Uncovering Student Ideas in Science-25 Formative Assessment Probes

The authors of the introduction to the book " Uncovering Student Ideas in Science -25 Formative Assessment Probes provide a lot of ideas for the science teachers how to test students previous knowledge and misconceptions they bring to the science classroom.  Testing previous knowledge and conceptions is done through the formative assessments.  What most of us associate with assessments is summative assassessments, something teachers use in the midterm or the end of course.  Summative assessments the ones that  measure the extent to which students achieved proficiency in the subject.  Formative assessments are continues and are used very often throughout the course of a unit or lesson and they provide the teacher with the set of data about student learning. This data teachers then use to modify their  instruction and curriculum and to provide feedback to the students. Teachers can use various formats to conduct formative assessments: individual, small group or whole group elicitation questions, student interviews, observations, informal conversations, journaling, performance tasks, traditional assessments as quizzes or tests during or after lesson.
The authors provide a lot of formative assessments in the book which they call probes. These probes serve to reveal the types of conceptions students have about common science topics before and throughout instruction.  Because students enter the study of science with many misconceptions, preconceived notions of scientific phenomena based on their everyday experiences.  The formation of  students own conceptions, which maybe correct, partially correct or incorrect continues throughout K-12 school years regardless of whether or not these concepts are taught in the science class.
For real learning to happen teachers should address these preconceptions and then modify their instructions and curriculum based on them.  Otherwise, students will graduate high school and go into college and still continue to hold those same misconceptions because they make sense to them and they were never challenged to test their thinking.
Before reading this  the article " Misconceptions Die Hard" and this introduction to the book " Uncovering Student Ideas in Science -25 Formative Assessment Probes I was completely unaware of such practices that can actually help learning in the classroom.  I think of my science education as a typical one where we were expected to repeat the information teacher provided. I never taught that learning can be improved by considering and exploring students ideas.  I was exposed to the old ways of teaching too long to know any different.  This introduction opens up my eyes to various possibilities of teaching students science.  What is the purpose of science education if it is not going to really help students understands scientific phenomena and objects.  And they can only truly understand it if we as teachers find out what they think and how they understand those.  Once we know their ideas about scientific concepts we can slowly build on their previous knowledge, and provide experiences that support the development of correct conceptual understanding.