Process Skills Part III: Critical Thinking and the History of Science
As teachers we hear the words "critical thinking" over and over and over again. Its thrown around a lot especially when we talk about the rigor of the content that we teach and the ability of students to problem solve. However, we never really look at what critical thinking actually means. Most PD trainers will throw critical thinking into a jumble of ideas fostered by Blooms Taxonomy... You know, analyze, justify, evaluate, yada yada... But when you stop to ponder the word critical, the word critical means an analysis of a works merits or faults. That means kids should be evaluating and critiquing not only what they are learning but the process in which they learned it. The third section of your process standards is dedicated to students evaluating and critiquing scientific ideas, processes and evaluating those ideas in the context of scientists, scientific history and careers. It is the answer to the question, "Why do we have to learn this, why is it important? and because it provides meaning to why we should learn about science, this section is probably the most important part of your processes that you have to teach. Let's label the 3rd door or section "Critical Thinking and the History of Science" and let's roll up our sleeves and get started, because this is the part where kids are really going to have to think!
|
Knowledge and Skills 3 Can Be Broken into 4 Main Ideas...
As you can tell by all of these graphic organizers that I have created, I have an easier time remembering things if I find commonalities in the writing of the standards or common themes. Section 3 is no different. I think it's fair to say that there are some big ideas being presented in the areas of critical thinking and I like to divide them into the following categories: Validity, Replication, Accuracy and Application. The idea of validity in science is a powerful idea, it's actually the main idea behind the scientific method. It is so important, in fact, that this standard is repeated in basically the same language from grades 3-12 and it is always labeled as 3(A). Process Standard 3(B) and (C) usually focus on the use of models to represent the natural world and the accuracy of those models as well as the accuracy of product claims. The last section of 3 is based on the history of science and careers in science.
Section A: Critical Thinking... Is it Valid?
There is a huge process standard in the Texas Science Standards that is repeated in every grade level from 3rd grade to 12th grade and it has to do with critical thinking. The standard reads:
There is a huge process standard in the Texas Science Standards that is repeated in every grade level from 3rd grade to 12th grade and it has to do with critical thinking. The standard reads:
in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to encourage critical thinking by the student;
This is the standard that I think is most skipped in a Texas Science classroom and if we were to concentrate on doing just this standard alone, I think we would see the scores rise phenomenally. That is because it involves the process of critiquing ones own work and the work of others. The origins of how this standard appeared are political and can be a topic for my blog, but if you interpret this standard to mean that students are analyzing, evaluating and critiquing the scientific explanations that the students arrive to in the science classroom, this is a powerful tool to get the kids on the journey of becoming independent thinkers.
But how do we get students to the point where they are having academic discussions about their thinking and the thinking of others? We do it exactly how real scientists do it, we do it by allowing them to present their findings in class to their colleagues and then have a discussion about how the presentation of data and conclusion met the criteria of a rubric. You aren't going to find this opportunity in a worksheet, you will only find this opportunity in performance assessments!
The Horror: Writing Rubrics and Project Based Learning!
Now I'll be honest with you, when I was first in the classroom I wasn't too keen on the idea of writing a rubric for every assignment in class, in fact it seemed very time consuming not to mention the fact with everything that we have to teach, we don't have time to dilly dally and project based learning seems like it would take up a lot of time that we just don't have in the classroom. But now that I have worked with project based learning and have actually sat down and created rubrics I realize that because our standards are performance based (the student is suppose to "do" something) its a lot easier to write a rubric because the expectations are fairly clear. So give this idea a chance because in actuality it doesn't have to be hard if you know what to do and how to streamline it so that its easier for YOU to manage.
But how do we get students to the point where they are having academic discussions about their thinking and the thinking of others? We do it exactly how real scientists do it, we do it by allowing them to present their findings in class to their colleagues and then have a discussion about how the presentation of data and conclusion met the criteria of a rubric. You aren't going to find this opportunity in a worksheet, you will only find this opportunity in performance assessments!
