The Power of Reflection
So, to be perfectly honest, my lesson for the end of last week didn't go as planned. We were wrapping up our unit about space, and the standard the students were working to meet was supporting an argument that the reason the sun seems so much brighter than the other stars is that it is closer to earth than all the others. Along with this standard, I am working on teaching the students how to use evidence and explain it in a way that can support a claim.
We have spent the last few weeks learning about stars: what makes them up, why they shine and how brightly, how big they are, and (importantly) how far away they are. Pretty straight forward. To help the students develop their arguments, we are using a method called the CER model (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning). We've used it in science class before, and the students are actually using it in writing right now to support them with opinion writing. Putting all of this together, I guessed that the students would be able to support that standard that the sun is just so big and bright (to us) because it is just so much closer to us than all the other stars.
Well, that wasn't quite the case. While a good chunk of the students could indeed make this claim, there were several that did not. Some of the students did indeed claim that the sun was just bigger and brighter than ALL the other stars. Others, even though they made the correct claim, lacked the evidence in their argument to support the claim.
That brought me to a reflection point. How, after all of that information I've given them, could some of them still think that the sun was just bigger and brighter than all the other stars? Well, for starters, if we had been in the classroom, I would have been hammering home the fact every day that the sun was just CLOSER to us than all the stars. I guess my Canvas slideshows and screencasts weren't doing that. And, of course, for many of the students, right now they are just in the mindset of "get stuff done" and move on. I'm sure it is challenging for many of them to think really deeply right now.
So, where to now? With that many students not meeting the standard, I didn't feel comfortable moving on. And even the students who met the standard still had some room for improvement. Rather than just giving the students a grade, I decided that the best move was to have the students reflect on their own arguments. Dividing the arguments up into sections, I had them rate the different sections in comparison to an exemplar argument that I provided. Following their own reflections, they could then make changes to their arguments (for many of them, that mainly meant adding more evidence to support the argument). I spread this process out over a few days to give them time. It also gave me the time to give them additional feedback on their arguments and reflections. The next step is to see how their revisions turn out. Many of them that have already come in have shown some nice improvement. We'll see about those arguments that had struggled to start with--those have been coming in at a slower pace. Not being able to be "right there" with the students definitely makes it harder to give them the support they need. But, we will just keep trying!
We have spent the last few weeks learning about stars: what makes them up, why they shine and how brightly, how big they are, and (importantly) how far away they are. Pretty straight forward. To help the students develop their arguments, we are using a method called the CER model (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning). We've used it in science class before, and the students are actually using it in writing right now to support them with opinion writing. Putting all of this together, I guessed that the students would be able to support that standard that the sun is just so big and bright (to us) because it is just so much closer to us than all the other stars.
Well, that wasn't quite the case. While a good chunk of the students could indeed make this claim, there were several that did not. Some of the students did indeed claim that the sun was just bigger and brighter than ALL the other stars. Others, even though they made the correct claim, lacked the evidence in their argument to support the claim.
That brought me to a reflection point. How, after all of that information I've given them, could some of them still think that the sun was just bigger and brighter than all the other stars? Well, for starters, if we had been in the classroom, I would have been hammering home the fact every day that the sun was just CLOSER to us than all the stars. I guess my Canvas slideshows and screencasts weren't doing that. And, of course, for many of the students, right now they are just in the mindset of "get stuff done" and move on. I'm sure it is challenging for many of them to think really deeply right now.
So, where to now? With that many students not meeting the standard, I didn't feel comfortable moving on. And even the students who met the standard still had some room for improvement. Rather than just giving the students a grade, I decided that the best move was to have the students reflect on their own arguments. Dividing the arguments up into sections, I had them rate the different sections in comparison to an exemplar argument that I provided. Following their own reflections, they could then make changes to their arguments (for many of them, that mainly meant adding more evidence to support the argument). I spread this process out over a few days to give them time. It also gave me the time to give them additional feedback on their arguments and reflections. The next step is to see how their revisions turn out. Many of them that have already come in have shown some nice improvement. We'll see about those arguments that had struggled to start with--those have been coming in at a slower pace. Not being able to be "right there" with the students definitely makes it harder to give them the support they need. But, we will just keep trying!
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