Uncovering Student Ideas in Life Science, Volume 1: 25 New Formative Assessment Probes (Uncovering Student Ideas in Science)

Author Page Keeley continues to provide K–12 teachers with her highly usable and popular formula for uncovering and addressing the preconceptions that students bring to the classroom―the formative assessment probe―in this first book devoted exclusively to life science in her Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series. In this volume, Keeley addresses the topics of life and its diversity; structure and function; life processes and needs of living things; ecosystems and change; reproduction, life cycles, and heredity; and human biology. Using the probes as diagnostic tools that identify and analyze students’ preconceptions, teachers can easily move students from where they are in their current thinking to where they need to be to achieve scientific understanding. At the same time, use of the probes deepens the teacher’s understanding of the subject matter, suggests instructional implications, and expands assessment literacy. Using the student-learning data gained through the probes to inform teaching and learning is what makes the probes formative. Each probe is supported by extensive Teacher Notes, which provide background information on the purpose of the probes, related concepts, explanations of the life science ideas being taught, related ideas in the national science standards, research on typical student misconceptions in life science, and suggestions for instruction and assessment.

Page Keeley is the senior science program director at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA). She directs projects in the areas of leadership, professional development, standards and research on learning, formative assessment, and mentoring and coaching, and consults with school districts and organizations nationally. She has been the principal investigator on three NSF-funded projects: the Northern New England Co-Mentoring Network, a school-based mentoring program that supported science and mathematics professional learning communities for middle and high school mentors and new teachers; Curriculum Topic Study- A Systematic Approach to Utilizing National Standards and Cognitive Research; and PRISMS- Phenomena and Representations for Instruction of Science in Middle School, a National Digital Library collection of Web resources aligned to standards and reviewed for instructional quality. In addition she is a co-PI on two statewide projects: Science Content, Conceptual Change, and Collaboration (SC4), a state MSP focused on conceptual change teaching in the physical sciences for K–8 teachers and a National SemiConductor Foundation grant on Linking Science, Inquiry, and Language Literacy (L-SILL). Keeley is the author of ten nationally published books, including four books in the Curriculum Topic Study series (Corwin Press), four volumes in the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science: 25 Formative Assessment Probes series (NSTA Press), Science Formative Assessment: 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning (Corwin and NSTA Press), and Mathematics Formative Assessment: 50 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning (in press). Keeley taught middle and high school science for 15 years. At that time she was an active teacher leader at the state and national level. She received the Presidential Award for excellence in Secondary Science Teaching in 1992 and the Milken National Educator Award in 1993. She has served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Maine, is a Cohort 1 Fellow in the National Academy for Science and Mathematics Education Leadership, served as a science literacy leader for the AAAS/Project 2061 Professional Development Program, and has served on several national advisory boards. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences and served as the 63rd President of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for the 2008-09 term.