The Horror: Writing Rubrics and Project Based Learning!
Now I'll be honest with you, when I was first in the classroom I wasn't too keen on the idea of writing a rubric for every assignment in class, in fact it seemed very time consuming not to mention the fact with everything that we have to teach, we don't have time to dilly dally and project based learning seems like it would take up a lot of time that we just don't have in the classroom. But now that I have worked with project based learning and have actually sat down and created rubrics I realize that because our standards are performance based (the student is suppose to "do" something) its a lot easier to write a rubric because the expectations are fairly clear. So give this idea a chance because in actuality it doesn't have to be hard if you know what to do and how to streamline it so that its easier for YOU to manage.
As Teachers with a Jammed Packed Curriculum, Time is NOT on your side:
I also have learned that doing a project doesn't have to be what it was when we were kids. Teachers pressed for time don't like projects because traditionally they take too long. Remember the old days where we teachers gave them weeks to do a project and had to hunt kids down and chunk their work to make sure they got it done, if at all? Most kids (including myself) waited until the very last minute to do the project. I think we give kids way too much time to do a project and the result is a lot of work for the teacher trying to make sure kids are performing. I figure its a 90/10 rule, 90% of time procrastinating, 10% time to do the actual project. This is especially the issue if you have kids working in groups. Most of the time during group work one or two kids take the project home to do because they are control freaks, and the slackers let them do it. |
|
The Tommy Lee Jones Rule:
So here is a rule of thumb so that you can accomplish 3(A), don't spend more than a class period or two on a project to report back upon. Either they know it or they don't know it so try to give the students less time than you think it will take to do a performance assessment and expand the time only if you need to. Think about the workshops that you go to where the presenter gives the group a task and then everyone reports back. Do that. You will find that in a time crunch the control freaks won't be able to get things done and will HAVE TO delegate work to the slackers. Its a beautiful thing. I call it the Tommy Lee Jones Rule because one kid ends up being Tommy Lee Jones in the Fugitive and delegates the work to the others so that the whole group gets things done on time.
You really only have to do one good project for each unit of study, so bundle those TEKS!
You don't have to create an individual performance based assessment for every content standard. Being a curriculum writer I can tell you that we usually bundle standards that fit well together. You can do the same thing when developing a performance assessment. Don't do performance assessments until the end of a unit of study so that you can combine several standards together into one project. This is how you build a performance assessment that has lots of stuff for your groups to do and will keep everyone busy and showing what they know. To get more activities for the group, focus on more than one standard, but hold everyone in the group accountable for all of the content during the presentation. In the 5 E model, this would be the "Elaborate" piece. With those hints in mind, here is the strategy:
So here is a rule of thumb so that you can accomplish 3(A), don't spend more than a class period or two on a project to report back upon. Either they know it or they don't know it so try to give the students less time than you think it will take to do a performance assessment and expand the time only if you need to. Think about the workshops that you go to where the presenter gives the group a task and then everyone reports back. Do that. You will find that in a time crunch the control freaks won't be able to get things done and will HAVE TO delegate work to the slackers. Its a beautiful thing. I call it the Tommy Lee Jones Rule because one kid ends up being Tommy Lee Jones in the Fugitive and delegates the work to the others so that the whole group gets things done on time.
You really only have to do one good project for each unit of study, so bundle those TEKS!
You don't have to create an individual performance based assessment for every content standard. Being a curriculum writer I can tell you that we usually bundle standards that fit well together. You can do the same thing when developing a performance assessment. Don't do performance assessments until the end of a unit of study so that you can combine several standards together into one project. This is how you build a performance assessment that has lots of stuff for your groups to do and will keep everyone busy and showing what they know. To get more activities for the group, focus on more than one standard, but hold everyone in the group accountable for all of the content during the presentation. In the 5 E model, this would be the "Elaborate" piece. With those hints in mind, here is the strategy:
So How Do You Write a Performance Based Rubric? Why Use Your TEKS Of Course!
