May/June - Generating and Testing Hypotheses

The last chapter that will be covered this year from the Research-Based Strategies from the book will be Generating and Testing Hypotheses. As the authors state, generating and testing hypotheses is something students naturally do when they start to apply knowledge. In the classroom, utilizing activities that involve generating and testing hypotheses can be an excellent tool in incorporating higher-order thinking into a lesson.

Throughout the chapter, the authors provide several "structured tasks" that can be used in activities that involved generating and testing hypotheses: Systems Analysis, Problem Solving, Historical Investigation, Invention, Experimental Inquiry, and Decision Making. Based on what you have read throughout the chapter, please share examples of how you plan to, or have already, incorporated tasks in the classroom that involve generating and testing hypotheses specific to your content area.

In my U.S.I History class, the students are often asked to predict the outcomes of certain historical events based on underlying information that they already know. The students are able to generate their hypothesis, and then compare it to what actually happened and reflecting on the differences and similarities. For example, this past month the students have been studying the Civil War, specifically the outbreak of the war at Fort Sumter. Abraham Lincoln, was struggling with a predicament when it came to what would be the appropriate action when dealing with the fort, which was falling into Confederate. The students were tasked with predicting what they thought Lincoln would do, based on what they already knew about him, the Union, the Confederacy, and the United States. The task allowed the students to think critically about a historical situation, as well as to come to an understanding of why their prediction/hypothesis agreed or disagreed with what actually happened.