Honing Diagnostic Practice Toward a New Model of

Honing Diagnostic Practice: Toward a New Model of Teacher Professional Preparation and Development Improving the Effectiveness of Teacher Diagnostic Skills and Tools Stamatis Vokos 1, Eleanor Close 1, Lane Seeley 1, Pamela Kraus 2 and Jim Minstrell 2 Hunter Close 1, Lezlie De. Water 1, 3, and Rachel Scherr 1, 4 2 Facet Innovations, LLC, Seattle Dept of Physics, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle 4 Physics Education Research Group, Dept of Physics, Univ of Maryland, College Park 1 Transformative Professional Development (Grades 5 -12) Implementing a Diagnostic Learning Environment We want teachers to: We facilitate the process through which teachers: Value development of rich content knowledge for themselves Value development of rich content knowledge for their students Recognize themselves as intelligent agents whose ideas merit careful attention and who can figure things out Recognize their students as intelligent agents whose ideas merit careful attention and who can figure things out Deepen their subject matter content knowledge, enrich their pedagogical content knowledge, broaden their curricular content knowledge, and hone their diagnostic skills Properties of Matter Heat and Temperature Particular Nature of Matter and Energy 3 Seattle Public Schools, Seattle Supported by NSF 0822342 and 0455796, the Boeing Co. , and the SPU Science Initiative Classroom Observations What do the teachers who succeed in developing an effective formative assessment practice actually do? What about the ones who are less successful? What do the teachers see themselves as trying to accomplish, and what forms of interaction with students do they believe will best serve those goals? What kinds of questions do teachers ask their students? What kinds of responses do they get? What contingent instruction do they deliver? What types of obstacles (real or perceived) do teachers encounter, which do not allow them to engage with students’ ideas? Web-delivered Formative Assessment Tools Example: Energy Foundational Scaffold: The Algebra Project Steps Energy Project Application Of Algebra Project Steps Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Physical Events/Begin with a trip Pictorial Representation/Modeling Intuitive Language/“People Talk” Structured Language/“Feature Talk” Symbolic Representation • Web-based (www. diagnoser. com) diagnostic classroom tools in: Properties of Matter, Heat and Temperature, Particular Nature of Matter, and Energy. • At the heart of the resources are sets of formative assessment probes, which are administered in openended or MC form to students during instruction. • Teachers receive real-time feedback that allows them to design contingent instruction. Outside trip–identify example of energy transfer Choose aspects of scenario to represent Discuss and depict on own terms Negotiate salient features of all energy transfers Represent energy transfers symbolically Use representations as a bridge for understanding content, reifying learner ideas, and implementing contingent instruction. Possible features of energy scenarios Negotiated features of energy scenarios Elementary tchrs Secondary tchrs o Form ² Form o System ² Source o Source ² Receiver o Receiver ² Path/Flow o Amount ² Evidence o Evidence Scaffolding consensus Embodying Energy: “Energy Theater” • A hand gives a quick shove to a box on a table. The box speeds up initially then slows down to a stop. • You are a chunk of energy. • Objects in the scenario correspond to locations on the floor. • As energy is transferred among objects, you move to different locations on the floor. • You indicate changes in your form in some way. Each half of the room creates two consensus “plays” – the one they just did and a variation (e. g. , stronger push, no friction, heavier box). “We will all start out orange (chemical), then we will all flip to green (kinetic) as we move. Then some of us will continue as green, and some will flip to red (thermal). ” The other team watches both variations and tries to guess the scenarios that are represented. Fun kinesthetic activity E N G A G I N G T H E Disciplined representational tool C U L T U R E , Each Diagnostic Unit (e. g. , Density Concepts) consists of – Learning Goals (from NSES and BSL) – Facet Cluster (i. e. , a grouping of productive and unproductive facets of student ideas) – Elicitation Questions (i. e. , pencil-and-paper questions that can be delivered to students to elicit their prior ideas about a subject) – A Developmental Lesson (i. e. , a conceptual story for instruction of a small set of concepts) – Diagnoser Question sets (i. e. , sets of MC and open-ended research-based formative assessment probes) – Prescriptive Activities (i. e. , instructional interventions for individual students or small groups, whose answers sets are consistent with specific problematic facets) C H A N G I N G T H E W O R L D.