Professional development that bridges gaps between educational research and practice is needed. However, bridging gaps can be difficult because teachers and educational researchers often belong to different Communities of Practice, as their activities, goals, and means of achieving those goals often differ. Meaningful collaboration among teachers and educational researchers can create a merged Community of Practice in which both teachers and educational researchers mutually benefit. A collaboration of this type is described that centered on investigating students' abilities to apply chemical thinking when engaged in authentic tasks. We describe the design-based principles behind the collaboration, the work of the collaborative team, and a self-evaluation of results interpreted through a Communities-of-Practice perspective, with primary focus on the teachers' perceptions. Analysis revealed ways in which teachers' assessments shifted toward more research-based practice and ways in which teachers navigated the research process. Implications for affordances and constraints of such collaborations among teachers and educational researchers are discussed.
This paper compares the performance of students at a high-performing U.S. public school (n = 64) on the advanced placement (AP) chemistry exam to their performance on the ChemQuery assessment system. The AP chemistry exam was chosen because, as the National Research Council acknowledges, it is the "perceived standard of excellence and school quality". In contrast to the nationally recognized AP chemistry exam, the ChemQuery assessment system is a research tool that uses item-response theory to map student progress on a scale of conceptual understanding in chemistry. Our findings indicate that the two types of assessments, traditional problem-solving skills and conceptual understanding, are highly correlated as measured here. However, student performance on the ChemQuery assessment is disappointingly low. On the basis of the data analysis, this paper discusses the implications of the findings with a focus on the current efforts to redesign the AP chemistry exam.
Formative assessment is an important component of teaching as it enables teachers to foster student learning by uncovering, interpreting, and advancing student thinking. In this work, we sought to characterize how experienced chemistry teachers notice and interpret student thinking shown in written work, and how they respond to what they learn about it. Drawing on qualitative methods from different educational fields, we analyzed data collected during focus groups of middle and high school teachers. Using a “chemical thinking” lens, teachers’ formative assessment practices were characterized as descriptive vs inferential in noticing, evaluative vs sense-making in interpreting, and directive vs responsive in acting. Four major patterns emerged in teachers’ interpreting of student thinking and proposed acting. These patterns affected the diversity of ideas that teachers noticed in student work. Ways of using the findings are offered for chemistry teachers wishing to examine and diversify their own noticing practices, and for professional development efforts in this area.
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