How would you determine that your students understood the concept you were teaching (in Science)? What would you do if a number of children didn't have mastery? What would you do if the whole class obviously had already gotten the concept and you'd just introduced it?
One major thing I think of as far as science is you're going to probably get dirty! Science just begs to be hands on. I use a rubric, which is shared with the students before they begin, whenever projects are assigned. They need to know what they have to do in order to achieve the best outcome. Sometimes, there simply has to be paper work. More often than not though, hands on projects/activities give me a better picture of how well the child has grasped the concept. Through discussion, their insights come through and by using teacher observations, this enables me to get a very clear picture of what they know and to suggest where to go from there on extensions of the idea.
As for kids that struggle with the concept. I will not hesitate to come up with another or two or four or whatever it takes, activity that might appeal to their particular learning style. For some, that might be looking at a video on the computer about the concept, they need to see it before they can do it. For others, maybe it's a topic that they need to read more about in "kid speak" so that it makes sense to them.
What if the whole class shows mastery and I've just introduced the concept? Let the fun begin! We'd be able to go right into extensions/ enrichment activities and possibly even build on that concept to include related ones.
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