Ch. 8 Assessment

Authentic Assessment

• The notion of assessing what children really know in the areas of the program they are being taught
• Multiple measures - using more than one assessment score to ascertain progress

Assessment

• Formative - occurs during the course of the unit or the teaching; used to evaluate students' progres
• Summative - occurs at the end of the unit of study; used to measure student performance

Assessment in elem. Science Ed.

• a primary goal of elementary science is for children to acquire facility in the process skills.

Assessment in ELem. Science Ed.

• indicators - performances children do that help the teacher to gauge mastery
• Fig. 8.1 pp. 274-275

Assessment in elem. science ed.

• observation
• qualitative: teacher checks off the indicators as the child demonstrates them
• quantitative: can be used in grade calculations; assigned numerical values by teacher

Practical assessments

• lab tests
• Performance-based activities that can be used to test children's proficiency in the process skills
• Fig. 8.3 - Fig. 8.5 pp. 278-279

Assessment of Inquiry

• 2nd goal in elementary science education
• indicators fig. 8.6 and Fig. 8.7 pp. 280-281

Assessment of attitude

• 3rd major goal of elementary science education
• indicators fig. 8.8 p. 282

additional authentic assemssment

• interviewing
• open-ended and free-flowing
• conversation between teacher and student
• questions relating to objectives of lessons and follows up on child's response

Science journals and Notebooks

• used to record a variety of information which is assigned or unassigned
• can provide ongoing assessment of literacy skills, content, and scientific inquiry and process skills (Fig. 8.9 p. 286)

portfolios

• a collection of student work with a common theme or purpose (Damiani, 2004).
• have many advantages over tests
• they provide an insight into child's progress over time

High stakes testing

• based of on standardized tests
• schools that fail to make progress for 2 years in a row can be reconstituted
• must provide the option for student to attend other school