Don't try to make this hard on yourself. If you look at the rubric up above, it is messy, it is hand written and it is completely aligned with content and process expectations for the 5th grade Science Standards! The rubric is more of a checklist than a grading rubric, and that is because it is serving the criteria of meeting a performance based standard rather than grading a project. This rubric is asking students to perform the following standards:
Content: 5.9 A-D, 5.10A-C (that is because the 6 categories of the chart asked for the students to describe the animal's environment including living and non living features, describe adaptations, an inherited trait and a learned behavior, life cycle, etc)
Process: 5.2D, (construct tables) 5.2 C (collect information) 5.2 F (communicate conclusions) AND 5.3A (critical thinking)
Bear in mind that we wouldn't ask kids to do this rubric when they are being introduced to content, but rather after they have learned a unit of study. You could definitely have them do this on their own, but I prefer to have them do this as a group. Because this is an "Elaborate" piece, it is not considered their formal assessment. This is a chance for kids to learn from each other and show what they know so far. It's a chance for you to discover if you need to reteach certain concepts, give kids a chance to practice using the vocabulary, and a chance for them to hear the content from more than one person or one resource. These types of performance indicators really give you a handle as to whether or not your kids understand the content you are teaching and if they know it deeply enough to justify their answers and have a discussion or critique about their learning. Here are some guidelines on how to create and use performance assessment rubrics:
Criteria for a Performance Assessment Rubric Checklist
Critiquing Science
Having students evaluate each other can be a powerful learning tool but it can also be a disaster if the atmosphere in your classroom is not safe. What we mean by that is that the students have to be willing to put themselves out there without a fear of getting attacked. Here are some ways to accomplish just that:
Discussions about Data Collections
Communicating your scientific ideas is super important in the science world, most of those ideas are conveyed through data collection. Some are easier to look at and draw conclusions from than others which is why part of your critique should revolve around organization of data and whether or not people can see patterns and arrive at a conclusion. Here's how:
After everyone has presented pull out just the data collections and compare them to one another. Discuss the following:
Problem Based Learning for Middle School and High School: Evaluation of Scientific Thought
Once kids get the hang of evaluating each others scientific projects you can move on to the meat and potatoes of 3A which is to evaluate all sides of the evidence in a scientific idea. You can do this by building a performance assessment based on Problem Based Learning. There is a big difference between project based and problem based learning in its design. Where project based learning is based on students performing a task (usually rooted in a content standard), problem based learning has students solving problems using the skills acquired from the learning. But the reason why Problem based learning is so much more aligned to process standard 3(A) is because within problem based learning students have to acknowledge the stakeholders of the problem and have to try to come up with a solution that benefits or at least acknowledges the stakeholders involved. Problem based learning requires an open ended question that has no right or wrong answer. This line of inquiry very much mimics the type of real world Science occurring throughout today and through scientific history. Scientists are constantly verifying each others discoveries to make sure they are correct. The rule here is to verify and to look at all sides of a situation. Problem based learning is also like real world science in that it encourages students to delve deep into their research to discover where they are getting their information from. Is there bias in the information they are collecting? Science is based upon fact. How do we discern between what is scientific and can be proven and what is slanted towards the advantage of the stakeholders? Here is an example that could be easily used in 5th Grade and up:
Engage: Question: Should logging happen on the Northwest Coast?
Students generate questions regarding the topic, then..
Students read articles for and against logging on the Northwest Coast of the United States
Explore: Students go through different stations to explore different topics such as
Elaborate: Students investigate cost effectiveness of using recycled paper verses regular paper at their campus
Evaluate: Students take a stand on the issue of logging on the Northwest Coast by creating a presentation video presenting their stand on the issue and how it would affect the stakeholders involved.
