Assignment #9: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 9: Generating and Testing Hypotheses.
Remember: Although your course packet asks you to post to blog for parts A, B, C, and D…we are asking that you only post part C and D. We’re trying to make the blog easier to read and more user- friendly. Thanks!
A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategies of Generating and Testing Hypotheses in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter.
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 9 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section of Generating and Testing Hypotheses.
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to teach to your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom) – please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Nine: Generating and Testing Hypotheses.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: A sequence of questions posted below asks you to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Nine: Generating and Testing Hypotheses.
How has the information you read in this chapter on Generating and Testing Hypotheses effected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• How might I change how use Generating and Testing Hypotheses in my classroom?
• What is something you now understand better about Generating and Testing Hypotheses?
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Unit 9
Practice: In Resource Room students receive assistance in core content classes, including Science. Students often struggle when forming a hypothesis. They question themselves and are unsure as to how to form a hypothesis. Usually they use the deductive process, such as using a general rule to make a prediction about mold. A student may use the following hypothesis, “Which condition do you think will be the best to promote mold growth?” Before agreeing to this hypothesis, students discuss, make predictions and then state a hypothesis like the one mentioned. Often students are required to create a data table to record and draw their observations for a week or two. After a certain lapse of time, students write a conclusion from their experiment. Students enjoy these types of hands-on activities.
Reflection: As Resource Room teacher, we assist students with these types of activities if requested. I miss these types of activities. We practice writing hypothesis and its evidence. Students need to practice these types of activities to develop proficiencies in their writing so they may explain their thinking as they generate and test hypothesis.
C. As I was reading this chapter the first subject that popped into my mind was science inquiry. Science is a large part of our block rotation and encourage the students to predict and guess what the result may be is a learned skill. When I did a practicum in preschool we would have students predict if an object was going to sink or float. Little did they know, they were acquiring a life long skill.
When I was administering a math work sample practice today I was encouraging the kids to make an estimate of the different amount of apples students would need to have a sum of three pounds. The apples are in groups of a set amount of various ounces and they have to find three different combinations that total up to 48 ounces. After brainstorming as a class, students were suggesting that we put the apples in groups that totaled 10 or 20 to get closer to our sum, helping with the problem solving work sample.
D. I wish that we had the opportunity to do more science inquiry on a daily basis. The students love doing hands on activities such as helicopters, pendulums, boats and airplanes, which are all apart of our science curriculum. I think it is important to challenge students to think outside of their box and stand by their answer!
Assignment #9:
C. Practice:
This was a hard chapter for me. 1st graders don’t really use the science inquiry method all too much. In the beginning of the year we planted seeds. Students did have to make a hypothesis for what they thought would happen if a plant stayed in a cupboard for the duration of our experiment, compared to a plant that was next to a window. We discussed what we already knew about plants so they had some background.
After the few weeks we evaluated the growth of the plants in both areas. Very basic as it was just the beginning of first grade.
This also makes me think more of making predictions and then confirming whether our predictions were accurate or not. That seems more applicable in first grade. We do a lot of that in our literacy but I could always be bringing it to the forefront of students’ minds more regularly.
D. Final Strategy Reflection:
• How might I change how use Generating and Testing Hypotheses in my classroom?
I will try to provide more opportunities for students to hypothesize and test what they’re doing. I agree it is very important that students be able to explain their thinking as they generate and test their hypotheses.
• What is something you now understand better about Generating and Testing Hypotheses?
The importance of having students clearly explain their hypotheses and their conclusions to deepen their understanding of they principals they’re working with.
Thanks Linda, Meagan, and Jennie for your comments on generating and testing hypotheses. I think the first thing all of us thing when we hear this strategy is “science”…and this does work naturally in the science content area, but I think we need to keep in mind all of our other curricula areas when we are planning. Students can generate and test hypotheses throughout content areas through problem solving activities. Here’s a great 5 step process that can be used with younger students that Marzano mentions in his handbook:
1. What am I trying to do?
2. What things are in my way?
3. What are some things I can do to get around these things?
4. Which solutions seem to be the best?
5. Did this solution work? Should I try another solution?
There are many ways you may even consider problem solving as a group model trying to solve problems in the classroom, such as fair way to share computer time, classroom library being a mess…you get the idea. As Jennie mentioned, making generating predictions and testing your “hypothesis” as you read and gather text clues, while reading, uses a very similar thought process!
I like the 5 step process because I feel like the language of the questions are broken down and are user friendly for ESL students. Even posting on question at a time and using it as a discussion prompt would stimulate partner, group or class conversations. I might also post one question ahead of time so students (especially my ESL or Sped students) could be preparing an answer as we are discussing the upcoming project.
C. Practice: During a unit on the transportation system in France, I would have groups of students work together to plan a trip to see a particular site. Each group would have a different destination, the chateaux of the Loire Valley, Mt. St. Michel, the Eiffel Tower, Normandy, etc. As a group, they would need to discuss and problem solve how to travel from a common starting point and complete their “travel” within a certain time frame and planned budget. As a class, we will discuss transportation choices (train, rent a car, bicycling, bus, etc.) and review reading timetables. The group will plan their trip, researching costs of transportation, food and lodging along the way. Once each group has a proposed plan, they will share it with the class. There will be a few “roadblocks” along the way: a train strike, a missed bus connection, hostel is full, bank is closed etc. that will cause the groups to examine their plans again.
