Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards (2014) / Chapter Skim
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4 Classroom Assessment
4 Classroom Assessment
Pages 83-132
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This category of assessments may include teacher-student interactions in the classroom, observations, student products that result directly from ongoing instructional activities (called "immediate assessments") , and quizzes closely tied to instructional activities (called "close assessments")
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In this chapter, we illustrate the types of assessment tasks that can be used in the classroom to meet the goals of A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (National Research Council, 2012a, hereafter referred to as "the framework") and the Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States (NGSS Lead States, 2013)
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From page 85... ...
. Currently, many schools and districts administer benchmark or interim assessments, which seem to straddle the line between formative and summative purposes (see Box 4-1)
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The premise behind using items that mimic typical large-scale tests is that they help teachers measure students' progress toward objectives for which they and their students will be held accountable and provide a basis for deciding which students need extra help and what the teacher needs to teach again. CHARACTERISTICS OF NGSS-ALIGNED ASSESSMENTS Chapter 2 discusses the implications of the NGSS for assessment, which led to our first two conclusions: • Measuring the three-dimensional science learning called for in the frame work and the Next Generation Science Standards requires assessment tasks that examine students' performance of scientific and engineering practices in the context of crosscutting concepts and disciplinary core ideas.
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The kind of instruction that will be effective in teaching science in the way the framework and the NGSS envision will require students to engage in science and engineering prac tices in the context of disciplinary core ideas -- and to make connections across topics through the crosscutting ideas. Such instruction will include activities that provide many opportunities for teachers to observe and record evidence of student thinking, such as when students develop and refine models; generate, discuss, and analyze data; engage in both spoken and written explanations and argumentation; and reflect on their own understanding of the core idea and the subtopic at hand (possibly in a personal science journal)
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From page 88... ...
Summative assessments may also take a variety of forms, but they are usually intended to assess each student's independent accomplishments. Tasks with Multiple Components The NGSS performance expectations each blend a practice and, in some cases, also a crosscutting idea with an aspect of a particular core idea.
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From page 89... ...
As we note in Chapter 2, assessment tasks aligned with the NGSS performance expectations will need to have multiple components -- that is, be composed of more than one kind of activity or question. They will need to include opportunities for students to engage in practices as a means to demonstrate their capacity to apply them.
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As they begin the task, students are not competent data 90 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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From page 91... ...
NGSS-aligned assessments will also need to identify likely misunderstandings, productive ideas of students that can be built upon, and interim goals for learning. The NGSS performance expectations are general: they do not specify the kinds of intermediate understandings of disciplinary core ideas students may express during instruction nor do they help teachers interpret students' emerging capabilities with science practices or their partially correct or incomplete understanding.
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From page 92... ...
Each example was designed to provide evidence of students' capabilities in using one or more practices as they attempt to reach and present conclusions about one or more core ideas: that is, all of them assess three-dimensional learning. Table 1-1 shows the NGSS disciplinary core ideas, practices, and crosscutting ideas that are closest to the assessment targets for all of the examples in the report.3 We emphasize that there are many possible designs for activities or tasks that assess three-dimensional science learning -- these six examples are only a sam pling of the possible range.
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Example 3: Measuring Silkworms The committee chose this example because it illustrates several of the character istics we argue an assessment aligned with the NGSS must have: in particular, it allows the teacher to place students along a defined learning trajectory (see Figure 3-13 in Chapter 3) , while assessing both a disciplinary core idea and a crosscutting concept.4 The assessment component is formative, in that it helps the teacher understand what students already understood about data display and to adjust the instruction accordingly.
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Classroom discussions can be a critical component of formative assessment. They provide a way for students to engage in scientific practices and for teachers to instantly monitor what the students do and do not understand.
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They have agreed that all matter, including gas, is made of particles that are mov ing, but many of the students do not understand what is in between these moving particles. Several students indicate that they think there is air between the air par 96 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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Model 3 ticles, since "air is everywhere," and some assert that the particles are all touchR02484 Other students only.epsthat there can be air between the particles or that air ing. FIG4-1 type disagree bitmap, 3 masks, new type particles are touching, although they do not yet articulate an argument for empty space between the particles, an idea that students begin to understand more clearly in subsequent lessons. Drawing on her observations, the teacher asks questions Classroom Assessment 97
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The discussion thus provides insights into stu 98 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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. This example also illustrates the importance of engaging students in prac tices to help them develop understanding of disciplinary core ideas while also giving teachers information to guide instruction.
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100 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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[Ms. B draws the air particles touching one another in another representation, not in the consensus model, since it is Haley's idea.]
