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Category: Workshop

  • Kick-Starting Formative Feedback with AI: CERs and Formative Assessment for OpenSciEd

    Last week, we hosted a Coaching ScienceLast week, we hosted a small Coaching Science Lab with educators, instructional coaches, and district leaders to explore a simple, open-ended question:

    What becomes possible when we use everyday AI tools to look more closely at student thinking—without changing who’s in charge of instruction?

    Experiences from the classroom

    Val shared how she used student drawings and explanations from the OpenSciEd Grade 8 Sound Waves unit to better understand student thinking, generate feedback more efficiently, and decide what to teach next.

    Val’s classroom workflow:

    • student work as the starting point
    • generated feedback in the form of strengths and questions to push learner forward
    • AI support enabled her to provide feedback that directly referenced their work, and to do it a lot faster than would have been possible otherwise

    Students loved specific, concrete feedback.

    Using everyday AI tools on purpose

    For the hands-on, we practiced student feedback using off-the-shelf AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to show how you can get started without any special tools.

    Participants could see exactly:

    • how to prompt the AI with student instructions, reviewer instructions, and student work
    • what the AI produced
    • how to chat with the AI to go deeper

    This demystified the AI and showed how it can be used for really helpful analysis on real student work.

    The real leverage wasn’t the tool.
    It was the thinking around:

    • what counts as evidence in student work
    • what feedback actually helps students improve
    • what patterns matter for coaching and planning

    AI simply helped us move through that thinking faster.

    Teacher judgment stays at the center

    A strong theme throughout the session was role clarity.

    Participants resonated with an approach where:

    • teachers review and revise all feedback
    • tone and instructional intent remain human
    • AI suggestions are visible, editable, and contextual
    • patterns support coaching conversations rather than replace them

    The framing that stuck was simple:

    Teachers hope to engage students in deeper, more feedback.
    AI helps teachers do that work more often, with less friction.

    An invitation, not a conclusion

    Participants in the Coaching Science Lab session showed creativity and curiosity, encouraging us to create more opportunities for shared practice around real student work.

    We’re excited to continue learning and doing together.

    Want to explore this yourself?

    If you’re curious to try this approach in your own context, we’ve shared two lightweight entry points:

    This is a great a place to start exploring.

    We’re continuing to host small Coaching Science Labs as spaces to test ideas, learn from real classrooms, and figure out what responsible, useful AI support can look like in practice.

    If you’re interested in joining a future session—or just trying this on your own—we’d love to learn alongside you. Browse or subscribe to our calendar to join us for upcoming events.

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  • CER Feedback AI Prompt Example

    Copy this prompt into an AI tool of your choice (chatgpt.com, claude.ai, gemini.google.com) 

    ## Reviewer Instructions
[Role and responsibilities]
You are a teacher evaluating a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) assessment. Read the student response below and provide feedback. Identify strengths in the writing and make suggestions for improvement. Make specific connections between student writing and the task criteria. 

[Context]
This assessment is made up of 3 parts in response to a scientific question. The 3 parts are: Claim, Evidence, Reasoning. The claim has a correct answer and typically reflects the scientific concept. The evidence are data to support the claim.  
Reasoning reflects the student's ability to make logical and scientific connections between the evidence and the claim. 

[Instructions]
1. Evaluate reasoning responses based on the look-fors below:
Includes logic statements that link the claim, evidence and science concepts (for example, using words like “because”, “therefore”, etc).
Uses correct science concepts (laws, theories, mechanisms) to justify the relationship.
Clearly explains the cause-and-effect link between claim and evidence.

2. When writing feedback, write directly to the student, citing specific but accurate strengths from their writing and pointing out ways to better organize and connect their writing. (i.e. "You provided strong evidence for... by stating that...") Use only verbatim examples from the student's writing. DO NOT MAKE ANYTHING UP. 

3. Avoid providing strengths if the student response does not reflect student knowledge. 

4. The student is in "learning mode" so use suggestions to elicit their understanding or probe deeper using guiding questions, but don't solve the explanation for them (i.e. Socratic style). Use clear and concise language and an encouraging, supportive tone. 

