Paula Roknick-Evans

HI

Wed, Jul 15, 2020 4:06 PM
An Engaging Kindergarten Unit on Forces and Motio

This article walks us through a kindergarten unit on forces and motion. The article is based on the idea of inspiring students to recognize forces and motion as part of their everyday life and take advantage of the opportunities to build on real world experiences to more complex and abstract math and science concepts. I appreciate how this unit integrates science and literacy in a seamless way and provides various opportunities to build academic vocabulary through scientific inquiry. Through the introduction, the exploration through inquiry section, which is the main component of the lesson, to the assessment and finally the culminating activity, it is easy to see how this unit can be modified to suit any kindergarten class. Included are references to nonfiction text as well as a graphic organizer for the exploration piece. This is a great resource unit for kindergarten teachers to use and I will recommend it to my colleagues this year.

Wed, Jul 15, 2020 4:00 PM
Formative Assessment Probes...nice ideas to begin

I like the idea of using formative assessment probes to understand students’ ideas in relation to the DCIs. These probes can also show conceptual difficulties that students have as they build toward more detailed and complex understandings in science. The book has 30 examples across subject areas that can be used with k-5 students. I like the structure of the book, as each section begins with an overview article and has an example of a “friendly talk assessment probe”. For pushes and pulls, it has five friends discussing forces and asks students which one they agree with. I can see this leading to rich dialogue with students and great insight into preconceptions about familiar words like push and pull, as well as misconceptions. In this example, students in upper grades still associated force with movement and a separate force that holds things in place. The follow up discusses how these assessments can be used to provide students with learning opportunities, in this case, chances to analyze force where motion is obvious, less obvious, and how forces act on objects at rest. I also like that the friendly talk assessment probes are provided and tie into various DCIs. It will be a great way to get students discussing a topic and gauging their understanding at the same time.