What's Your Evidence?: Engaging K-5 Children in Constructing Explanations in Science - Tapa blanda

Successfully integrate scientific explanation into the classroom with a wealth of strategies including scenarios, examples of student writing, classroom video clips from across all science content areas, rubrics, and guidelines for designing assessment items.

This exciting new resource presents K-5 teachers with an effective framework that breaks down the complex practice of scientific explanation into four components—claim, evidence, reasoning, and rebuttal. Their model provides teachers with a concrete roadmap for enhancing students conceptual understanding and improves their ability to think and communicate more scientifically by carefully analyzing evidence and backing up their claims. Teachers will learn how to adapt their science content instruction in order to better meet the needs of all students.

“I highly endorse this book and the practices it promotes for science explanations and discourse. As a learning tool for teachers, it will truly enhance the way they guide children to think, participate and talk like scientists.” —from the Foreword by Donnan Stoicovy, Principal/Lead Learner, Park Forest Elementary School, State College, PA

Carla Zembal-Saul is a Professor of science education in the College of Education at Penn State where she holds the Kahn Professorship in STEM Education and currently serves as head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. A former middle school science teacher, she has been involved in school-university partnership work for more than fifteen years. Examining classroom discourse is a fundamental aspect of Professor Zembal-Saul’s work and she employs video analysis as both a research tool and a pedagogical approach for working with teachers. She has published her research findings in numerous book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, and she is active in professional organizations, including the National Association for Research in Science Teaching and the National Science Teachers Association. Carla Zembal-Saul earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan.

Katherine L. McNeill is an Assistant Professor of science education at Boston College. A former middle school science teacher, she received her doctorate in science education from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on how to support students with diverse backgrounds in engaging in scientific explanation and argumentation in both talk and writing. Her research has been generously funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and from this work, she has authored a book on supporting middle school students, along with numerous book chapters and articles in a variety of journals. In 2011, Professor McNeill received the Early Career Research Award from NARST.

Kimber Hershberger is currently a third grade teacher in the State College Area School District (SCASD) in Pennsylvania. She also serves as co-instructor for the science methods course and a mentor teacher for the Penn State — SCASD Professional Development School Partnership. Her involvement in a local professional learning community that focuses on incorporating content storyline and the CER framework in science teaching has been a highlight of her work. She holds degrees from Juniata College (B.S., elementary education) and Penn State University (M.Ed., science education). In addition to presenting numerous times at the annual conference of the National Science Teachers Association, she has co-authored several articles for NSTA journals, including Science and Children and Science Scope.