Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards (2014) / Chapter Skim
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6 Designing an Assessment System
6 Designing an Assessment System
Pages 193-216
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From page 193... ...
The chapter also discusses the types of tasks that are best suited to assessing students' application of scientific and engineering practices in the context of disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts, as well as simultaneously assessing the connections across concepts and disciplines. The committee concludes that tasks composed of multiple interrelated questions would best serve this purpose.
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That is, assess 194 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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From page 195... ...
Similarly, providing teachers with quick-turnaround feedback on student learning might be intended to help them pace instruction in an optimal way, highlight individual learning difficulties so they can provide individualized remediation, and guide ongoing refinement of curriculum and instructional practices. Assessments that provide overall information about student learning might be used to evaluate the quality of instruction at the school, district, or state level in order to determine where to focus policy interventions.
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, an assessment system should be designed to be coherent 196 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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These state differences pose a challenge for external assessments3 when the assessment purpose is to compare performance across different jurisdictions, such as across states that have adopted different curricula or across schools and districts in states with local control over curricula. When external assessments are used to make comparisons, they will need to be designed to be valid, reliable, and fair despite the fact that students have been exposed to different curricula and different combinations of scientific practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas.
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Classroom-embedded assessments are exter nal assessments developed and/or selected by the state or the district. They are given at a time 198 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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. Assessment that closely aligns with a curriculum that engages students in three-dimensional science learning will return the focus to what is most important -- the direct support of students' learning.
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Adopting an assessment system that includes a classroom-embedded component will require a change in the culture of assessment, particularly in the level of responsibility entrusted to teachers to plan, implement, and score assess ments. In Chapter 5, we discuss ways to enhance the comparability of assess 200 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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Instruction that reflects the goals of the framework and the NGSS will need to focus on developing students' skills and dispositions to use scientific and engineering practices to progress in their learning and to solve problems. Students will need to engage in activities that require the use of multiple scientific practices in developing a particular core idea and will need to experience the same practices in the context of multiple core ideas.
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Thus, the development of high-quality classroom assessment that can be used for formative and summa tive purposes should be treated as a necessary and significant resource investment in classroom instructional supports, curriculum materials, and professional devel opment for teachers. Monitoring Assessments In Chapter 5, we discuss assessments that are used to monitor or audit learning and note that it is not feasible to cover the full breadth and depth of the NGSS performance expectations for a given grade level with a single external (large scale)
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It would also be possible to offer schools constrained choices from the full range of performance expectations, perhaps through attempts to prioritize the performance expectations. For example, schools might be encouraged to cover at least some particular number of disciplinary core ideas from given domains or offered a menu of sets of core ideas (perhaps with associated curriculum sup ports)
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The time provided for teacher collaboration and quality professional devel opment designed to improve science teaching practices could also be monitored. Monitoring strategies could include teacher surveys completed at professional development events focused on science or school reporting of time and resources dedicated to supporting teachers' learning related to science.
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206 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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that can be used to track science achievement on a limited range of con tent, but it cannot be used to assess learning in alignment with the vision of sci ence learning in the framework or the NGSS. As discussed above, the design of an assessment system should be based on a carefully devised plan that considers the purpose of each of the system compo nents and how they will serve to improve student learning.
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Developmentally, the system takes account of how students' 208 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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We also assume that states and local education agencies would adopt NGSS aligned curricula that incorporate the vision of science education conceptualized in the framework and would ensure that the system includes high-quality instruc tional materials and resources (including classroom assessments) , that they would design suitable means of reporting the results of the assessments to appropriate audiences, and that teachers and administrators would receive comprehensive professional development so that they are well prepared for full implementation of a new system.
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Accountability policies would be designed to include indicators of oppor tunity to learn as discussed above, such as evidence that teachers have access to professional development and quality curricular materials and administrative sup 210 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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The monitoring component includes classroom embedded and on-demand elements that allow for judgments about students' learning and for evaluation of program effectiveness. Results from the monitoring assessments, as well as indicators of opportunity to learn, would be used for hold ing districts and schools accountable for progress in meeting learning goals.
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Results from the monitoring assessments as well as indicators of opportunity to learn would be used for holding schools accountable for meeting learning goals. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS In this chapter, we have discussed the importance of a systems approach to devel oping science assessments and described the system components that will be need ed to adequately assess the breadth and depth of the NGSS.
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RECOMMENDATION 6-1 To adequately address the breadth and depth of the performance expectations contained in the Next Generation Science Standards, state and local policy makers should design their assessment systems so information used for monitoring purposes is obtained from both on-demand assessments developed by the state and a complementary set of classroom-embedded assessments developed either by the state or by districts, with state approval. To signify and make visible their importance, the monitoring assessment should include multiple performance-based tasks of threedimensional science learning.
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This information should be collected through inspec tions of school science programs, surveys of students and teachers, monitoring of teacher professional development programs, and documentation of curricu lum assignments and student work. For some monitoring purposes, individual student scores are not needed, only group-level scores.
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Since the kinds of linkages that are needed have not yet been implemented in the United States, education decision makers face a challenge in trying to meet the goals of the Next Generation Science Standards. RECOMMENDATION 6-5 Policy makers and funding agencies should support research on strategies for effectively using and integrating information from on-demand and classroom-embedded assessments for purposes of monitoring and accountability.
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