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Book Chapter
What Happens When Your Bring a Balloon Near a Wall?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electrical interactions. It is designed to find out how students visually represent electrical interactions. The most common representation used to account for electric interac...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about conductors and insulators of electric charge. It is designed to determine whether students can distinguish between objects that allow the charge to move (conductors) and object...
Book Chapter
Does the Example Provide Evidence?
The purpose of this probe is to elicit students’ ideas about charged objects. It is designed to reveal whether students recognize that one can only make a limited conclusion about charge during an interaction where objects are attracted to each oth...
Book Chapter
Where Can You Find Electric Charge?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electric charge. It is designed to determine whether students recognize that electrically charged particles are found in all matter. Its important students know that sunlight r...
Book Chapter
Where Does the Charge Come From?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electric charge. It is designed to reveal students’ thinking about where charge comes from. The example provided is when sliding down a plastic slide on the playground and a ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about complete circuits. It is designed to reveal whether students recognize how just one wire can be used to make a circular pathway of electricity through the battery, bulb, and wi...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about complete circuits and the structure of a lightbulb. It is designed to reveal how students think a battery and bulb need to be connected in order to complete a circuit. The prob...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about complete circuits. It is designed to reveal how students think current flows in a circuit. The probe is best used with students in grades 3–8. Make sure students are familiar...
Book Chapter
How Do You Think About the Flow of Electric Current Through a Circuit?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electric current. It is designed to identify the mental models students use to explain how electric current flows in a simple circuit. The probe is best used with middle and hi...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about types of circuits—series and parallel. It is designed to reveal students’ thinking about the effect of circuit configuration on bulb brightness. The probe is best used with...
Book Chapter
How Would You Rank the Brightness of the Bulbs?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about different types of circuits. It is designed to find out the reasons students use to rank the brightness of bulbs in three different types of circuits. This ranking task probe i...
Book Chapter
How Does the Current in Each Battery Compare?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about batteries. It is designed to reveal students’ ideas about how the flow of current through a battery is affected by the type of circuit. The probe is best used with middle or ...
Book Chapter
Does It Matter if the Wire Has Knots?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the flow of electric current through a wire. It is designed to reveal the limitations of analogies students use to explain the flow of electricity. The probe is best used with ...
Book Chapter
Does Electricity Leak From an Outlet?
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about electricity. It is designed to reveal students’ ideas about how current leaves a wall socket. The probe is best used with middle and high school students. Point to an outlet ...
Book Chapter
The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about household (AC) current. The probe is designed to reveal students’ ideas about what happens when a two-pronged plug is placed in an outlet. If a two-pronged plug is available,...