To see other examples of problem based learning lessons please visit the Browards County Public Schools STEM Resources page that gives lists of Problem Based Learning lessons that have been written for grades K-12:
http://stem.browardschools.com/science/science_general/pbl/
Now that we have critical thinking down, we still need to address the other pieces of Section 3 which have to do with models, product claims, Science careers and the history of science. If you are ready to move on, click on the button below:
Don't try to make this hard on yourself. If you look at the rubric up above, it is messy, it is hand written and it is completely aligned with content and process expectations for the 5th grade Science Standards! The rubric is more of a checklist than a grading rubric, and that is because it is serving the criteria of meeting a performance based standard rather than grading a project. This rubric is asking students to perform the following standards:
Content: 5.9 A-D, 5.10A-C (that is because the 6 categories of the chart asked for the students to describe the animal's environment including living and non living features, describe adaptations, an inherited trait and a learned behavior, life cycle, etc)
Process: 5.2D, (construct tables) 5.2 C (collect information) 5.2 F (communicate conclusions) AND 5.3A (critical thinking)
Bear in mind that we wouldn't ask kids to do this rubric when they are being introduced to content, but rather after they have learned a unit of study. You could definitely have them do this on their own, but I prefer to have them do this as a group. Because this is an "Elaborate" piece, it is not considered their formal assessment. This is a chance for kids to learn from each other and show what they know so far. It's a chance for you to discover if you need to reteach certain concepts, give kids a chance to practice using the vocabulary, and a chance for them to hear the content from more than one person or one resource. These types of performance indicators really give you a handle as to whether or not your kids understand the content you are teaching and if they know it deeply enough to justify their answers and have a discussion or critique about their learning. Here are some guidelines on how to create and use performance assessment rubrics:
Criteria for a Performance Assessment Rubric Checklist
- Choose content standards that work well together to construct the performance assessment. Make sure to use the precise "verbs" so that the students are performing the standards.
- Choose process standards that work well with the content. Not all content will allow for measurable or quantitative data collections, the data collection should make sense and be student produced and organized, for example, they can be observations, diagrams, video projects and the like.
- Add a category for creativity and design to your rubric to avoid getting cookie cutter responses, your over achievers and GT students will appreciate the ability to take it a step further. What we have noticed is that the more students understand a concept, the more creative they get with a project. This can give you some insights as to whether your kids are ready for a formal assessment.
- Reporting out is with a randomly chosen student from the group so that all students share in reporting, especially your special pops. One way to do this is to get your group leaders to groom all members for presentation time and to give time to rehearse with the chosen person before they present out. This gives the group a chance to reteach concepts to kids who aren't ready. Reporting out really helps your Special Ed and ELL students build confidence with language and concept development. You can also hold the whole group responsible for reporting a piece and have each person in the group present a randomly chosen part instead of the piece that they created.
- All reporting should involve the use of correct academic vocabulary usage, make it part of the rubric. You can even designate the vocabulary ahead of time to make sure they use the right words.
- Be clear about the time it will take to accomplish the tasks and assign less time than they will need and extend time if needed. Create a sense of urgency. Post a timer on the screen or use a physical timer to keep the students focused. Announce time remaining occasionally.
- Make sure you assign points or values to your criteria, if you know you have procrastinators or students who need more time to accomplish the task you can weigh the points so the kids know to accomplish the most important tasks first.
Critiquing Science
Having students evaluate each other can be a powerful learning tool but it can also be a disaster if the atmosphere in your classroom is not safe. What we mean by that is that the students have to be willing to put themselves out there without a fear of getting attacked. Here are some ways to accomplish just that:
- Letting students know that this type of assignment is informal and a way to "Show What You Know", allows kids to relax. Assure them that as the teacher you will make sure that they are judged in a fair manner.
- Set the atmosphere from the beginning by explaining to students that the purpose of the critique is to help others to become better at what we know. Critiques should be KIND, SPECIFIC and HELPFUL
- Judges have to stay on task and have a clear idea of the criteria assigned. Use the Rubric checklist criteria as the only way to judge the performance. "We are only checking to see if the project meets these guidelines"
- Start off with a sample project to critique and practice as a whole class before allowing the kids to give feedback to each other.
