Critical Response Strategies

1. Critical Response Strategies …a blueprint for cultivating inquiry Gooding & Metz, 2008

2. According to the National Science Education Standards changes in the delivery of instruction must be implemented in order for inquiry to occur. Among these changes are: • Increasing the emphasis on understanding. • Guiding students in active and extended inquiry. • Encouraging debate among students. • Providing opportunities for students to apply scientific knowledge. “Teachers should not be the source of information they should be the source of opportunity” Dr. Larry Malone, Lawrence Hall of Science

3. The Strategies • Calling for Clarification • Calling for Evidence • Calling for Evaluation • Playing Devil’s Advocate • Wait Time I & II • Not Looking for the “Right” answer

4. Calling for Clarification • An overriding tactic because it requires students to revisit and rehearse their answers and they must “dig deeper” to reply. • Provides additional time for students to process How else might you say that? Could you rephrase that? How do you think that applies?

5. Calling for Evidence The lynch pin of scientific literacy is interpreting and/or reporting the results of investigations with supportive data. There may be a number of ways to resolve a problem there is only one acceptable way to report it and that is with evidence. What is your proof? What evidence do you have to support that claim? What do you think your data shows? Can you use your data to make up a rule that describes or clarifies your results?

6. Calling for Evaluation This response strategy is a way to raise the bar by requiring the students to use higher order thinking skills that go beyond the processing to the crafting of reasonable speculations. What else might have caused that? If you did this again what could you change to get different results? Could you improve your investigation?

7. Playing Devil’s Advocate Similar to the interchanges one might expect in a courtroom. Students are invited to defend their data-based decisions against differing points of view. This strategy helps to prepare students to consider the ideas of others rather than rejecting them out of hand.

8. Wait Time I &II The strategy of waiting for a student to respond or waiting after a student’s response is incredibly simple but difficult for most teachers to assimilate into their cadre of response strategies. Using wait time increases: the number of responses, the length of responses, the quality of responses and generates more student top student interaction. Remember: ”He who does the talking does the learning” Terry Shaw LHS

9. Not Looking for the “Right” Answer When teachers seek a single response (the one that was in “the book”) often they do so at the exclusion of a variety of other plausible responses. Likewise, if students believe there is only one response, they do so at the exclusion of a number of creative and plausible responses. Diversity of thought, supported by reasonable justification and evidence is critical to inquiry.

10. To Summarize Critical Response Strategies • Calling for Clarification • Calling for Evidence • Calling for Evaluation • Playing Devil’s Advocate • Wait Time I & II • Not Looking for the “Right” answer