Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) Session #5 AST Practice 4 - Evidence-based Explanations

Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) Session #5 AST Practice 4 - Evidence-based Explanations

Instructor(s): Peney E. Wright 
Tier #2 Professional Learning. See prerequisites below:

Description of Activity: Pressing for evidence-based explanations 

This final set of practices will help students construct a final, evidence-based explanatory model for an anchoring event. The goals of this practice are: 

• Engage all students in authentic disciplinary discourse around using evidence to support explanations. 
• Hold students accountable for using multiple sources of information to construct final explanatory models for the anchoring event (this accountability of course must be supported by scaffolding and guidance from you). 
• Support students in using evidence to support different aspects of their explanatory models. 

The goals are for educators to: 

• Support students in using evidence to account for different aspects of their explanatory model. 
• Hold students accountable for using multiple sources of information to construct final explanatory models for the anchoring event. 
• Engage all students in authentic disciplinary discourse around constructing and defending explanations. 

When we think about drawing together evidence-based explanations, we have to have a great deal of scaffolding and support to allow students to think across significant lengths of curricular time. 

In Session #5, we will model and practice Pressing for Evidence-Based Explanations including: 

•  Co-constructing a “Gotta-Have-List”
•  Synthesizing learning with Consensus Models and Summary Tables 
•  Pressing for Gapless Explanations 
•  Assessing for Understanding 

Highly Recommended: Visit https://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/ to preview the website (Getting Started) and watch the Eliciting students’ ideas video ,16;39. Also read Ambitious Science Teaching: Chapters 11-12, Appendices F-G 

Prerequisites include: 

• At least one Tier #1 PL 
•  AST Sessions #1 - #4 
   

Note: Selected sessions will be recorded and made available for an asynchronous option. Asynchronous work to include pre-reading of the website and/or AST paperback, viewing AST videos, posted reflections regarding the readings and videos, and applying what is learned to participants’ contexts. Participants may join in-person, work completely asynchronously or attend as a hybrid mix. Please contact Peney at pwright@tiu11.org for complete details.