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Conceptual Framework
>> 2. Deciding on the Purposes of the Professional
Development
2.2. Understanding Student Thinking and How Students Learn
Considerable attention is being paid to the notion that teachers need
to understand what students know and how they think about a particular
concept or problem situation in order to help move their understanding
forward. A number of materials in this database address understanding
student thinking as a primary purpose, including the Children's
Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction (Fennema and Carpenter,
1999), Number and Operations,
Part 1 & Part
2 (Schifter et.al., 1997), and Algebraic Thinking Toolkit
(Driscoll, 2000) materials in mathematics.
The
Private Universe Teacher Workshops (Annenberg/CPB, 1995) and the
follow-up Minds
of Our Own (Annenberg, 1997) materials contain video clips of
students explaining their understandings of various science concepts,
with an emphasis on "alternative conceptions" and how to engage
students in constructing a more scientifically accurate understanding
of the focus concept.
Assessment of students' work is a particularly valuable tool for understanding
their thinking and a variety of materials in the database are focused
on approaches to student assessment. Balanced
Assessment for the Mathematics Curriculum (Balanced Assessment
Project, 1999, 2000), for example, presents assessment tasks designed
to assess students' understanding of content and processes at multiple
grade levels. Constructive
Assessment in Mathematics: Practical Steps for Classroom Teachers
(Clarke, 1997), Writing
to Learn Mathematics: Strategies that Work (Countryman, 1992),
and Improving Teaching and Learning Using
Assessment in Middle School Science (Gallagher et al., 1997) also
offer strategies that teachers can use to assess what students know and
to understand students' thinking about concepts in mathematics and science.
Several essays included in the TE-MAT database
address issues that are related to understanding student thinking. Audrey
Champagne et al.'s essay talks about the implications of the National
Science Education Standards for classroom assessment in science, and Vicky
Kouba et al.'s essay illustrates the complexities introduced by the
"context" of various assessment tasks. Several of the essays
emphasize the importance of understanding student thinking and using that
understanding in planning instruction. These include George
Bright's essay on cognitively-guided instruction for elementary mathematics
students, Mark Driscoll's essay on the Algebraic
Thinking Toolkit, and Jim Minstrell's essay
on high school physics concepts.
Continue: 2.3.
Selecting Appropriate Instructional Materials
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