Formative Assessment Probes: Birthday Candles: Visually Representing Ideas

Journal Article | October 2012

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month’s issue discusses using visual representations to support students' explanations.

Formative Assessment Probes: Confronting Common Folklore—Catching a Cold

Journal Article | August 2012

Formative assessment probes can help teachers find out what students' ideas are before teaching lessons and use the information to adjust instructional strategies. This article gives an example teachers can use to see…

Formative Assessment Probes: Uncovering Students’ Ideas About Inherited Traits

Journal Article | January 2018

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month’s issue discusses the “Baby Mice” probe, which is designed for middle and high school students, but it can be used with grades 3–5 to elicit…

Formative Assessment Probes: Watermelon and Grape: An Intuitive Rule of Quantity and Proportion

Journal Article | November 2014

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month’s issue shows a formative assessment probe that reveals how strong the "More A - More B" intuitive rule is when students are considering the…

Formative Assessment Probes: Pendulums and Crooked Swings: Connecting Science and Engineering

Journal Article | September 2013

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month’s issue explores the complementary nature of science and engineering in the elementary classroom.

Formative Assessment Probes: When Is the Next Full Moon? Using K–2 Concept Cartoons

Journal Article | August 2013

This column focuses on promoting learning through assessment. This month’s issue uses concept cartoons to assess students' ideas about the moon.

Uncovering Student Ideas in Astronomy: 45 New Formative Assessment Probes (e-book)

eBook | March 2012

What do your students know—or think they know—about what causes night and day, why days are shorter in winter, and how to tell a planet from a star? Find out with this book on astronomy, the latest in NSTA’s popular…

Cookie Crumbles

Journal Article | May 2022

What Is Brainstorming?

Journal Article | January 2021

Uncovering Students’ Ideas About Using Designs From Nature

Journal Article | January 2022