Students encounter arguments everywhere they turn—from talk radio to television crime dramas to family discussions. But what makes an argument convincing? And how does evidence come into play to support a well-reasoned claim?

The Showing Evidence Tool  is designed to help students construct an argument and support it with evidence. The newest thinking tool from Intel® Innovation in Education, Showing Evidence provides an online, interactive tool and workspace, with supporting materials for teachers to use with their students.

Like the other thinking tools from Intel Innovation in Education, the Showing Evidence Tool is available for free, from any computer connected to the Internet. The suite of thinking tools has been designed to develop students' higher-order thinking skills by using technology to prompt evaluation, analysis, collaboration, and visual representation of ideas.

Showing Evidence is appropriate for classroom projects involving a wide range of ages and subject areas—from making and defending a scientific hypothesis to analyzing character traits in literature to arguing about the causes of events in history. It’s an ideal resource for teachers looking to elevate argument in the classroom.

Grounded in Cognitive Science
The Web-based technology behind the Showing Evidence Tool was developed by cognitive scientists and grounded in research about how people learn. For example, visual representation of thinking is a research-based strategy to improve student learning. By making student thinking "visible," thinking tools like Showing Evidence give teachers a valuable window into student understanding.

How does the Showing Evidence Tool work? Basically, online prompts guide students through the process of stating a claim and evaluating evidence. Along the way, students are prompted to think about the reliability of evidence. Is it credible? How do they know? Is the source free of bias? Using a scale, they rate the reliability of the evidence. Similarly, students assess whether each piece of evidence supports or refutes their claim. Again, a scale prompts them to assess the degree of support. Students can also use a comment feature to explain their thinking or provide more details about a source of evidence. Once they reach a conclusion, students are ready to defend their argument with evidence. Finally, they use a rating scale of 1-5 stars to indicate whether or not their claim is fully supported and proven.

Teacher Insights
Experienced teachers have played a role in field-testing this new tool with their students and providing feedback to guide development.

For example, a high school biology teacher in Arizona has used the Showing Evidence Tool to prompt her students to investigate the controversial issues surrounding biotechnology. She asked them to make a well-supported argument about whether society should restrict technology that uses DNA. In the process, her students dug into research "and got a more in-depth look at some of the controversial issues surrounding biotechnology," she said.

A middle school teacher in Washington has used the Showing Evidence Tool in a literature project. His students argued about whether the title character in Jack in the Beanstalk was a hero. Before he asked students to write a persuasive essay, he had them use a simplified version of the tool where students state a claim, organize their thoughts, and use their evidence in favor of their claim or against it. As a result, he saw the quality of their arguments improve.

A teacher from Texas explains the power of the Showing Evidence Tool to support learning: "Could I do the same thing without the tool? Probably not—not to this level and not to this extent. If it was one-on-one with a child, we could go into that in-depth of a discussion," she said, "but not with 25 kids in the room. I am pleasantly surprised how deeply focused I can keep a large number of students."

Another teacher found that using the Showing Evidence Tool prompted students to think about both sides of an issue. "That's something they wouldn't necessarily have done otherwise. And deep discussion occurred between them as they were thinking about both sides."

All three thinking tools now available from Intel Innovation in Education encourage students to learn from their classmates. Teachers can set up the workspace so that student teams view one another's work, make comments, and discuss differences. Teachers can also view student work while it is underway—giving them a valuable glimpse into student understanding. Teachers can make comments online or engage students in discussions. As one teacher observed, "The real strength of the Showing Evidence Tool is the structure it provides to discussion. Teachers should assess by wandering around and joining conversations."

The Showing Evidence Tool gives teachers considerable latitude in deciding how to set up a project and guide student learning. For example, they can start with a claim and "pre-load" a bin full of evidence for students to evaluate. Or, they can leave the process more open-ended, asking students to state their own claim and locate evidence to support or refute it.

More Ideas Online
To help teachers make effective use of the Showing Evidence Tool, the Web site includes a number of teacher-tested project ideas and more detailed unit plans for using the tool with students. In addition, the Web site includes a discussion of the benefits of teaching about argumentation along with strategies for effective implementation of projects using Showing Evidence.

In addition to Showing Evidence, the suite of thinking tools available from Intel Innovation in Education includes Visual Ranking, which prompts students to prioritize and compare items in a list, and Seeing Reason, which prompts students to investigate cause-and-effect relationships in complex systems. Learn more.