Uncovering Student Ideas in Science : 25 Formative Assessment Probes

A resource for educators contains brief activities to help identify students' preconceptions about core science topics and includes teacher notes, research summaries, and suggestions for instructional approaches for teaching elementary, middle, and high school students.

Incredible Resource a National Board must have. I first discovered Page's "Uncovering Student Ideas" series when I began my National Board certification process. The prompts provided me with lots of great class discussion prompts and quick assessments I could use with my students to identify the misconceptions they had on the big ideas of Science. I have used the entire series for assessing student understanding, small and large group class discussions, and to fill those 5 or 10 minute "unexpected" moments that arise during the day. The prompts are so popular, students beg to do them because they feel like,"We learn so much!" This series is so helpful, I would not consider teaching without it. --Reviewed by: Sandra Gady (Renton, WA) on January 13, 2011

Used for a hands-on workshop. I used the series Uncovering Student Ideas in Science in two of my workshops on lecture-free teaching. These sessions were for high school and middle school science teachers. In one instance, the teachers (with whom I had worked previously) picked one of the formative assessments, tried it in their classrooms before the scheduled workshop date, and reported to the rest of the group about how it worked. In the second instance, I brought the books to the workshop and gave the teachers about 30 minutes to find an assessment appropriate for one of their classes, make copies for the other participants, and try the assessment on the workshop participants. In both cases each presentation was followed by critique and suggestions from other workshop participants. --Reviewed by: Bonnie Wood (Presque Isle, ME) on July 24, 2008

Great Resource! The formative assessment probes are useful and have allowed us to move forward with an more comprehensive assessment plan. --Reviewed by: Amy (Newark, DE) on July 14, 2008