Big Ideas Group

1
Big Ideas Group

• Joe Krajcik
• University of Michigan

2
Big Ideas Group

• Focus lay out the learning trajectory of two
  big ideas in science (kinetic-molecular theory
  and evolution) and incorporate those trajectories
  into appropriate test frameworks

3
Who are we?

• Tracing a Trajectory for Understanding Evolution
• Kefyn Cately, Rich Lehrer and Brian Reiser
• Tracing a Progression for Understanding Kinetic
  Molecular Theory
• Andy (Charles) Anderson, Audrey Champagne, Brian
  Coppola, Joe Krajcik, Carol Smith, and Marianne
  Wiser
• Member of the Assessment Committee

4
Whats a Big Idea?

• Explanatory power within and across discipline
  and/or scales
• Helps one to understand a variety of different
  ideas within and across fields
• Powerful way of thinking about the world
• Provides insight to the development of the field,
  or had key influence on the domain.
• Predictive, explanatory or staying power in the
  field.

5
Possible Big Ideas

• Natural Selection group
• Benchmark 5A2 (Structure/Function) Animals and
  plants have a variety of body plans and internal
  structures that enable them to get food and
  reproduce.
• Benchmark 5F2 Individual organisms with certain
  traits are more likely than others to survive and
  have offspring. Changes in environmental
  conditions affect the survival of individual
  organisms and entire species.

6
Possible Big Ideas

• KM Group
• NRC B5-8 1A A substance has characteristic
  properties, such as density, a boiling point, and
  solubility, all of which are independent of the
  amount of the sample.
• Benchmark 4D1 Atoms may stick together in
  well-defined molecules or may be packed together
  in large arrays. Different arrangements of atoms
  into groups compose all substances.

7
Whats Motivating Us?

• Part 1 -- Move to rich descriptions of what we
  want students to know.
• Standards are starting point that describe
  scientific ideas. They are expressed in terms of
  declarative knowledge.
• We are not rewriting the standards.
• Learning is more than acquiring declarative
  knowledge
• Move beyond these declarative statements to an
  articulation of the knowledge and skills students
  should demonstrate.

8
Whats Motivating Us?

• Part II
• Need to develop trajectories/progressions of how
  students develop big ideas
• In science instruction, ideas are revisited too
  often at a superficial level. We need to develop
  a development trajectory for students developing
  big ideas.
• Neither content nor inquiry/habits of minds
  standards are met in schools.
• The Atlas, Standards, and Benchmarks is a
  start, but we need to go further.

9
Our Goals

• Clarify and articulate standards
• What prior knowledge is needed?
• What misconceptions do students hold?
• Specify standards in terms of learning
  performances
• Understanding requires rich disciplinary specific
  applications of knowledge
• Explaining, modeling, interpreting data
• Move from the standards, which are descriptions
  of the scientific ideas, to an articulation of
  the knowledge and skills students should
  demonstrate
• Use disciplinary practices to specify the
  performance students should learn.
• We are not in the business of rewriting standards

10
Goals continued

• Specify standards in terms of learning
  performances.
• Create developmental trajectories/progression of
  big ideas
• Do a thorough review of the literature to support
  the trajectories/progressions
• Elucidate what research is still needed

11
Whats a Learning Performances

• Content Scientific Learning
• Standard Practice Performance

12
Developing Learning PerformancesNatural
Selections

• Content Scientific Learning
• Standard Practice Performance

Change in populations Due to naturally occurring
variation,members of a population differ in
attributes that can affect their success in
surviving environmental stress.

• Construct and defend a scientific explanation
  about how an environmental stress affected the
  distribution of a trait in the population.

Develop scientific explanations
13
Developing Learning PerformancesKinetic
Molecular Group

• Content Scientific
  Learning
• Standard Practice
  Performance

14
Developing Learning PerformancesKinetic
Molecular Group

• Content Scientific
  Learning
  Assessment
• Standard
  Practice Performance

15
Assessments - Explain Learning Performance
16
Some Major Take Away Points for Assessment Design

• Big ideas Structure assessments around few core
  concepts that have high payoff.
• Standards are a starting point, but require
  elaboration and clarification to construct a
  coherent system of instructional objectives and
  assessments.
• Developing learning performances helps to focus
  the type of understanding you hope students will
  develop and what assessments are needed.

17
Some Major Take Away Points for Assessment Design

• Constructing relationships among standards
  reveals what other concepts students need to
  understand, within and across grade levels.
• Deciding what counts as understanding at a
  third, seventh and eleventh grade is a major
  challenge in aligning curriculum and assessment.

18
Questions?
19
(No Transcript)