I was incredibly excited for this weeks readings because I feel like this is the hardest thing to get kids to do. I have given many assignments where students were required to explain something. And 90% of the time I have taken off points because either they simply didn’t include an explanation or their explanation completely missed the mark. I especially enjoyed the templates and teacher sentence starters that AST uses for students who don’t provide in depth explanations. For example, I have had students explain how they balanced a particular reaction. Many could not understand why simply showing their work wasn’t enough. I could not get them to see that the work didn’t show the full picture of a balanced chemical reaction. It doesn’t explain the conservation of mass, or moles, or the particular skill set that comes with balancing chemical reactions. So needless to say I appreciated how to explain to kids why their explanation isn’t adequate while still pressing them for more. This type of feedback provides kids with where they missed the mark, as well as future steps to take.
I also appreciated these articles because of how they outline teaching kids how to make a scientific explanation. Telling a kid to “explain what is happening here” without scaffolding or providing the support necessary. I loved how the articles also made a distinction between describing phenomena and explaining phenomena. Often time I have found myself believing that students knew what they were talking about by simply describing what is happening. However, anyone can describe what is happening; it takes a certain skill set to explain. Knowing the difference between the two not only makes it easier to help my students, but also makes it much more equitable for my students.
My last question/comment is how do we make this practice of pressing for scientific explanations more equitable for our EL students? I know some of mine will use pictures and a couple of words, but that doesn’t provide evidence of real understanding. Should a separate rubric be used for EL students? What is the most equitable thing for us to do in these situations?
I appreciate you sharing some of the difficulties you've had in your class. I have also mistakenly accepted descriptions in place of explanations and assumed that my students understood more than they did. For the students that you mentioned at the beginning of your response who are losing points due to a lack of explanation: what kinds of questions are they losing points on? How are you asking the questions so that they know an explanation is necessary? (I've run into similar issues so I'm wondering what strategies you've tried.)
ReplyDeleteWhat are some of the strategies you are going to use to help your students improve (or include) their explanations to ensure they are complete? Did the article give you any ideas on how to approach that?
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