Conceptual Diagnostic Tests

I recently read a few of Physics Teacher Frank Noschese’s “Action/Reaction” blog. A question was posed to him about How can you show a teacher who thinks he/she is meeting the standards that he/she is actually not? For me, this is ridiculous that a science teacher will stand his ground on this issue without firm evidence. Sometimes, I believe, that this evidence can come from student's grades but this is bias. Student's grades are based on the assessments that you believe fit the standards. The problem is that you do not know for sure if your assessments are valid or reliable. Good thing there are trained professionals doing just that.

Maybe the evidence is coming from standardized test designed by professionals to measure those select standards. These tests will have been proven to be valid and reliable when testing for the standards. With this evidence, I can more firmly believe that the teacher is doing his job. But there's one more problem with this evidence. What if the teacher is teaching to the test or the students can reason through a story problem with math skills and linguistic skills instead of actually understanding the concepts?

Frank Noschese mentioned that there exists Conceptual Diagnostic Tests for this reason. He states that, statistically, students far underperform on these tests as compared to what would be expected with other means of assessment. In other words, students can do well on classical tests and exams without knowing the concepts. Noschese suggests that taking this CDT as a pre and post test will show how much physics a student will actually understand and how well you taught it. When a teacher examines the data of poor performance, he/she will realize that something needs to change. This would be the best way to convince teachers who are long veterans that something needs to change.

Will I enact this? Hecks yeah I will. I will add it to my Evernote list of must do teaching practices.

Puzzles and Dragons

Educ 504 has once again provided me with a great teaching activity. This will be my modified version of the activity

Objective: Students will verbally communicate concrete observations and inferences to put together a 16 piece puzzle in a team of 2 units comprised of 2 students each. 

Themes: Observation. Communication. Teamwork. Critical Thinking. 

Materials: 

1. 2 tables or workstations to fit two people each. 
2. A picture
3. 4 students/players

Set up:

     Cut up the pictures as you would like (it can change depending on the objective). Place the pieces upside down or covered in an envelope on two tables. Set the chairs so that the units of 2 students will be facing away from each other. Take 4 volunteers and split them into the two units to sit at the tables. All other students will be observing and taking notes.

Rules:

1. The two units are to only look at the pieces in front of them. 
2. The two units are to only communicate verbally. 
3. Observers must be silent
4. Observers in no way can contribute to the activity of piecing together the puzzle. 
5. Time limit will be set at 10 minutes.

Discussion (for all students): 

What was the point of the activity?

(Players) What worked the best?

What kind of language was most helpful?

(Observers) What kind of language was written down as notes?

This will provide a segue into talking about observations versus inferences.

(There was no dragons in this post. Dragons are cool though. There might be a dragon on the picture. Who knows?)