S4 Changing Matter Elementary Science Task

Abstract

Project Overview In this four-year project called Developing Preservice Elementary Teachers' Ability to Facilitate Goal-Oriented Discussions in Science and Mathematics via the Use of Simulated Classroom Interactions (GO Discuss), Educational Testing Service and Mursion developed, piloted, and validated a set of performance-based tasks delivered within a simulated classroom environment in order to improve preservice elementary teachers’ ability to orchestrate discussions. These tasks provided opportunities for preservice teachers in science and mathematics to facilitate discussions with five upper elementary student avatars (fifth grade) where the focus is on disciplinary argumentation within two content domains: fractions (mathematics) and structure/properties of matter (science). The overall goal of this research was to develop a validity basis for the use of such tools as formative assessment tasks that can be integrated within educator preparation programs to increase the amount, variety, and quality of clinical practice opportunities currently available to preservice elementary teachers. For this project, we developed eight performance-based tasks, four in mathematics and four in science, designed to be used by pre-service elementary teachers as they practice leading classroom discussions in the simulated classroom. Each task provides a scenario and specific details about the discussion, including the student learning goal, students’ background information, and what happened prior to the discussion. We also included the student work related to the mathematics problem or science investigation that was the focus within that task and a summary of important things that we wanted the pre-service elementary teachers to notice about the student work. This specific data project includes materials for one elementary science task called Changing Matter. In this task, students in small groups mixed together different combinations of substances and determined whether each combination produced a new substance. The pre-service teacher leads a discussion on the various claims each group made about whether new substances were formed and the types of evidence that can support or refute the students’ claims. Materials for pre-service teachers, resources for teacher educators, including sample videos, and task-specific simulation specialist training materials are included. For a complete description of the broader “Go Discuss” project, including a list of files for each task, as well as to read the detailed Terms of Use, please start by reading the Data Overview file. Some files appear in different formats with identical content. This is intentional. ETS wants to encourage adaptation of the deposited materials (which might be easier to implement in Word documents), but also wants to ensure that images and math notations are rendered correctly for secondary users (best preserved in PDF).