Pilot Test of Warm Up and Rubric

I decided to pilot test a warm-up activity idea of mine that would be used in a H.S. Chemistry class setting.  Warm-up activites, according to Professor Finney who teaches our Content Area Instruction class, are "5-8 minute activities that take the students from the corridor of the school, their friends, or their iPods to your class and the content area of study. They are usually ungraded and designed to focus the students on the content of the day. They may incorporate prior knowledge. They also may be pre-assessments."

The test group was not of actual students, but four fiends of mine who were in their 20's to 40's.  I briefly spoke about what exothermic (releasing energy) and endothermic (absorbing energy) reactions are.  I then gave a few examples.  I then took out a First Aid instant cold pack and asked them what it is.  They instantly knew what it was for, and jokingly mentioned its usefulness for the clumsy one in the group.  I had one of them read the full instructions.  I asked them why they had to squeeze and shake the bag.  They quickly knew it there was a chemical reaction.  When asked which type it was, they were in agreement that it was endothermic.  I asked the quieter one to explain why and he was able to by linking cold to absorbing energy, which was a tip I gave during the initial mini-lesson.

I then proceeded to take a cold pack out of the freezer.  Then I asked them if this was endo- or exothermic.  Two said it was endothermic, while the other two were not sure.  I then reminded them of the labeling on the instant cold pack, which stated disposable, single-use only.  I then had to ask leading questions about the difference between the cold pack I took out of the medicine cabinet versus the one from the freezer.  Once they figured out the one was reusable, we had to discuss whether there was a chemical reaction taking place, and what qualifies a chemical reaction.  To their credit, we did not discuss physical versus chemical changes beforehand.  High school chemistry students may understand this, however.

I asked each one of them for examples of other endo- and exothermic reactions.  Two were able to come up with ones I didn't use as examples, while the other two just identified ones already discussed.  Using a rubric below I created using Marzano's (2010) guidelines, the first two scored a 4, while the other two scored a 3.  The rubric seemed fine and did not need adjusting.  For a better assessment, this warm-up should be given the following day, to make sure the "students" are not just memorizing.

References

Marzano, R. J. (2010). Formative Assessment & Standards-Based Grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.

Levels	Criteria
4	Students will be able to discuss other chemical processes and how it is exothermic or endothermic.
3	Student will be able to discuss how a chemical processes can either be exothermic or endothermic.
2	Student will be able to recognize if a process is exothermic or endothermic
1	With help, partial success are score 2.0 content and score 3.0
0	Even with help, no success.