How can teachers ensure the learning of science content required
by Ohio’s Academic Content Standards?
Science is more than a body of knowledge. Holistically, science is a
way of studying the natural world.
Part of implementing a standards-based education program involves examining
what students need to be able to do and how that knowledge or skill is to be
measured or assessed. Once those skills are identified and clarified, the
learning cycle is an effective way to weave instruction, assessment and
differentiation practices. The learning cycle ranges from engagement and
exploration, to analysis and explanation, to application and extension. It
also includes engaging in assessment for learning throughout the cycle.
Within this learning cycle, teachers may use the variety of cognitive demands
included below to foster and monitor inquiry-based student learning
opportunities. Ohio’s four cognitive demands for science address expected
learning outcomes and the guidance of student inquiry as prescribed in all six
standards of the Ohio Academic Content Standards, K-12 Science.
Ohio’s cognitive demands are intrinsically related to current understandings
and research about how people learn. They provide a structure for teachers to
reflect on plans for teaching science and monitoring observable evidence of
student learning.
Teachers can use the Guide to Using Cognitive Demand to Reflect on Teaching
and Learning to guide and frame formative feedback for each student-generated
product. Using the four rubric criteria of the Guide will help teachers
with strategic comments and questions. Teachers and science curriculum leaders
also may find the Guide helpful in applying the cognitive demands to
evaluate and adapt curricular and instructional materials.
A detailed review of the learning cycle can be found in the document
Standards-Based Science Instruction and Classroom Inquiry (pp 1-3),
available in the Web Resources of the OAT Science Toolkit. This document, as
well as the Guide, is adapted from a product developed during Ohio’s
participation in the Council of Chief State School Officers, State
Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards Science Project, April
1997.
References and Resources:
National Research Council. National Science Education Standards.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1996, pp.22-23.
National Research Council of the National Academies. (2007). Taking Science
to School Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Washington, D.C.: The
National Academies Press.
National Research Council of the National Academies. (2006). America's Lab
Report: Investigations in High School Science. Washington, D.C.: The
National Academies Press.
Evaluation of Cognitive Demand in Science Lessons - Example
(Word)
Evaluation of Cognitive Demand in Science Lessons - Template
(Word)
How do I integrate science process skills into content-based instruction?
Research in the cognitive sciences has investigated how to sequence science
instruction (both content and process) to support students’ science learning.
America’s Lab Report: Investigations in High School Science by the National
Research Council (2006, p.4) states:
"It has been proposed that integrated instructional units connect laboratory
experiences with other types of science learning activities, including
lectures, reading and discussions. Students are engaged in framing research
questions, making observations, designing and executing experiments, gathering
and analyzing data, and constructing scientific arguments and explanations.”
Learning occurs best when content and skills are presented in a meaningful
context. It does not occur in isolated fragments of facts and trivia. Teachers
build that meaningful context and lead students to knowledge acquisition
through inquiry.
Science and Technology, Scientific Inquiry and Scientific Ways of Knowing are
standards that describe how to do science through experiments and
investigations. The content of scientific experiments and investigations is
drawn from grade-band appropriate Earth and Space Sciences, Life Sciences and
Physical Sciences standards.
The questions in the Science Process Integration Points to Consider
document are designed to assist teachers in evaluating whether a laboratory
experience (found on the Web or in a textbook) will aid in teaching science
process and content to students. The Aligning of Content and Process
PowerPoint will assist teachers in combining content and process standards
for instruction and assessment.
