Scott Conlan

10/18/16
EDAD 543
Case Study
Brennan teaches 9th grade Biology at Sedro-Woolley High School. This school year I have been supporting
him in the development of an Area of Focus for his Inquiry Cycle. Brennan has observed that many of his
students struggle to support an argument with scientific evidence in both written and verbal communication.
These are important skills that students can apply broadly throughout their lives and they are addressed
specifically in the Next Generation Science Standards (Science and Engineering Practice 6: Engaging in
Argument Using Evidence). He has come to the this conclusion based on his observation of class discussions
and student writing samples. Each of these tasks prompted students to justify their thinking around a scientific
phenomenon using evidence from class activities.
Brennan is planning to address this need of his students by providing direct instruction on how to develop a
claim, cite relevant evidence to support that claim, and explain how the evidence supports the claim. He also is
planning to provide numerous opportunities for students to develop these skills through lab activities, small
group and whole class discussions, and formative assessments. Specifically, Brennan plans to collect student
growth data from whole class discussions and the formative assessments.
Brennan plans to use the Socratic Seminar instructional strategy to provide opportunities for students to
develop their abilities to verbally support a claim with evidence and reasoning and assess their progress.
Brennan plans to record data on which students are speaking during the discussion and how effectively
individual students are constructing arguments using evidence. He also plans to provide scaffolded support for
these discussions by providing sentence frames and starters to students to use to prepare for the discussions.
Brennan and I have also identified Formative Assessment Probes published by the National Science
Teachers Association that will be used as both pre and post assessments for various units throughout the year.
He plans to use a claim-evidence-reasoning rubric to assign a score to these assessments, which will provide
quantitative data for individual students. He also plans to record observations of trends he identifies in the
student responses, which will provide qualitative data that can be used to judge whether students are learning.
I believe the data Brennan plans to collect is reliable and has the potential to provide feedback on whether
students are learning. The data he plans to collect should provide information on how individual students are
progressing toward his learning goals and he will be able to assess the whole class. An additional source of

data that could help would be a video of the Socratic Seminar discussions. The discussion could be analyzed
in greater detail and with greater confidence in the results if a video recording was available.
Brennan has identified four students that he wants to pay particular attention:

Jaime is a female student with an IEP. She qualifies for services in math and writing. She is

confidence in social situations, however, she struggles to use academic vocabulary and to accurately
describe scientific concepts both verbally and in writing.
Paul is a male student with an IEP. He qualifies for services in math, reading, and writing. He He
also struggles with academic vocabulary and tends to be more reserved in social situations. However,
Brennan has noticed that he is interested in science and often has a sound understanding of the big
picture and how concepts relate to one another.
Adam is a male student with an IEP. He also qualifies in math, reading, and writing. He
particularly struggles to express his science ideas in writing. He also struggles with motivation and
Brennan has found it difficult to engage him in the class.
Diane is an ELL. She has difficulty speaking during whole class discussions and displays little
confidence in her work. She also struggles to use academic vocabulary and to communicate her
science ideas. Brennan is unsure as to how much of the science content she understands and is
concerned that she may know more than she is able to communicate clearly.
Overall, Brennan would like to see each of these students develop an increased confidence when writing
and talking about science ideas. Specifically, he would like to see them make improvements in citing evidence
or referring to science concepts to support a claim. He would also like to see them improve in their ability to
explain how the evidence or concepts they identify support a claim.