Supporting grade 5-8 students in constructing explanations in science

About this book

Grounded in National Science Foundation (NSF) funded-research, Supporting Grade 5-8 Students in Constructing Explanations in Science and DVD provides middle grades science teachers with an instructional framework that breaks down the practice of scientific explanation into manageable components--claim, evidence, reasoning--and offers concrete examples of what this scientific inquiry practice looks like when it is successfully implemented in real classrooms. The chapters guide teachers step-by-step through presenting the framework for students; creating learning tasks involving scientific explanation; providing curricular scaffolds (that fade over time) to support students developing explanations; developing scientific explanation assessment tasks; and using the information from assessment tasks to inform instruction. By incorporating this framework into curriculum materials, instructional strategies, and assessments, many schools have already witnessed its power to enhance students' conceptual understanding and ability to think and communicate scientifically while also affording teachers powerful opportunities to view student thinking and better adapt instruction to all students' needs. "I would encourage others to use [this book] as a resource for a professional learning community or department discussion group and the like ... absolutely I would recommend it--why? It is simply good for our students' developing understanding of science ..."--Pamela M. Pelletier, Senior Program Director, Science K-12, Boston Public Schools, Boston, Massachusetts. "[This book] can easily be used to guide middle school teams to collaboratively work together to ask higher order thinking questions in any core content area. This type of questioning leads to great classroom discourse, therefore engaging students in using claims, evidence, and reasoning."--Kendra Walters Durham, Science Teacher, Wester Middle School, Frisco, Texas --Book Jacket.