Facilitator’s Guide for What’s Your Evidence?

Description

Throughout the book, practical discussions, explanations, and descriptions help teachers:

• get a clear understanding of the rationale for the importance of focusing on scientific explanation in grades K-5, including a discussion of alignment with national standards and reform documents
• see how the scientific explanation framework works and how it can be used to support all students (including ELLs and students with special needs) in science writing and talk
• learn to design instruction that provides opportunities and appropriate supports to engage all students in scientific explanations
• discover how to use student assessment and provide support for both students and teachers over time

A number of illustrative aids help teachers implement effective science teaching in their K-5 classrooms, for example:

• Vignettes and scenarios show what the essential ideas look like in practice.
• Student writing samples illustrate both strong examples and common student difficulties with scientific explanations.
• Video clips from actual elementary classrooms demonstrate scientific explanations at different levels of complexity and across different science topics.
• Strategies to support all students in constructing scientific explanations in both talk and writing help with students with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, including English Language Learners and students with special needs.
• Check points synthesise key points and give teachers a road map of the essential ideas in the book.
• Study group questions at the end of each chapter can be used individually or in groups to help reflect on and apply the key ideas.

Book Study Facilitator’s Guide

What’s Your Evidence?:

Engaging K-5 Children in Constructing Explanations in Science

Carla L. Zembal-Saul, Katherine L. McNeill, and Kimber Hershberger

The Book Study Facilitator’s Guide to accompany What’s Your Evidence? Engaging K-5 Students in Constructing Explanations in Science by Carla Zembal-Saul, Katherine L. McNeill and Kimber Hershberger, provides professional development and teacher leaders tips and ideas for using this book when conducting a Book Study group or professional development series.

Generating scientific evidence, explaining natural phenomena, and participating in science talk and science writing are key skills identified in current science reform documents and standards. Critical as they are, these are challenging scientific practices for students to engage in and for teachers to plan for and implement in class. Engaging in Book Study can help teachers better support their students in these key aspects of science learning. This guide provides resources to help professional development and teacher leaders encourage and support teachers as they discuss the ideas in the book, try the scientific explanation framework (i.e., claim, evidence, reasoning, and rebuttal) with their students, and use their own student work and video to spur discussion and reflection to inform practice.

Why science coaches and trainers will love the Book Study Facilitator’s Guide:

• The facilitator’s guide consists of nine sessions supporting each chapter of the book. Due to the importance of the scientific explanation framework and assessment two sessions were devoted to each of these chapters.
• Each session is intended to create a constructivist-oriented learning experience.
• The sessions are structured to build participants understandings of the key ideas through conducting investigations, analyzing video, examining student work, designing learning tasks, and designing assessment tasks with their colleagues.
• Participants are then encouraged to read the suggested book chapter following the session to develop a more in-depth understanding of how to apply the ideas to their own classroom.
• Each session clearly outlines for facilitators the Learning Objectives, Materials, a complete Session Plan, and Homework.

The Book Study Facilitator’s Guide to accompany What’s Your Evidence? Engaging K-5 Students in Constructing Explanations in Science by Carla Zembal-Saul, Katherine L. McNeill and Kimber Hershberger, provides professional development and teacher leaders tips and ideas for using this book when conducting a Book Study group or professional development series.

Generating scientific evidence, explaining natural phenomena, and participating in science talk and science writing are key skills identified in current science reform documents and standards. Critical as they are, these are challenging scientific practices for students to engage in and for teachers to plan for and implement in class. Engaging in Book Study can help teachers better support their students in these key aspects of science learning. This guide provides resources to help professional development and teacher leaders encourage and support teachers as they discuss the ideas in the book, try the scientific explanation framework (i.e., claim, evidence, reasoning, and rebuttal) with their students, and use their own student work and video to spur discussion and reflection to inform practice.

Why science coaches and trainers will love the Book Study Facilitator’s Guide:

• The facilitator’s guide consists of nine sessions supporting each chapter of the book. Due to the importance of the scientific explanation framework and assessment two sessions were devoted to each of these chapters.
• Each session is intended to create a constructivist-oriented learning experience.
• The sessions are structured to build participants understandings of the key ideas through conducting investigations, analyzing video, examining student work, designing learning tasks, and designing assessment tasks with their colleagues.
• Participants are then encouraged to read the suggested book chapter following the session to develop a more in-depth understanding of how to apply the ideas to their own classroom.
• Each session clearly outlines for facilitators the Learning Objectives, Materials, a complete Session Plan, and Homework.

The purpose of the Book Study Facilitator’s Guide is to provide ideas on how to conduct a Book Study group or professional development series to accompany the book What’s Your Evidence? Engaging K-5 Students in Constructing Explanations in Science by Carla Zembal-Saul, Katherine L. McNeill and Kimber Hershberger. Current science reform documents and standards argue for the importance of students being able to generate scientific evidence, explain natural phenomena, and participate in science talk and science writing. Critical as they are, these are challenging scientific practices for students to engage in and for teachers to plan for and implement in class. Engaging in Book Study can help teachers better support their students in these key aspects of science learning.

There are two goals of this guide: (1) to support the development of a collaborative teacher community that shares a common interest and supports each other in their work; and (2) to link the ideas presented in the book to classroom practice in which students construct scientific explanations in both writing and talk. This Book Study guide provides participants with an avenue to collaborate with their colleagues to discuss the ideas in the book, try the scientific explanation framework (i.e., claim, evidence, reasoning, and rebuttal) with their students, and bring student work and video clips back to discuss with their colleagues to reflect on how to continue to improve their practice. The purpose of the guide is not to cover every idea discussed in the book, but rather to extend the key ideas and to provide suggestions on how to discuss those ideas in a teacher community, and how to try out the ideas in classrooms. The Book Study model provides an excellent opportunity for professional development in which teachers are able to consider and apply current research to their own classroom.