Claims, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) Chapter Guidelines & Resources

In this chapter, address the following in separate paragraphs:

• Any claims about your study based on the research question(s) you asked. It’s a 30,000 ft view of the outcomes from your study. Highlight the main takeaways from your research.
• The evidence for your claims are what you’ve already written in the Data & Analysis chapter. DON’T repeat the evidence, but make general evidence statements that support the claims you’ve made.
• The reasoning for your claims. You are tying the claims and evidence together. 

In addition, the CER chapter will also include the value of your study, implications of your study, and possible future research based on the study. Finally, conclude with a paragraph addressing how YOU changed as a teacher participating in the action research process.

Note: Be sure to look at MSSE Capstone model papers for examples of CER chapters.

CER Rubric (also found in the MSSE Capstone Paper Rubric)

CER Background & Resources

The following is adapted from MSSE 501

One powerful inquiry strategy that has grown out of NGSS is that of Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER). You should be able to see how what you've read about this week... constructivism, sense making & discourse, SEPs and CCs... all culminate in CER. Many of you have already been using the strategy of asking student to provide EVIDENCE for their claims. This can take the form of EVIDENCE when discussing the results of an investigation, when making a claim or when arguing a point. Simply asking the question, "What is your evidence" is a powerful conceptual change strategy. The intentional use of CER takes this approach to a higher level. 

We encourage you to share these resources with your students

Note: You will be prompted to log into Brightspage D2L to access some of these links.

• CER Instructional Video
  • Created by MSSE graduate student, Michelle Platte along with her resources: CER Alien Scaffold; CER Micky 1; CER Micky 2; CER Micky 3; CER Rubric; CER 1
• Powerpoint with CER examples
• Paul Andersen's video on the CER
• CER Informational Poster 1
• CER Informational Poster 2
• CER Sentence Frame
• Example CER from the water strider investigation

  • Claim: A water strider is able to stand on water.

    Evidence: Water on wax paper is observed to bead up and stick together.  Water droplets can be pulled across the surface of the wax paper.  When dropped above the wax paper, the water hits the surface and then beads up again. Water seems to be attracted to itself.

    Reasoning: Water striders can stand on water because of the property of water that causes it to stick to itself. This is called surface tension.  The water forms a "skin" that is difficult to break. The water's surface tension is strong enough to allow the water strider to stand on the water and not break the surface tension.