The best way to assess student understanding of a concept is to let them write about it.
Teaching writing is teaching students how to think, to order and synthesise their thoughts, and gives them the skills to demonstrate what they know.
Furthermore, schools that use a systematic and explicit approach to teaching writing ... give their students an unassailable advantage over those who do not.

Describing and explaining are the workhorse genres in science. 

Hypotheses are tentative explanations of meticulous observations and descriptions of things.

Regular writing of extended tasks is key to improving learning outcomes. Use SOLO to design engaging writing tasks to assess student understanding and misconceptions in science. Empower students with SOLO to write comprehensive explanations in science.

Course Curriculum

  • 1

    Engaging in writing

    • Why write science?

    • Hot air balloon

    • Literacy Across the Curriculum - Presentation
  • 2

    Language and knowledge

    • Language and knowledge

    • What are genres?

    • Identify the genre of these texts

    • Identify the genre of these (visual) texts
  • 3

    Describing and explaining in science

    • Describing and explaining in science
  • 4

    Teaching and learning process

    • Teaching and learning process

    • Prepositions

    • Prepositions

    • Conjunctions

    • Conjunctions

    • The structure of explanatory responses to HSC questions
  • 5

    Analysis of student explanations

    • Analysis of student writing in science

    • SOLO Taxonomy and the analysis of student responses

    • Extended response tasks

    • Hot air balloon SOLO analysis

    • General 2-cycle SOLO scoring rubric

    • Conceptual and literacy assessment of student writing

    • Hot air balloon cycles

    • Hot air balloon 2

    • Extended scoring rubric

    • The SOLO Taxonomy
  • 6

    My writing task

    • Scaffolding a writing task - Sun Moon Earth

    • Scaffolding a writing task - Platypus

    • Scaffolding a writing task - Off the rails

    • My writing task
  • 7

    Resources

    • Resources

    • Course notes

    • Copy of TTA Face to face Workshops

    • Copy of TTA online courses

About the instructor

Curriculum and assessment advisor

Jim Sturgiss

Jim is an educational researcher and independent educational consultant. A recipient of the NSW PTC Distinguished Service Award for leadership in delivering targeted professional learning to teachers, he works with schools to align assessment, reporting and learning practice. He has been a DoE Senior Assessment Advisor where he developed many statewide assessments, (ESSA, SNAP, ELLA, BST) and as Coordinator: Analytics where he developed reports to schools for statewide assessments and NAPLAN.

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