Feed Up, Feed Back, Feed ForwardThis is a great assessment strategy because it gives teachers the freedom to assess and improve their teaching all at the same time. You are able to continually give students a purpose, see what they are learning, and also improve your teaching while you are mid-lesson rather than trying to fill in the holes once the unit is over.
- From an article "Feed Up, Feedback, and Feed Forward" by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey- |
"This assessment focuses on the ongoing information that is transmitted between teacher and student throughout the unit."
- Hattie and Timperly
Popsicle Stick Student SelectionWrite every student on a Popsicle stick so that you can truly randomize student selection. This way you do not shy away from choosing certain students that do not voluntarily offer to answer questions because they need practice too. You can also allow other students to draw out volunteers.
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~Make Learning Meaningful~
Making Their Own MeaningIf students can come up with something to help their brain remember what you are teaching them, allow them to do so. For example, this student made the density formula into a heart with a line through it.
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Utilize MneumonicsAllow students to create meaning to whatever they are trying to remember by allowing them to come up with their own mnemonic device. This gives students a chance to remember things in a way that will work for their brain as well as allow them to be creative during the process.
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Topic IntroductionYou can put an object in a bag and have a student come and make blind observations about the object as a way to introduce a topic. For example if you were starting a unit on magnetism you could place a magnet in the bag. Make sure that you create rules that only adjectives can be used to describe the object, so that the rest of the class can guess what it is. Once a few guesses have been made, resist telling them what the object is until the next day.
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Utilizing a Word BankWord banks focus student attention to what you want them to focus on, and it also allows you see if they know what the most essential words mean. It also helps when designing a rubric because you have a defined exactly you want the students to discuss, leaving no room for confusion.
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Instruct a Small Group to Tell the Whole GroupIf you have a room full of students working but need to add more instructions, call something such as "the person in each group with the smallest pinky, seat four, etc. Instruct that small group of students so the rest can continue working and have that small group relay the message to their small groups.
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Successful Student ExampleGiving your students the opportunity to hear from a student their own age who has recently embarked on a similar endeavor is priceless. By showing them someone who was successful, it encourages students to believe that they are capable of completing the task they have been assigned. It also gives them an example to follow.
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Ongoing Vocabulary TrailAs students stumble across words related, add them to vocabulary list, and review the thought process every time a new term is added to the trail.
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Team RolesStudents are given specific jobs to do during group work so that you can control what goes on and minimize bickering among the students over who is going to get materials. It also reduces the amount of time you spend answering the same question because one student is the only one that can answer so the group has to ask that person before they can ask you and they will know the answer if someone has already asked it.
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Determining Allotted Class TimeIn EVERYTHING you give your students, do it yourself first, and time how long it takes. If you struggle to complete the task, do not ask your students to complete it. If you can complete it and believe they can as well, multiply your time by three, and that's how long you should give them. Remember it's always better to not allow enough time, because you can always add more, but you do not want to give too much because bored students lead to rowdy students.
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Prize BoxWhen students are successful, having a small treat is always going to get them motivated. You can use them randomly whenever you feel a prize is deserved, but one instance where prizes would be appropriate is for the winning team of a review game.
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Great Thinkers BoxWhen students have questions that you may not have time to answer in that exact moment, have them write it down. Then you can place it in the box to revisit when you have more time to discuss the answer.
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Material DistributionGive each group a number and have materials already separated into bins so each table has to only grab their bin. This saves both time and frustration for you as a teacher because it takes a single trip and they will not forget anything.
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Creating A SetupAlso, allow students to set up the experiment on their own. This will help them retain what they are learning because they have to come up with it themselves. Then you can always tell the students what the best set up was after everyone has shared, but until then, let them figure it out.
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Show and Tell
STRATEGIES TO BUILD UPON
-PART TWO-
"You are only going to be limited by
by your creativity and effort!"
-Dr. Thomas
1. Listen to others 2. Add your own ideas 3. Be positive 4. Only discuss the project
Create a Design BriefThere will be times that you will find a very neat engineering task for students to complete. However, often times these projects are very bland and they do not have any purpose behind them. However, if you take ten minutes to rewrite these projects in a way to make it interesting for students, they will become more excited and engaged with their work becuase they will have a purpose outside of it simply being another assignment.
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~Giving Students A Voice~
Offer Choices on the Activity
Give the students a chance to decide what activity they do, and be prepared to teach both that day. You do not even have to tell them the two activities, it could be something completely random such as visit an amusement park or save the villagers. Simply allowing students the opportunity to have a say in their education will be important to them.
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Did They Meet the Challenge?
Sometimes there will be an instance where a group may be right on the line of meeting the challenge or not meeting the challenge. In this instance, a group had created padding on the inside of their cups, and they succeeded in the challenge. However, one student asked if the padding was considered a restraint. Rather than making an executive decision, he allowed us to ask questions in order to determine whether or not we, as a class, would accept that they met the challenge. Eventually we asked him to flip the cups over and the ping pong balls still would not fall in which case the class decided to differentiate between the terms restraint and padding.
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This was what happened after the restraints were removed.
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How should we proceed?After ever first trial, the class will participate in a redesign. During this process, students may want to change the process or they may have questions that may not have applied during the first desgin. For example, during the WaterWorks project, our class wandered if we were allowed to receive all new materials or if we were required to improvise with what we had. We also asked if we were allowed to use some of the old design or if we were required to start completely over. In this instance, we voted as a class, but you could also nominate a "class king or queen" to make an executive decision for the group.
