below for a sample Multiverse question.

Type 4: Analogous Task

In an Analogous Task question, students perform a task that is similar to the idea or process behind a scientific tool or discovery we’ve addressed in class. In their response, students need to explain what they’ve created using scientific concepts covered in class. Download the handout below for a sample Analogous Task question.

That’s how I’m doing it this year and it’s still a work in progress. How do you do it? Please email me a strategy or two – I’m interested to know. 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – 4 Types of Extended Response

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Handouts are available below

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Building and testing paper airplanes is one of those simple activities I know many science teachers do to teach scientific method and that students of all ages can do. Today, I want to share what I’m doing with the paper airplane project with my students to get MORE out of them – more creativity and more opportunities for learning – because the paper airplane experiment is a great opportunity to use Design thinking and test things rapidly.

Long story short, to get more out of students on this project, I set limits to the project, make prototyping a requirement, and assess and assign marks to the process. Today, I want to share the 3 things I’m doing to teach CER (Claim Evidence Reasoning) this year. 

First: Set Limits to the Paper Airplane Activity

One way to get students to be more creative about their paper airplane projects is to set limits. Some of the limits I set are taken from the Red Bull Paper Airplane Competition, which include (1) folding a paper plane on the day of the competition with paper that I supply, (2) only folds are allowed – no glue, tape, or cuts are allowed, and (3) throwing the plane down a hallway and releasing the plane behind the starting line. These limits force students to be more creative with their designs – especially since they can’t tape or cut their planes, they’ll need to experiment with folds. And, students need to be more creative with their throwing – especially since the hallway has a low ceiling, students can’t just throw their planes like they would a baseball outdoors.

Next: Make Prototyping a Requirement

Another thing I do is require students to create and test multiple prototypes over two or three weeks. In Design Thinking, this is known as rapid prototyping. Through rapid prototyping, students really get to understand the problems with their planes and to develop a greater number of and better solutions to these problems. Having students make just one plane or giving students just one period or one day to complete the project is simply not enough time for students to do a deep dive into what makes a paper airplane fly far. We don’t want a student to make just any paper plane – which tends to happen if we just require one prototype. Requiring 3 or 4 prototypes gets students to try new ideas, fail at some of them, and learn from their failures.

Finally: Assess the Process

I assign marks to assess the process. For example, if I want students to make one prototype a week, I assess each of my students’ prototypes. I record how far the first prototype built on week 1 went and I compare that measurement to how far the 2nd prototype built in week 2 went. I assess or improvement. If there’s 25% improvement, students get an emerging mark (or 1 out of 4 if you’re using numbers), if there’s 50% improvement, then it’s developing, 75% is proficient, 100% is extending. This assessment prevents students from just constructing anything for their prototypes and requires them to put some real attention on their prototypes, which will only help make the final product better. I also require students to write a brief report for each prototype, and I assess the distance that their final paper planes travel. In all, I have at least 5 marks taken from this project, and those marks are directly related to science and engineering practices.

That’s how I’m doing it this year and it’s still a work in progress. How do you do it? Please email me a strategy or two – I’m interested to know. 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – Paper Airplane Activity

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