Activating Students' Ideas Linking Formative Assessment Probes to Instructional Sequence

Science teachers face an incredible challenging task of combining research on how students learn best, the three-dimensions of the Science Education Frameworks that in themselves are complicated to understand, and instructional sequences that lead to deeper learning. Activating Students’ Ideas Matter: Linking Formative Assessment Probes to Instructional Sequence is the type of book that stimulates teacher thinking and cultivates teachers’ skills and abilities necessary to take students to higher levels of learning. The beginning chapter of the book, provides teacher candidates, experienced teachers, teacher educators, and professional developers with a framework for developing lessons that promote higher levels of science literacy. The framework that is used throughout the book is an explore-before-explain sequence of instruction using the 5E instructional model. Once teachers have a solid understanding of an explore-before-explain framework, we guide them through planning activities so they can use emerging bodies of research and the Science Education Frameworks to plan their own explore-before-explain lessons. Educators will have many opportunities to think about explore-before-explain teaching and can explore examples of K-5 science lessons. Each chapter addresses the three dimensions of the Frameworks.

Dr. Patrick L. Brown is the Executive Director of STEM and Career Education for the Fort Zumwalt School District in St. Charles, Missouri. Before arriving at Fort Zumwalt, he received a PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis and was the Assistant Director at the university’ s Teaching Center. Dr. Brown has a range of K– 12 and postsecondary teaching experience. He has taught middle school courses in physical science and high school classes in biology. In addition, he has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses for prospective elementary, middle, and high school teachers. Dr. Brown has won various awards for his science methods course teaching. Dr. Brown makes frequent presentations at international, regional, and state conferences and is known for his scholarship on instructional sequences to teach science. His science teaching ideas have appeared in Science and Children, Science Scope, The Science Teacher, Science Activities, and a recently published book on using classroom inquiry to address the Next Generation Science Standards. His research in science education has been published in Science Education, the Journal of Science Teacher Education, and the International Journal of Science Education.