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~Transitioning from Design to Testing~
Hands off Zone
Prior to testing, require that students place their products in a hands-off zone called the design station. This will accomplish quite a few things. It will teach students that when you say three minutes left, you mean three minutes because any group that does not put their work on the station will be asked to refrain from that particular test run. It also prevents students from continuing to work on their projects while other groups are doing their trial run because they will be in a separate area away from the testing site.
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Time Limits
Assign a specific time frame for students to build their prototypes and stick to this time frame. Once time expires, give them a short 30 seconds to one minute to place their work in the design station. If they do not do so, they do not get to test their prototype during this testing. Not only will this teach students that when you say ten minutes, you mean ten minutes, but it will also teach them that managing their time and completing a task in a timely manner is a virtue that they need to learn. However, do make sure they know that they will be able to test next time, just not at this trial. Always give a second chance for them to redeem themselves. For example, my team was unable to test their raft the first trial because we did not make time.
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~Testing~
Failure to SuccessThere are many students that will run from failure. However, dealing with failure is an important skill for them to learn. If you can allow students the opportunity to move from failure to success, they will learn strategies to deal with it. This give them a chance to redeem themselves and embrace failure as a lesson rather than feeling worthless.
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Passing Along LinksIf students do not have devices, this will be difficult. However, if they do have devices, you can download free QR readers to get students where they need to be quickly and safely. If you give a student a long web address, they could easily mistype a letter and be somewhere they should not be.
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Intentional Questioning
"How does this connect to the content?" That is a huge question when you are designing a project for your students to complete, so as students are participating in creating and testing their prototypes, you can as them questions that draw there attention to the content you are studying. Some examples include: "What is inertia?" "Why did you include that in your system?" "What is potential energy and kinetic energy?" "Where is the potential and kinetic energy located on the pole?" "Why do the ping pong balls bounce out of the cups?" "What does it mean to have an equal but opposite reaction?"
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Challenge Your StudentsAsk pointed questions so that push students to verify that they know the right answer. If you only question them when they are wrong, they will learn that you only question them when they are wrong. However, if you question them when they are right and wrong, they will learn to stand up for themselves and be confident in their answers, even if they end up being wrong.
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~Learning With Toys~
Challenge Learning Centers
Students that are gifted and talented, or students that may blow through their work need something to engage their brains until the other students are finished so that you can avoid behavior problems. Implementing challenge learning centers around the room is a way to keep students engaged in educational activities rather than being disruptive or wasting time. In these centers, give students a defined goal and also various STEM toys to explore the topic at hand. When applicable, you can even ask them to collect data and place it into a class data sheet so that you can review what they learned and give a purpose to their exploration as well.
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Energy Transformations with Frogs
This is an example of a way you can implement not only STEM into student's free time, but you can also implement some Language Arts. When you give them a toy, ask them to explain what is happening by using specific terminology that could help you assess their progress through a unit or lesson.
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Hand BoilersHand boilers are a wonderful way to occupy students who have finished early. These devices contain a liquid with a very low boiling point, which allows it to boil when it comes into contact with your skin. Students will be able to occupy themselves with determining not only what is happening, but why it is occuring.
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~Turning Formative Assessments into Class Notes~
Challenge Your StudentsMany teachers tend to question their students when they know the student is incorrect or when they are almost correct. We tend to never question them when they are right. This causes students to be automatically discouraged when we question them. However, if we were to question them when they are right as much as we question when they are wrong, students will learn to be confident in their answers and not be discouraged when we question them.
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Daily ProblemsThere will be times when you need to give students the opportunity to explore a concept or even use up some time when you have a headache and need to give them something educational to do. For example, these two tasks took us almost an entire class period to do and while we were at it we were able to talk about how folds weaken the structure, and how cylinders are the strongest structure because the weight is able to be distributed more evenly.
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~Address Discrepent Events~
Why does the can implode when placed upside down in water?
Why is there more water after it implodes than before?
Why is there more water after it implodes than before?
*While the water inside the can begins to boil, the liquid turns to gas and begins pushing against the can walls trying to escape. When you flip the can upside down in the cold water, the gas inside cools down causing it to compress together. However, there is still air on the outside of the can exerting a force on the can, so when the air inside shrinks together, the force outside is greater which causes the can to implode on itself. There is also a force pushing down on the water, so when the pressure decreases within the can, it allows water to be pushed into the can.*
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This is a good activity to do around Groundhog's Day. You can use it to lead into the idea that when the air is coming from the North, the groundhog will see his shadow, which means winter is not quite over. However, when the air is coming from the South, clouds will be created and the groundhog will not see his shadow.
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Why does the paper go up when I blow over the top of it?
Why do I get sucked toward a semi when it passes me? When you blow over the top of a piece of paper, or a semi zooms past you on the highway, the air on that side of the paper or car is basically being blown away from the car or paper. However, there is air on the other side that is still exerting a force on the paper or the car. This causes the paper to move up because the force above it is no longer there keeping it stabilized. The same concept applies to the car because the semi carries the air with it while the air on the opposite side of the car is still exerting a force, causing the car to be pushed towards the passing semi.
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