Using CER Pragmatically in Advanced Science Courses: An AI Template for Building In-Class Activities and Assessments
Everybody's Science makes its most direct argument to teachers in Ch. 14, “If You Can't Reason, You Can't Ask Good Questions”:
That chapter closes with a breakout box — five concrete steps for building claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) into an advanced course without carving out a new unit — lifted directly below, unedited. The second half of this page is new: a practical way to actually build the materials those five steps call for, fast, using AI as the drafting tool, plus a full worked example on a real gap. Neither the book nor any existing one-pager on this site currently covers photosynthesis or cellular respiration (VA SOL BIO.3) — one of the most heavily tested, most misconception-prone strands in the entire Biology curriculum — so that gap doubles as the example here.
From Ch. 14: the five-step sequence
This isn't a full curriculum. It's a starting sequence for a teacher already running an AP, dual-enrollment, or advanced elective, who wants to build the habit this chapter argues for without carving out an entirely new unit.
- Model the AI test, live, on your own unit's content. Ask an AI system a naive question about whatever you're teaching that week, then ask it a second, sharper question built from one specific fact or mechanism you've already taught. Let students watch the answer quality change in real time. The lesson isn't about AI — it's proof, in front of them, that the question is doing the work.
- Attach the CER questions to work you're already assigning, instead of adding a separate argumentation unit. A lab report already has a claim; ask students to name it explicitly, name what would change their mind about it, and name who benefits from the claim being true, right in the discussion section.
- Protect real time for a self-chosen line of inquiry, and let it survive longer than one grading period. Students in advanced classes are already forming research preferences by ninth or tenth grade — the exploration itself, not the topic they land on, is what builds the habit. An idea journal works; so does a running list of “questions I can't answer yet.”
- Give the strongest students a real audience for the work, not just a grade. A poster session, a submission to a student journal, or an edited student publication changes how carefully a student checks their own reasoning, because someone outside the classroom is actually going to read it.
- Turn the AI's answer into the argument, not the endpoint. Have students bring an AI-generated answer back to class and interrogate it with the same five CER questions below — what's the claim, what's the evidence, does the evidence support it, what would change the answer, who benefits from it being framed this way. The AI's answer becomes the text under argument, not a substitute for it.
The book then makes the framework universal:
- What is the claim? Is it specific and falsifiable?
- What is the evidence? Where did it come from? Who collected it, and under what conditions?
- What is the reasoning? Does the evidence actually support the claim, or is there a gap?
- What would change my mind? If nothing would, that's not science — it's ideology.
- Who benefits from me believing this? Not to dismiss it — but to know it.
From five steps to five minutes: building the materials with AI
The five-step sequence tells you what to do. It doesn't write Tuesday's handout for you. That gap — knowing the framework but not having time to build fresh CER materials for whatever you're teaching this specific week — is the actual bottleneck in a rushed course. The two prompts below are built to close it. Copy either one into any AI assistant, fill in the brackets with your own topic and SOL code, and you have a draft in under a minute. Treat the output the way you'd treat a student teacher's first draft: usable, but read it before handing it to a class.
I'm teaching [TOPIC] to my [COURSE LEVEL, e.g. Advanced Biology / DE Biology] class this week, aligned to Virginia SOL [CODE]. Build me a short, self-contained claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) activity that takes 10–15 minutes of class time. Include: (1) one specific, falsifiable claim about this topic — ideally one that reflects a common student misconception, (2) a short, clearly-labeled data set, diagram, or 2–3 sentence reading that serves as the evidence, (3) three student prompts: state the claim, cite the evidence that supports or refutes it, and explain the reasoning connecting the two, (4) one “what would change your mind about this claim” prompt, and (5) one “who benefits from this claim being true” prompt. Keep the reading level appropriate for [GRADE LEVEL] students and keep the whole thing short enough to fit on a half-sheet handout.
Using the same topic, [TOPIC], and the same Virginia SOL code, [CODE], build a longer-form written CER assessment worth about [POINT VALUE] points, for a student to complete individually in 25–30 minutes. Provide: (1) a new data set, case study, or reading, different from the in-class activity above, (2) a prompt asking the student to construct their own original claim (not evaluate a claim I provide), supported by evidence from the material and clear reasoning, (3) a short rubric scoring claim clarity, evidence sourcing, and reasoning quality on a 4-point scale each, and (4) one extension question asking what additional evidence would strengthen or weaken the student's own claim.
Worked example: photosynthesis and cellular respiration (BIO.3)
Here's what those two prompts produce, filled in for a genuine curricular gap — neither Everybody's Science nor any existing Biology one-pager on this site currently addresses photosynthesis or cellular respiration, even though few Biology SOL topics generate more durable misconceptions.
Short in-class version — the claim to evaluate: “A plant only performs photosynthesis during the day and only performs cellular respiration at night.”
Evidence provided (illustrative classroom data — swap in your own class's actual gas-exchange lab results if you have them): a simple net-gas-exchange table for a potted plant, showing net O₂ release and net CO₂ uptake in light, and the reverse — net CO₂ release, net O₂ uptake — in darkness.
What the CER process should surface: the claim is false, and the evidence table is exactly what makes the misconception tempting. Cellular respiration is continuous, in every living plant cell, in light or dark — it never turns off. What changes is which process's rate is larger. In daylight, photosynthesis outproduces respiration, so the net gas exchange looks photosynthesis-only; at night, with photosynthesis stopped, respiration's steady output is finally visible, unmasked rather than newly begun. The reasoning step is where this actually gets taught: net direction is not the same as which processes are occurring.
Longer written assessment — the scenario: a classic, widely-used respirometer setup comparing CO₂ output between germinating and dormant pea seeds. Students construct their own claim about why germinating seeds show measurably higher respiration rates, using evidence about the metabolic energy demand of active growth versus dormancy, and are scored on claim clarity, evidence sourcing, and reasoning quality against the 4-point rubric from the prompt above.
A handout to actually hand out
The universal CER framework, formatted as a fill-in half-sheet a student can complete during either version above:
Claim:
Evidence (and its source):
Reasoning (how the evidence supports, or fails to support, the claim):
What would change my mind:
Who benefits from this claim being true:
Questions for students
- State, in one sentence, what the photosynthesis/cellular-respiration claim above got wrong. Remember
- Explain the difference between a process happening and a process being visible in net gas-exchange data. Understand
- Complete the CER handout for the germinating-vs-dormant-seed scenario. Apply
- Compare the two misconceptions this page addresses (gas exchange direction, and seed dormancy) — what do they have in common as far as how the misconception forms? Analyze
- Ask an AI system the naive version of one of these questions, then a sharper version built from what you just learned. Judge which answer was actually better, and why. Evaluate
- Write your own falsifiable claim about a biology topic from earlier this year, and build the evidence and reasoning to support or refute it. Create
Ch. 14 breakout box and universal CER framework: lifted directly from Everybody's Science, First Draft v3, with only light formatting changes for standalone use. Virginia SOL BIO.3 (cell structure, function, and processes, including photosynthesis and cellular respiration): 2018 Virginia Science Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework (doe.virginia.gov) — recheck the exact key ideas against the current framework before publishing, as this page paraphrases rather than quotes BIO.3 directly. The gas-exchange and seed-respirometer scenarios are illustrative teaching examples, not sourced experimental data — replace with your own class's actual results where you have them.