5. Write it in the language and vocabulary that an 8th grader can understand. Avoid using scientific jargon. 

6. Select up to 3 strengths and 3 suggestions that are the most, providing more feedback around reasoning. 

The questions are: 
Question 1a. All solid objects do bend or change shape when pushed in a collision. 
Question 1b. Evidence
Question 1c. Reasoning

The student’s response are:
Question 1a. All solid objects do bend or change shape when pushed in a collision. Question 1b. Moving car caused damage to the stationary car The golf club’s force caused the ball to squish When the bat and ball collided they both squished and bounced When force was applied the the mirror the laser reflected of moved on impact When the plunger was pushing down on the cement beam it was bending a lot Question 1c. In all of these scenarios, solid materials bent or changed shape from the impact of the collision. In the slow motion video of the baseball bat and ball you could see how the ball squished against the bat before bouncing back up, and the bat wiggled downward. Again in the cement beam video, the plunger’s force was making the beam bend. The golf ball scenario is like the cement video because the object applying force is causing the other object to change its shape. Even though the club was colliding with the golf ball at different speeds, the ball changed shape the same way. When the moving car and the stationary car collided, they almost instantly caused damage to each other. In the mirror and laser video, the guy applied force to the mirror where the laser was pointed and the reflection of the laser, which was pointed at paper, moved. That means that the mirror bent when the force was applied. In all of these videos, there were solid materials that had force applied to them, and they all bent or changed shape during the collision.  
 

The prompt is separated into the 3 parts, context about the task, student instructions, and student response. 
Try switching out the student instructions and student response for different assessments!

1. Context about the task
[Role and responsibilities]
You are a teacher evaluating a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) assessment. Read the student response below and provide feedback. Identify strengths in the writing and make suggestions for improvement. Make specific connections between student writing and the task criteria. 

[Context]
This assessment is made up of 3 parts in response to a scientific question. The 3 parts are: Claim, Evidence, Reasoning. The claim has a correct answer and typically reflects the scientific concept. The evidence are data to support the claim.  
Reasoning reflects the student's ability to make logical and scientific connections between the evidence and the claim. 

[Instructions]
1. Evaluate reasoning responses based on the look-fors below:
Includes logic statements that link the claim, evidence and science concepts (for example, using words like “because”, “therefore”, etc).
Uses correct science concepts (laws, theories, mechanisms) to justify the relationship.
Clearly explains the cause-and-effect link between claim and evidence.

2. When writing feedback, write directly to the student, citing specific but accurate strengths from their writing and pointing out ways to better organize and connect their writing. (i.e. "You provided strong evidence for... by stating that...") Use only verbatim examples from the student's writing. DO NOT MAKE ANYTHING UP. 

3. Avoid providing strengths if the student response does not reflect student knowledge. 

4. The student is in "learning mode" so use suggestions to elicit their understanding or probe deeper using guiding questions, but don't solve the explanation for them (i.e. Socratic style). Use clear and concise language and an encouraging, supportive tone. 

5. Write it in the language and vocabulary that an 8th grader can understand. Avoid using scientific jargon. 

6. Select up to 3 strengths and 3 suggestions that are the most, providing more feedback around reasoning. 


## Student Instructions
Question 1a. All solid objects do bend or change shape when pushed in a collision. 
Question 1b. Evidence
Question 1c. Reasoning

## Student Response
Question 1a. All solid objects do bend or change shape when pushed in a collision.

Question 1b.
Moving car caused damage to the stationary car
The golf club’s force caused the ball to squish
When the bat and ball collided they both squished and bounced
When force was applied the the mirror the laser reflected of moved on impact
When the plunger was pushing down on the cement beam it was bending a lot

Question 1c.
In all of these scenarios, solid materials bent or changed shape from the impact of the collision. In the slow motion video of the baseball bat and ball you could see how the ball squished against the bat before bouncing back up, and the bat wiggled downward. Again in the cement beam video, the plunger’s force was making the beam bend. The golf ball scenario is like the cement video because the object applying force is causing the other object to change its shape. Even though the club was colliding with the golf ball at different speeds, the ball changed shape the same way. When the moving car and the stationary car collided, they almost instantly caused damage to each other. In the mirror and laser video, the guy applied force to the mirror where the laser was pointed and the reflection of the laser, which was pointed at paper, moved. That means that the mirror bent when the force was applied. In all of these videos, there were solid materials that had force applied to them, and they all bent or changed shape during the collision.

  • Workshop: Kick-Starting Formative Feedback with AI: CERs and Formative Assessment for OpenSciEd

    RSVP link: https://luma.com/mtzs5lo4

    Date: Dec 3 at 12:30 – 1:30pm CT.

    Duration: 60-minute session

    Speaker profile: Valerie Pumala — Cameron Middle School (Cameron, WI); National Board Certified Teacher; 8th Grade Science Teacher; OpenSciEd Certified Facilitator

    Description:
    Can we give student scientists deeper, more actionable feedback without slowing everything down? Middle school science teacher, Valerie Pumala, will show how she uses AI to generate strengths plus guiding questions grounded in student writing—fueling quick revision cycles and improving personalization for students.

    * See before/after examples from a real assessment.

    * Practice a simple formative routine: Use three specific strengths and one catalytic question to move student thinking, and try it on your own (or sample) student work.

    * Take-home: a ready-to-use 3S+Q prompt set and a short coaching checklist.