Stage 4: Building Consensus

The goal of the fourth stage of an MBI unit is to build consensus as a class about the scientific explanation of the anchoring phenomenon and move to the final summative assessment of the unit. This involves, at a minimum, finalizing the student models, building consensus through discussions, and the construction of the final public record.

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Considerations for Teaching for Equity and Social Justice

Equity Approach #1: Consensus-building discussions should be structured to include every student’s voice and perspective. Use facilitation strategies that ensure all groups have equitable opportunities to share their models and reasoning—for example, using sentence frames, think-pair-share, or structured turn-taking. Encourage students to draw on the public records they’ve built together, such as the Summary Table and Gotta-Have Checklist, to support their ideas. This stage is also a key moment to validate the growth of ideas from initial hypotheses to more refined explanations—helping students recognize that their thinking is valued and has evolved through collaboration.

Equity Approach #2: To increase achievement, representation, and identification with science and engineering, consistent in this stage of the unit, seek opportunities to explicitly and publicly provide space for other students or you to recognize their contributions as they engage with peers to build consensus about their final models. Also, consider how you can position students to reflect on their own contribution so they can recognize themselves as capable contributors to resolve their own or the class's questions. This is part of helping students develop narratives about themselves as a person who can contribute to science and engineering in ways that matter to them.

Equity Approach #3: To expand what constitutes science and engineering, like in the eliciting ideas about the phenomenon phase of the unit, help students to recognize how multiple and diverse sets of ideas contributed by different students in the class are needed to explain scientifically rich, complex anchoring phenomena and how science is most effective when students collaborate, instead of working individually, to share, critique, and refine their ideas and models.

Equity Approach #4: As students work to reach consensus about the phenomenon, this stage offers a chance to explicitly consider whose perspectives are represented in the final explanation and who might be impacted by the phenomenon. Encourage students to reflect on what they’ve learned not just scientifically, but socially: How does this phenomenon affect different communities? What responsibilities do we have based on what we now understand? If the unit includes a justice-oriented goal, consensus-building can also include agreement on potential actions, solutions, or next steps—reinforcing the idea that science is not just about what is, but what could be.

Part A. Finalize the Models

Finalizing the models allows the groups to revise their models based on the final tasks of the unit and any other information or evidence they have collected. The discussion provides another opportunity for group sensemaking as they decide what to add, revise, or remove from their models. This can begin by quickly revising the Initial Hypotheses List for the final time.

Provide a description of how the students will construct their final models. See the examples below:

High School (Grades 9-12)

Final models:

Pass out the latest draft of the student group models.
Remind students that they are incorporating what they have learned about the phenomenon since the last revision. Provide the summary table for reference.
Students will work in groups to revise their models for the last time.

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Pass out the latest draft of the student group models.
Remind students that they are incorporating what they have learned about the phenomenon since the last revision. Provide the summary table for reference.
- - Teacher note: Consider using the Selecting, Sequencing, and Connecting Primer to plan for facilitating productive whole class discussion
Students will work in groups to revise their models for the last time.

Elementary School (Grades 3-5)

Encouraged the students to use two colors to represent structural and behavioral adaptations and elaborate on how these adaptations help the penguin survive, paying close attention to why these features are so important.
Encourage students to make the penguins their own by adding details, such as unique patterns, accessories, or imaginative elements, allowing them to creatively express their understanding of the penguins' adaptations.

Part B. Facilitate A Consensus-Building Discussion

Here we build a class-wide consensus.

Finalizing the models allows each group to come to consensus on their explanations of the anchoring phenomenon. Next, facilitate a discussion to coordinate those explanations across groups, building a whole-class consensus. This may occur through the sharing and critiques of the groups’ final models through share-out sessions.

Describe how you will facilitate a consensus building discussion. See the examples below.

High School (Grades 9-12) and Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Facilitate a share out session (e.g., gallery walk) to compare and contrast the groups’ models to help build consensus around the scientific explanation. Or encourage each group to share their models to the whole class; facilitate other groups to share their opinions towards the models.
In the whole class, discuss any areas of disagreements between the groups’ models.

Elementary School (Grades 3-5)

To make sure that everyone knows what to do, talk about using a rubric as a guide so everyone has a clear idea of what we are aiming for.
Split into smaller teams of three or four students. Students can choose to draw their own penguins or use a template to help them draw.
In groups, students talk about their ideas while they work, deciding what to add, change, or leave out to make their models just right, using the special checklist to make sure they included everything they had learned.
When the models are all done, display them on the walls. Students visit each group’s creations, leaving notes about what we like and how they are similar or different from their own.
Toward the end of class, students go back to their original models and read the notes their classmates left. If they want, students can change things on their models based on the feedback they got.

Part C. Build the 'Gotta Have Checklist'

After building consensus, construct the final public record as a whole class. The Gotta Have Checklist is a bulleted list of the important ideas and facts, coordinated with evidence, that are essential for a complete scientific explanation of the phenomenon.

Describe how you will facilitate the construction of the Gotta Have Checklist and map the ideas to the evidence from the tasks. See the examples below.

High School (Grades 9-12) and Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Facilitate the construction of a “gotta-have-it checklist”. These are consensus ideas about what must be included in students’ final evidence-based explanation.
Provide targeted questions and suggestions to finalize the list.
Map ideas and evidence from activities to the list.
Using a different color, coordinate the checklist items with the evidence gathered during the tasks to support the claims.

Elementary School (Grades 3-5)

Students draw or use the emperor penguin and environment templates in Google Drive to combine all the structural and behavioral adaptations (necessary for the survival in their environment). All ideas put forth and discussed as being important to understanding the phenomenon, generated by the students, will be included in the checklist.
Use a different color marker to work through the checklist and elicit student responses to share what evidence the students have that supports their thinking in order to ensure that students have the knowledge necessary to connect their explanation of the phenomenon to the “Gotta Have Checklist.”

This concludes Stage 4 of planning your MBI Unit.

Let's move on to Stage 5: Establishing Credibility.

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