- The goal is to improve, not to knock down. If a student believes that a group didn't meet the criteria, they have to justify why they don't think that it met the criteria AND offer a doable suggestion for improvement.
- Give time to go back and fix the project. By allowing groups to go back and fix their mistakes after a critique, it is even more powerful. The corrected project can be added to a final grade for the formative assessment.
- Change up the critiques by making it fun. The critiquing can be done ala, "Dancing with the Stars", "American Idol" or "the Voice". You can issue cards to the judges or use slates to have the kids grade the criteria.
- This is a learning experience, it takes time to learn how to offer helpful critiques for both the critics and the receivers. If you believe that your students need to take it slow in order to learn how to critique work you can allow them to anonymously gallery walk and critique work, or you can have them start by having two groups critique each other rather than everyone critique the whole class. In these cases I would provide a rubric checklist of what to look for to make sure that the critique doesn't get personal.
Discussions about Data Collections
Communicating your scientific ideas is super important in the science world, most of those ideas are conveyed through data collection. Some are easier to look at and draw conclusions from than others which is why part of your critique should revolve around organization of data and whether or not people can see patterns and arrive at a conclusion. Here's how:
After everyone has presented pull out just the data collections and compare them to one another. Discuss the following:
- Which presentations are easy to read and convey the message?
- Which one shows patterns in the data the best?
- Which presentations are original and can still convey the information?
- Are they labeled properly, do they have good scale?
- Is the right organization chosen, example, line graph for change over time, double line graphs to compare or correlate, pie graph for part to whole, matrix or T-chart to collect descriptive data?
- Is the data reliable, was it tested enough, was it replicable?
- Allow for students to make suggestions for the data collections to either fix this time, or know for next time.
Problem Based Learning for Middle School and High School: Evaluation of Scientific Thought
Once kids get the hang of evaluating each others scientific projects you can move on to the meat and potatoes of 3A which is to evaluate all sides of the evidence in a scientific idea. You can do this by building a performance assessment based on Problem Based Learning. There is a big difference between project based and problem based learning in its design. Where project based learning is based on students performing a task (usually rooted in a content standard), problem based learning has students solving problems using the skills acquired from the learning. But the reason why Problem based learning is so much more aligned to process standard 3(A) is because within problem based learning students have to acknowledge the stakeholders of the problem and have to try to come up with a solution that benefits or at least acknowledges the stakeholders involved. Problem based learning requires an open ended question that has no right or wrong answer. This line of inquiry very much mimics the type of real world Science occurring throughout today and through scientific history. Scientists are constantly verifying each others discoveries to make sure they are correct. The rule here is to verify and to look at all sides of a situation. Problem based learning is also like real world science in that it encourages students to delve deep into their research to discover where they are getting their information from. Is there bias in the information they are collecting? Science is based upon fact. How do we discern between what is scientific and can be proven and what is slanted towards the advantage of the stakeholders? Here is an example that could be easily used in 5th Grade and up:
Engage: Question: Should logging happen on the Northwest Coast?
Students generate questions regarding the topic, then..
Students read articles for and against logging on the Northwest Coast of the United States
Explore: Students go through different stations to explore different topics such as
- Observations of trees outside of the classroom to collect observational data on height, leaves, species identification, etc
- tree ring investigations to determine life cycle
- Photosynthesis
- Water usage
Elaborate: Students investigate cost effectiveness of using recycled paper verses regular paper at their campus
Evaluate: Students take a stand on the issue of logging on the Northwest Coast by creating a presentation video presenting their stand on the issue and how it would affect the stakeholders involved.
To see other examples of problem based learning lessons please visit the Browards County Public Schools STEM Resources page that gives lists of Problem Based Learning lessons that have been written for grades K-12:
http://stem.browardschools.com/science/science_general/pbl/
Now that we have critical thinking down, we still need to address the other pieces of Section 3 which have to do with models, product claims, Science careers and the history of science. If you are ready to move on, click on the button below: