Magnet inquiry

In class we investigated what materials attract magnets. For the formative assessment we hypothesized which materials, including several metals, would break the magnetic pull between a magnet and a paper clip.

We then tested about 12 materials and only the piece of iron broke the pull between the clip and the magnet. We all clearly had misconceptions about what metals attract magnets. (Perhaps this is why I always feel so uninformed after I leave class.)

Then we discussed what other inquires we could conduct with magnets. Again we had several misconceptions about how magnetism works and how the magnetism can be transferred to other objects allowing them to become magnets.

For awhile the inquiry part seemed like a magic show. We were all wowed when the paper clip became a magnet and attracted another paper clip on its own. I think we were all inspired to ask additional questions and wanted to know more about how magnets work. After conducting the experiment I know I understand why magnets don’t always stick to certain appliances. I’m not sure what I thought before but I am sure that I did not realize that magnets are only attracted to certain metals. In fact I wanted to understand even more about how magnets are created. According to the ehow websites:

“Certain metals have a structure that allows their electrons to more easily line up and form a magnetic field. Iron, nickel, cobalt and gadolinium are the easiest to magnetize. Metals like aluminum and copper can be magnetized also, but the magnetic fields they produce are very weak. Oxides and alloys that have iron in them can also be magnetized easily, such as rust and steel. The more electrons in a metal that can be lined up, the stronger the magnetic field they produce.”

 
I think the inquiry-based lesson allowed us to see that what is learned during an inquiry lesson is more transferrable and therefore stays with us longer (hopefully). It also piques our interests and motivates us to use higher order thinking skills to think through the initial question and then create more questions about the topic we are investigating.

standards and learning goals

Standard/Benchmark:	Learning Goals: What students should know	Formative Assessment What do students already know?	Learning Performances: What do you want students to do to show they know?
Standard:  Magnets attract and repel each other.	·   Forces (magnetic) can act from a distance ·   Barriers and increased distance can vary the strength of a magnet	·         Students will estimate how far away they can move a magnet before a paper clip falls that is tied to string taped to the table. ·         Students brainstorm ideas to find out how strong the magnet is and what barriers will effect its strength.	·         In groups, students can create posters of their observations from the demonstration and include what barriers they used and the distance they tried to attract the paper clip. •          In journal, students will analyze how this demonstration proves that forces can act at a distance?

Core Curriculum

Ten years ago I was fully in support of local control and did not support state education standards. However, after watching my former high school graduate students that were ill prepared for college I changed my mind. I support a certain amount of standards to ensure that all students are at least exposed to a uniform and comprehensive curriculum.

The science core curriculum set by the Iowa State Board of Education establishes the essential concepts that are to be taught in Iowa schools. The language is fairly generic and leaves a lot of room for teachers to integrate the concepts into their lesson plans. I like that the curriculum clearly states the basics of what should be covered through Science as Enquiry, Earth and Space Sciences, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences.

What that said, looking over the curriculum I don’t know how or if all the concepts are being covered by Iowa schools. If you break down the physical sciences section of the 3^rd to 5^th grade curriculum, the State Board wants students to be taught about compounds, liquids, gases and solids, conservation of mass and matter, sound, light, electric currents, magnets, heat and motion. I am fairly sure that all these issues are not being covered, or if they are, not adequately. My 5^th grade daughter was in an Extended Learning Program with five other students when they discussed the laws of motion. Does having six students cover an issue count as fully addressing the curriculum?

What are the ramifications of not covering the curriculum, for the school or the teachers? What if you can’t adequately get it all in? I have heard it many times, high performing countries have text books that are an inch wide and a mile deep. American texts are a mile wide and an inch deep. Have we dug ourselves even wider with the Core Curriculum?

Formative Assessments

The probe provided our group the feedback we wanted. The probe indicated 48 percent of the students hold common misconceptions about what the definition of a dessert is. Forty-seven percent of the students anwers correctly, stating that the major defining attribute of a desert is that there is a lack of rainfall.

To make this a truly useful probe, we would want to ask more than one question. Although almost half of the students stated that deserts have very little rain, do they understand that all of Antarctica is a desert?

I would use the data to make sure we covered the misconceptions and the students fully understand what deserts are.  There is not enough information to allow students that got the answer right to skip the unit.

I liked using the probe but I think I need more practice writing questions. Often students are smart enough to guess the right answer but do not fully understand  the concept.

MOSART

I thought the MOSART videos were helpful in the sense we could see teachers teaching and where the breakdown in instruction occurred and the misconception continued. It was also useful to think though teaching strategies. The student in the photosynthesis video couldn’t get the concept that air has weight. In the video the instructor used an example of dry ice to show that carbon dioxide does have weight. In my classroom I won’t have access to dry ice, so I thought though how I would show that air does have weight and came up with an idea about helium balloons.

I had some of the misconception tests sent to my email and I reviewed them. I liked the questions and how they presented the answers. I feel that it is useful to see, on average how many students get the answers correct and what is the most common misconception.

However, the tests would only be useful in a jumping-off situation. Because the tests cover such a wide range of topics, I don’t think you would want to use the test at the beginning of the year as a pretest – many of the questions would not be relevant.  I think the tests are a effective guide on how to form your own questions and to be aware of some of the common misconceptions regarding scientific principles.

Formative Assessment Probes

Page Keeley, et. al., discuss formative assessment probes and using the information to modify curriculum, alter teaching, and provide feedback. By their definition, formative assessments are for learning, not assessments of learning.

The two parts of a probe are:

1. A prompt is given about familiar phenomenon and followed by a question that has students select from a set of likely student-held responses.
2. Students explain their thinking or explain the scientific rule they think explains their answer.

The authors consider the probes to be "enhanced selected response items." This way misconceptions are easy to detect. The lists of questions also help deteremine whether or not students are trasferring their learning from one context to another. Scientific phenomenon can be explained by certain rules and these rules often cut across different contexts. Also, using the probes can assess the learning by providing enough information “without putting ideas into students’ heads." This allows the teacher to make sure the students are thinking along the right line, or maybe highlight their misconception.

I think the idea of the probes is an interesting concept. In the excerpt we read, the authors elude to notes later in the reading that will help teachers decide how and when to use probes, link the ideas to standards, examine research that informed development of probes, and considered new teachings. I think I would have to read the later chapters to fully assess if I could accurately use probes as a formative assessment tool. I think I need more information about probes, I am not sure when to use them and if I am revealing what I want to be revealed. At this point I think my probes would look more like just another teacher asking questions rather than someone using a specifically developed probe for the purpose of directing instruction.

Sweater article

In “Teaching for Conceptual Change: Confronting Children’s Experience” the authors discuss students’ perceptions and how they shape their thinking. Children are constantly told to “put on your warm sweater, coat, hat, etc., it’s cold outside.” The students in Ms. O’Brien’s class reasoned that because sweater and hats are “warm” they produce heat.

After allowing her students to test their theories over a number of days, their thinking began to change – but it took a lot of experiments.  According to the authors, “if alterative views of scientific principles are not addressed, they can coexist with 'what the teacher told us', and create a mishmash of fact and fiction.” But how do we as teachers always know what the students are thinking? I think sometimes we are not aware of what we think until we are allowed to discuss and debate or hear someone else’s opinion. Sometimes I’m not sure what I believe, but I am sure what I don’t believe. I found it very interesting that the authors equated children’s behaviors with those of scientists – if results continue to disprove what they once thought they argue, cling to old theories and try to reinforce the traditional way of thinking.

I agree with the authors’ teaching ideas about overcoming misconceptions, however, I am still not sure how long you let students debate before stepping in and pointing them in the right directions. When my children ask me a question, I often turn the tables on them and ask them what they think. Depending on how much time I have, we discuss their ideas right or wrong, I give them hints, but I move on fairly quickly. Can I spend days debating their incorrect theories at the beginning of every unit and still get the entire curriculum covered?

One thing the authors made clear is that if misconceptions are not addressed students will never fully understand a concept or scientific phenomenon.

 

.