Formative Assessment Probes and the Crosscutting Concepts
The Uncovering Student Ideas in Science probes provide opportunities for students to use the crosscutting concepts. Crosscutting concepts are the unifying ideas that cut across all the disciplines of science. For example, students explain their initial thinking to a probe. After they have had opportunities to learn the science and gather evidence to support their thinking, they revisit their initial explanation and construct a new revised or more detailed scientific explanation. The example on the left shows how a student used the disciplinary core idea, “an object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eyes” to construct a revised explanation and used a model (a drawing) to support his scientific explanation. (This student initially selected answer choice D with an initial explanation from his everyday experience of being able to see things after being in the dark for awhile, such as in his bedroom at night.) The explanation includes the crosscutting concept of cause and effect- “if there is no light, there is no sight.” The use of the model also includes the crosscutting concept of cause and effect. It’s always best to use a probe twice- at the beginning to elicit initial ideas and again after students have had opportunities to learn and use their scientific ideas and evidence, along with the crosscutting concepts as a framework to structure their thinking.
How Can Students Use Crosscutting Concepts with the Probes?
Patterns- when responding to a probe, have students…
Identify and use a pattern to explain the phenomenon in the probe.
Use a pattern to identify and explain a cause and effect relationship.
Use patterns of change to make and support a prediction.
Describe the pattern used to sort cards when using the card sort FACT with a probe.
Use a graph, chart, or image to support an answer choice and explain the pattern.
Cause and Effect-Mechanism and Prediction- when responding to a probe, have students…
Identify the cause of a change and predict the effect.
Explain why a change happened using a cause and effect relationship.
Identify and explain a change as causal or correlational.
Choose the best cause of the change described in the probe scenario and use rebuttals to eliminate other the causes.
Use cause and effect to describe the relationship between two variables related to the probe.
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity- when responding to a probe, have students…
Use the concept of scale size, scale distance, or scale time in their explanation.
Use relative scales to explain (bigger, smaller, hotter, colder, faster, slower, further away, closer).
Explain how scale affects how the system in the probe scenario can be observed or studied.
Use proportional relationships in their explanation.
Use algebraic expressions or equations to describe relationships.
Use standard units of measurement in the explanation.
Explain the effect of a change in quantity.
Systems and System Models- when responding to a probe, have students…
Describe parts and wholes relationships.
Describe the interactions of parts in a system.
Use the concept of an open or closed system to support an answer choice.
Describe interactions with other systems.
Use the idea of systems within systems.
identify and Include inputs, outputs, and boundaries of a system in an explanation.
Use a model to represent a system.
Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation- when responding to a probe, have students…
Use a particle model to explain matter-related ideas.
Decide whether their probe explanation uses matter or energy ideas.
Use conservation reasoning to support an explanation.
Track how and where matter cycles or energy flows to justify an answer choice.
Identify and describe the form of matter or energy used in the probe.
Structure and Function- when responding to a probe, have students…
Use the relationship between structure and function to select an answer choice and support an explanation.
Identify structures within structures.
Use visual representations to describe structures or functions.
Explain how a system or part of a system functions.
Stability and Change - when responding to a probe, have students…
Describe the change over short or long periods of time.
Describe how some things change and some things stay the same.
Explain how one change can lead to another change.
Describe rates of change.
Describe how the change is measured.
Use the concept of stability or equilibrium in their explanation.
Use the concept of feedback to explain stability or change.