Science (Grade 8 FI)

Focus:  Incorporating Learning Goals and Success Criteria into the Science Curriculum

Attendance:  Jack, Rob

Overview

• Decided we wanted to meaningfully connect learning goals and success criteria into science lessons
• Discussed current unit (Substances) and where he was at in this unit.
• Cross referenced material he was using with curriculum to see where we should go next
• Decided it would be helpful to have Success Criteria for lab write ups.
• Wanted to ensure consistency with high school
• Contacted Anthony Siriani at AN Myer to create high school liaison
• Discussed how it would be important to separate success criteria from requirements, especially in lab reports
• Anthony return call and filled us in on how it looks in high school.  Main focus on Observations and Conclusion.  Moved away from formal lab report write ups.
• With this information, decided that this would be our focus as well.  We wanted to create success criteria for just the observations and the conclusions.
• Consulted Smarter Science Resource for ideas.
• Developed a learning goal:  To effectively use observations to support or reject hypothesis into a strong conclusion.  
• Brainstormed what a good observation should look like using example reports (ie.  Different ways of presenting data, accuracy, and detail)
• Brainstormed what a strong conclusion looks like (present most important information, clear explanation, relate to why this is important).
• Pulled apart requirements for each.  
• Discussed how we plan to teach this.  Decided to give them a lab to do with minimal guidance as a diagnostic.  Use these reports (chart paper), to help pull out some of the success criteria and guide them towards creating stronger observations and conclusions.  Have then revisit their lab using the success criteria and use feedback to improve it.  Then do another lab that will allow them to practice this again.  We were thinking for using an online lab to have students do this independently. 

Next Steps:

• To connect with high school teacher on Wednesday to get a clearer picture of what this looks like in high school
• Select a lab to complete as a diagnostic and one to complete as a practice.

Rough Draft

Grade Eight Science

Lab Assessment

Learning Goal: To effectively use scientific observations, during an experiment, to develop a strong

conclusion.

Observations:

Success Criteria: Able to select the most appropriate way of displaying data recorded
Able to accurately collect and record data
Able to make specific and detailed observations throughout lab
Requirements: Must present all finding from experiment
Must carefully following the procedures in order

Conclusions:

Success Criteria: Able to clearly explain understanding of the main findings of the lab
Able to pull out the most important findings from the lab
Able to relate importance of the finding to real world situations

Requirements: Must accept/refute hypothesis

Must create a summary of findings
Must answer guided Questions