D.Reflection: This was a hard chapter for me. Creating hypothesis or problem solving fits so easily with science and math that it was difficult to figure out how to make it work for language. I don’t know why my brain is so stuck. I do believe that this classroom strategy leads to deeper understanding. It is important to revisit the hypothesis and perhaps change it throughout the process to show how new knowledge can change perspective. When I substitute for a middle school Title I teacher, students are asked to write a prediction of what they think the (Read Naturally) passage is about based on the title and key words, but then they are never asked to return to see if their prediction was correct.
Practice: As a teacher to Kinders and first graders, I agree with Jennie that this was a hard chapter. As I was reading through the chapter, I was thinking how hard it is to do this with the young learner. I need to spend some time thinking about how I can apply this to those young learners. Our school has a science fair and there was a presentation about testing hypothesis and also about inquiry. Our school leadership is really big on science inquiry. Encouraging kids to find a topic that interests them and research it.
Reflection: This chapter is one I need to re-read and spend more time thinking about how I can adapt it to young learners and the curriculum I teach. I think the biggest thing I take from this chapter is how important it is for kids to clearly explain their hypothesis and their conclusions.
C. Practice: As a Science teacher (and also when I was a math teacher) using this strategy is an integral part of class. Problem solving is such an important life skill and the more I teach the more I realize how much today's kids struggle with this. Even though I love using technology personally and find it useful professionally I feel frustrated with what it has done to our society's impetus to search out an answer through problem solving rather than just 'Google it.' One of my favorite assignments is one very similar to one described in Chapter 6.
This Laboratory activity is about Lunar phases. My version of the activity (this is a variation on an NSTA activity) goes like this.
1) I give them the question "why does the Moon look different over time?"
2) I set them in groups, each with a lunar calendar to look at, a styrofoam ball to stick on a pencil, a bright light, and a few guiding goals/questions.
*a*- why do we see the lunar phases in the order we do?
*b* - what are lunar and solar eclipses? why don't we have eclipses often?
*c* - why do we see only one side of the moon?
3) Other than these materials, they are completely on their own with creating a hypothesis, testing it, creating a new hypothesis, testing that, and repeating until they can answer the question(s) completely.
4) The students are encouraged/expected to record their procedures and results and then work together to come up with the correct conclusion.
5) The students struggle with my not answering their questions but I find that if I stick to my guns and let them hash it out most of the groups come up with an accurate representation of the relationships between the Earth, Moon and Sun. 6) There is a final 'check' step where each group makes a poster which represents their conclusion and we do a sort of gallery walk with one presenter at each poster. By the end of the activity if there are groups that had the wrong conclusions they now understand the correct answer clearly.
D. The best part of this activity is that besides giving them the materials, the question and a little structure to the activity, the students find the answers together, without Google. This is sooo powerful and it is 'real learning.' I am constantly trying to find ways to implement this same type of strategy in other activities/subjects because of all of my lessons this one really sticks with the students.
I am very passionate about problem solving, throughout the year I am constantly clarifying and re-teaching the following to the students: What a hypothesis is. It is NOT a question, it is NOT a guess! I am constantly fighting these two ideas which were somehow put in their brains before they got to middle-school. A hypothesis is what you 'believe' the 'answer' to a given 'question' might be based on the 'background information' you have at that time. A hypothesis is not stagnant, each time a result is found that proves the hypothesis incorrect this leads to a new hypothesis and another test to find the answer to the question. One incorrect hypothesis is NOT the end of the problem solving process. I feel strongly that when the students stop here they learn to stop when things get hard/confusing/complicated etc. We need to fix this, we need to create problem solvers.
Barbie,
I imagine the students realize that their predictions aren’t revisited and that they don’t put a great amount of effort into the activity. I would def. have the students revisit their predictions or not have them bother doing them.
Heidi and Barbie,
I can see why you found this chapter a challenging one. I think if you are able to find areas that this strategy naturally fits and use it then that is a good place to start.
Michaela,
I agree that problem solving is an important life skill and that students today seem to struggle with problem solving. At the high school I taught at this year, the students were very frustrated when I was teaching them how to use an online subscription database that the school subscribed to. They just wanted to “Google” it to get the answer. Oh, ok, some students also went to Wikipedia. The teacher and I had a big job teaching the students about reliable, credible sources and why Google is a fine place to check information or get a brief background on a topic but for school or work reliable sources must be used (and given appropriate credit for… but this is a whole other conversation for another time. ☺ )
I think the primary teachers might be partly to blame for the “guess” part of the hypothesis. I know I’ve told the students and heard various other teachers tell the children that it’s a “best guess.” Thanks for your last paragraph. I appreciate your comments! You are right! We do need to create problem solvers and I think we can do this by looking at the types of assignments and projects that we expect students to do and think if it is helping them become problem solvers or if it’s just rote memorization.
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