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Writing Strategies that Promote Understanding and Inquiry in Elementary Science

6/15/2012. MSTA, Lansing MI. 2. The role of writing in elementary science learning. Students' writing can be a window on their thinking allowing multiple forms of assessment.Here we will focus on using it as a pre-assessment.Writing structures and prompts can develop student knowledge promote stud

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Writing Strategies that Promote Understanding and Inquiry in Elementary Science

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    1. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 1 Writing Strategies that Promote Understanding and Inquiry in Elementary Science Mark Enfield Jennifer Wright Michigan State University

    2. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 2 The role of writing in elementary science learning Students’ writing can be a window on their thinking allowing multiple forms of assessment. Here we will focus on using it as a pre-assessment. Writing structures and prompts can develop student knowledge promote students’ inquiry. Here we will consider one structure that supports an inquiry cycle.

    3. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 3 Recent legislation and mandates increase demands on school curriculum. “No Child Left Behind” and “Reading First” make demands of classroom time and curricular attention. The Michigan Curriculum Framework Benchmarks in Science establishes that students should: Develop strategies and skills for information gathering and problem solving. (MCF I.1.E5)

    4. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 4 What we hope to do in this session: We will share different forms of writing useful in science learning. You will experience using those strategies in the context of an activity. We will discuss opportunities and challenges with writing in elementary classrooms. You will leave with some ideas about how to use writing to build understandings and promote inquiry with your students

    5. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 5 How can we use writing to assess students’ knowledge? Pre-Assessment Discussion Exercise Post-Assessment

    6. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 6 One example of a writing prompt to assess students knowledge DART – Directed Activities Related to Text Scientific concepts from the curriculum are split into two phrases. Students attempt to match phrases to make complete and accurate sentences. When molecules are heated ----- they begin to move more rapidly.

    7. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 7 Try to complete some sample DART sentences On your handout, match the sentences about Astronomy.

    8. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 8 How do you construct writing prompts to assess prior knowledge Use If-Then statements Give extra choices Make sure that all endings can semantically fit any beginning Make sure that each ending can only fit one beginning to correctly state a science idea

    9. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 9 What are some benefits of language activities in science learning? Familiarizing students with the expository nature of scientific text Learning text features without needing to manage construction of conceptual ideas Getting students to notice that scientific texts communicate facts about the concepts they are learning Catalyst for scientific discussion

    10. 6/15/2012 MSTA, Lansing MI 10 Activity for this presentation: Modeling Our Solar System

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