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Teachers help students begin the small-group discussions by asking why someone might select A, B, or C, imply ing that any of them could be a reasonable response. Teachers press students for their reasoning and invite them to compare their own reasoning to that of others, using specific discussion strategies (see Michaels and O'Connor, 2011; National Research Council, 2007)
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This set of four assessment tasks was designed to provide evidence of 5th grade students' developing proficiency with a body of knowledge that blends a disciplinary core idea (biodiversity; LS4 in the NGSS; see Box 2-1 in Chapter 2) and a crosscutting concept (patterns)
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Teachers use data from individual groups or from the whole class as assessment information to provide formative information about students' abilities to collect and record data for use in the other tasks. Task 2: Create bar graphs that illustrate patterns in abundance and richness data from each of the schoolyard zones.
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, for Example 6, "Biodiversity in the Schoolyard." R02484 FIG4-4 Delete images.eps 106 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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From page 107... ...
2. Use your zone summary to make a bar chart of your richness data.
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First, using tasks to assess several practices in the context of a core idea together with a crosscutting concept can provide a wider range of information about students' progression than would tasks that focused on only one practice. Second, classroom assessment tasks in which core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and practices are integrated can be used for both formative and summative purposes.
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NOTES: Student responses are shown in italics. See text for discussion.
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Computer software allows teachers to tailor online assessment tasks to their purpose and to the stage of learning that students have reached, by offering more or less supporting information 110 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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This online assessment task is part of a climate change curriculum for high school students. It targets the performance expectation that students use geosci ence data and the results from global climate models to make evidence-based Classroom Assessment 111
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In the instruction that takes place prior to this task, students will have selected a focal species in a particular ecosystem and studied its needs and how it is distributed in the ecosystem. They will also have become familiar with a set of model-based climate projections, called Future 1, 2, and 3, that represent more and less severe climate change effects.
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" Students are asked to provide the following: 114 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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Example 8: Ecosystems The committee chose this example, drawn from the SimScientists project, to demonstrate the use of simulation-based modules designed to be embedded in a curriculum unit to provide both formative and summative assessment infor mation. Middle school students use computer simulations to demonstrate their understanding of core ideas about ecosystem dynamics and the progress of their Classroom Assessment 115
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. Simulations of these environments can be used both to improve students' understanding of complex ecosystems and to 116 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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Evidence According to the distribution map for Future 3 the American Kestrel does not move from the location. Student 5 Claim No because my focal species is a bird and it can migrate to a warmer area but if the climate gets warm earlier then it will migrate earlier and it could affect it's normal time to migrate.
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16These same features also make it difficult to display the full impact of the simulation in this report. 118 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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In the subsequent curriculum-embedded assessment, students investigate what happens to population levels when relative starting numbers of particular organisms are varied: see Figure 4-11. The interactive simulation allows students to conduct multiple trials to build, evaluate, and critique models of balanced eco systems, interpret data, and draw conclusions.
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No feedback or coaching is provided. Students investigate the roles of 120 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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These task examples from the SimScientists project illustrate ways that assessment tasks can take advantage of technology to represent generalizable, progressively more complex models of science systems, present challenging scien tific reasoning tasks, provide individualized feedback, customize scaffolding, and promote self-assessment and metacognitive skills. Reports generated for teachers and students indicate the level of additional help students may need and classify students into groups for which tailored, follow-on, reflection activities are recom mended (to be conducted during a subsequent class period)
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A key goal of classroom assessment is to elicit and make visible students' ways of thinking and acting. The examples demonstrate that it is possible to design tasks and contexts in which teachers elicit student thinking about a disciplinary core idea or crosscutting concept by engaging them in a sci entific practice.
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These forms of reasoning also become a topic of instructional conversations, so that students are encouraged to consider additional aspects of data representation, including tradeoffs about what different kinds of displays do and do not show about the same data. As students improve their capacity to visualize data, the data discussion then leads them to notice characteristics of organisms or populations 124 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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. Clusters comprise goal facets (which are often standards or disciplinary core ideas)
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We note, though, that each of these practices has multiple aspects, so multiple tasks would be needed to provide a complete picture of students' capacity with each of them. Although 126 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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Similarly, assessment tasks designed to examine students' facility with a particular practice may require students to draw on other practices as they complete the task. We stress in Chapter 2 that a key principle of the framework is that science education should connect to students' interests and experiences.
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This is part of the process of integrating teaching and assessment. Thus, both 128 Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards
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Each example offers multiple opportu nities to engage in scientific practices and encourage students to draw connections among ideas, thus developing familiarity with crosscutting concepts. CONCLUSION 4-1 Tasks designed to assess the performance expectations in the Next Generation Science Standards will need to have the following characteristics: 21Samplesincluded students from rural and inner-city schools, from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and English-language learners.
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Professional development must support teachers in integrating practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas in inclusive and engaging instruction and in using new modes of assessment that support such instructional activities. Developing assessment tasks of this type will require the participation of several different kinds of experts.
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