Martha

I think I need to say that I just completely flunked your grading quiz. There were things about the investigations that would not have worked for me in my classroom. There were not proper controls on some and some were even potentially unethical. Since the rubrics did not address these concerns, I supposed the issue is in how to write a good rubric. I also have students who so dislike rubrics they refuse to use them. However, because in the classroom I must eventually award grades, here is what I do differently. 1. There is ample time for checking on appropriate, ethical, controls, etc. before any student actually does an experiment. They get to change their minds before any grade is impacted. 2. We sometimes write rubrics together so that all the things that are important to us (based on the above) are included in the rubric. 3. I usually have a student reflection piece--what did you like, not like, how did you get better at "x" type questions that also helps me grade in a way that the students find helpful and fair. 4. Sometimes I pick one lab report/group and grade that via points. The students get the report back and then must apportion the points to each person in the group (those who do more work should get more points....). It keeps the workload somewhat fairly distributed. 5. Rewrites are certainly possible when students dislike a grade (but not many do this). 6. I also try to incorporate grading not only on the final product, but on asking questions and involvement during the process. 7. Poster Reports can be fun because during gallery walk time students get to make compliments to each other and they love reading these. The same can be done during oral presentations but students struggle to compliment more during these, I think. 8. It is important to think in terms of grading for growth--how much better are students getting at reporting out than they used to be. This is truly hard to capture in a grade. There are times when I have asked students to pre-grade their reports using the rubrics. I don't look at these until after I've graded. Then we discuss any differences in terms of what the students could change and what I could change. It helps me understand how well they are able to self-reflect--always a skill I am trying to help them build. 9. Compliments on both process and product go a long way towards helping students see grading as part of the process of learning.

I teach 9th grade biology and environmental science for 11-12 graders. In any typical year, I have very capable students through very struggling students, including those who are just learning English, hard of hearing students, and those who dislike putting pen to paper types (or fingers to keyboards). Thus, I've struggled a lot with making peer review helpful for all. Sometimes I assign lab groups of mixed ability and students submit work as a group so that the struggling writers get to see, hear, and write with those who can lead them forwards. Sometimes, I share out various samples for kids to look at and critique (what do you like? what do you want to see improved?). A lot of time, I read before due dates and ask questions about the work. Especially working with 9th graders, I have found that students are much more likely to edit and rewrite their work if I have them write on sticky notes (I use manila folders with lab report sections headings and guidance glued in) instead of in their lab books. I still don't understand why this is, but it works. They happily toss out bogus hypotheses and graphs done on sticky notes whereas they cringe if asked to do the same in their lab books. In truth, I would rather grade manila folders than a stack of notebooks too. I do use differently sized sticky notes (and even keep some lined ones around for those who need lines) and always let the kids pick their colors. I have also found that students appreciate it when they are allowed to skip a section here or there for whatever reason. Sometimes having them draw results first and then having them describe the pictures helps them see patterns. Sometimes drawing pictures can work as a hypothesis too (what will this look like at the beginning, middle, and end?). In truth, even after lots of support I still go back to some students and ask them to explain things that I did not understand in their reports. While progress can be slow and varies widely, I think all students leave my class in the spring as better technical writers.

I looked at Globe at Night about the amount of light in the night time sky. Data can be downloaded in a variety of formats or on maps. I like maps even though I teach science and try to build a geographic literacy component in to each unit in my environmental class for grades 11-12. Frequently we look at maps and where things are happening. The data can be accessed by anyone even without contributing. I think though, that I would want to have students collect data before accessing it (doing one without the other seems weird to me). This is one project that I think all of my students might be able to manage an observation for. Even those who play video games until all hours in the night/morning ought to be able to grab a few second to record an observation. The only issue would be that some of my students do not have a phone. I think there might be some work arounds for that though. If we are allowed field trips this year this would dovetail pretty nicely with our Space Discovery Center's Science on a Stick (think multiple projectors on a spinning sphere). They do have a cool video about light pollution. Side note: Also (a few years back) NOAA got ahold of some satellite data about lights at night (after the air force used whatever they wanted from the data set) and found out that the Sea of Japan, Nigeria, and Russia/Siberia seemed to have an awful lot of night light/pollution. Japan was traced to fishing. Nigeria was traced to oil drilling. And Russia had so much oil drilling going on that clearly they were lying about how many barrels they were getting/year. Not quite spy worthy, but still rather fun nonetheless that we have indirect ways of checking up on each other.

I too tend to fall into the guide trap a lot. However, sometimes it is totally appropriate. The trick seems to be finding the right balance between the 2 roles that we can have.

Strategies and tools: Discrepant events are fun for students. You show and describe for them a lab set up and ask them to predict what will happen and they have all sorts of ideas. Then you show them the demo (or have them do it) and none of the predictions are correct. So we talk about being willing to change your mind and how that is a great character trait of a scientist. I also think discussing graphs from research especially if it involves teenage behavior can be fun (teen dating is down in the 21st century compared to when I was in school). Anything local and or otherwise personal is also interesting to the high school kids. Sometimes, I have students who find cool stuff for us to discuss and this isn't always my A students. My struggling students sometimes find the best new stuff for us to ask questions about. Trying to find a way for everyone to find some success is pretty important to building a culture of learning in the classroom. When it comes to designing an experiment, some students struggle with going deeper (especially, I imagine, after 18 months of pandemic learning). We do a lot of education espionage in my room--students work in groups but I encourage them to listen to each other (during class work time and during discussion) and borrow ideas. We compare inquiry questions before we plan the rest of the experiment so if kids are shallow question askers, they get to see the deeper (better) questions before proceeding on. It can help them change their minds (but not always)! I also think kids get better at this as the year progresses--I expect better questions/inquiry labs by the end of the year. The progress in learning is really what matters to me.

I like your no wrong questions idea and your support for quieter students who eventually decide to go public with their questions. What a great way to keep them trying.

How neat to get up at 4:15 am to try this. I too am an early bird and I've been noticing lately that the birds are singing later in the morning already. It was 4:30 2 weeks ago, now it is closer to 5. Sigh--summer always goes by so quickly.

Do you envision making the outside audience even bigger? I've often wondered about how to do this in a way that doesn't take up too much time from the classroom. The best I've done is have my various sections of biology compare data tables from one class to the next--looking at things they like and things that need improving.

This activity sounds like such a great way of making the learning personal. How do you get students to research using reputable sites? Do you give them a list of sites you consider good or let them just google?

I have always found that my students prefer to do the community science work and that this preference leads to, at least, a willingness to learn the content that goes with the community science work. In other words, by emphasizing community science, students are more willing to take the notes, do the work, and create the project or presentation. Choice remains my go to method for creating student buy-in for science. Sometimes the choice is in content, sometimes it is in presentation method, sometimes the role within these. This can take a lot of work and it can mean the classroom looks really weird to those who do the teacher evaluations who are more used to a one-size-fits-all classroom, but as long as the students can explain what they are up to and why they are doing whatever it is they are working on, progress is made.