Assessment in the College Science Classroom


Book Description

Like all titles in the Scientific Teaching Series, Assessment in the College Classroom will provide an introduction to assessment techniques (formative and summative), including an introduction to the literature that supports these efforts and their practical application in the classroom. Many of the chapters address using pre-existing assessment tools (Backward Design, Bloom’s taxonomy, etc.) for guiding effective teaching and learning.




College Science Teachers Guide to Assessment


Book Description

Provides a quick reference for promoting student reflection after exams, encouraging student-led teaching models, and looking at exam corrections from both instructor and student perspectives. This guide is divided into four sections comprising 28 peer-reviewed chapters. It covers general assessment topics and traditional and alternative assessment techniques. A series of how-to assessment practices utilized in the field and practical tips to enhance assessment in the college science classroom are included.




Classroom Assessment and the National Science Education Standards


Book Description

The National Science Education Standards address not only what students should learn about science but also how their learning should be assessed. How do we know what they know? This accompanying volume to the Standards focuses on a key kind of assessment: the evaluation that occurs regularly in the classroom, by the teacher and his or her students as interacting participants. As students conduct experiments, for example, the teacher circulates around the room and asks individuals about their findings, using the feedback to adjust lessons plans and take other actions to boost learning. Focusing on the teacher as the primary player in assessment, the book offers assessment guidelines and explores how they can be adapted to the individual classroom. It features examples, definitions, illustrative vignettes, and practical suggestions to help teachers obtain the greatest benefit from this daily evaluation and tailoring process. The volume discusses how classroom assessment differs from conventional testing and grading-and how it fits into the larger, comprehensive assessment system.




Seeing Students Learn Science


Book Description

Science educators in the United States are adapting to a new vision of how students learn science. Children are natural explorers and their observations and intuitions about the world around them are the foundation for science learning. Unfortunately, the way science has been taught in the United States has not always taken advantage of those attributes. Some students who successfully complete their Kâ€"12 science classes have not really had the chance to "do" science for themselves in ways that harness their natural curiosity and understanding of the world around them. The introduction of the Next Generation Science Standards led many states, schools, and districts to change curricula, instruction, and professional development to align with the standards. Therefore existing assessmentsâ€"whatever their purposeâ€"cannot be used to measure the full range of activities and interactions happening in science classrooms that have adapted to these ideas because they were not designed to do so. Seeing Students Learn Science is meant to help educators improve their understanding of how students learn science and guide the adaptation of their instruction and approach to assessment. It includes examples of innovative assessment formats, ways to embed assessments in engaging classroom activities, and ideas for interpreting and using novel kinds of assessment information. It provides ideas and questions educators can use to reflect on what they can adapt right away and what they can work toward more gradually.




Everyday Assessment in the Science Classroom


Book Description

Designed as a ready-to-use survival guide for middle school Earth science teachers, this title is an invaluable resource that provides an entire year's worth of inquiry-based and discovery-oriented Earth science lessons, including 33 investigations or labs and 17 detailed projects. This unique collection of astronomy, geology, meteorology, and physical oceanography lessons promotes deeper understanding of science concepts through a hands-on approach that identifies and dispels student misconceptions and expands student understanding and knowledge. In addition, this field-tested and standards-based volume is ideal for university-level methodology courses in science education.




Designing Everyday Assessment in the Science Classroom


Book Description

This book describes how middle school science teachers, in collaboration with a team of researchers, tried to improve their everyday assessment practices to enhance student learning. It discusses the challenges they faced, the differences among the teachers, and the personal nature of deep educational change. A product of CAPITAL (Classroom Assessment Project to Improve Teaching and Learning), a research effort supported by the National Science Foundation, this book: Uses classroom stories to show how teachers can use a variety of formative assessment techniques to answer questions they have about their teaching.; Provides real-life examples of teachers grappling with new practices at a personal level, in their own settings and in light of their own values and beliefs; Offers suggestions for designing professional development efforts that recognize the significant variation among teachers in how they go about changing their assessment practices ; Outlines principles and practices that must accompany change in the classroom if it is to be more than superficial.




Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards


Book Description

Assessments, understood as tools for tracking what and how well students have learned, play a critical role in the classroom. Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards develops an approach to science assessment to meet the vision of science education for the future as it has been elaborated in A Framework for K-12 Science Education (Framework) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These documents are brand new and the changes they call for are barely under way, but the new assessments will be needed as soon as states and districts begin the process of implementing the NGSS and changing their approach to science education. The new Framework and the NGSS are designed to guide educators in significantly altering the way K-12 science is taught. The Framework is aimed at making science education more closely resemble the way scientists actually work and think, and making instruction reflect research on learning that demonstrates the importance of building coherent understandings over time. It structures science education around three dimensions - the practices through which scientists and engineers do their work, the key crosscutting concepts that cut across disciplines, and the core ideas of the disciplines - and argues that they should be interwoven in every aspect of science education, building in sophistication as students progress through grades K-12. Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards recommends strategies for developing assessments that yield valid measures of student proficiency in science as described in the new Framework. This report reviews recent and current work in science assessment to determine which aspects of the Framework's vision can be assessed with available techniques and what additional research and development will be needed to support an assessment system that fully meets that vision. The report offers a systems approach to science assessment, in which a range of assessment strategies are designed to answer different kinds of questions with appropriate degrees of specificity and provide results that complement one another. Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards makes the case that a science assessment system that meets the Framework's vision should consist of assessments designed to support classroom instruction, assessments designed to monitor science learning on a broader scale, and indicators designed to track opportunity to learn. New standards for science education make clear that new modes of assessment designed to measure the integrated learning they promote are essential. The recommendations of this report will be key to making sure that the dramatic changes in curriculum and instruction signaled by Framework and the NGSS reduce inequities in science education and raise the level of science education for all students.




Active Learning in Secondary and College Science Classrooms


Book Description

The working model for "helping the learner to learn" presented in this book is relevant to any teaching context, but the focus here is on teaching in secondary and college science classrooms. Specifically, the goals of the text are to: *help secondary- and college-level science faculty examine and redefine their roles in the classroom; *define for science teachers a framework for thinking about active learning and the creation of an active learning environment; and *provide them with the assistance they need to begin building successful active learning environments in their classrooms. Active Learning in Secondary and College Science Classrooms: A Working Model for Helping the Learner to Learn is motivated by fundamental changes in education in response to perceptions that students are not adequately acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to meet current educational and economic goals. The premise of this book is that active learning offers a highly effective approach to meeting the mandate for increased student knowledge, skills, and performance. It is a valuable resource for all teacher trainers in science education and high school and college science teachers.




Knowing What Students Know


Book Description

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.




Classroom Assessment Techniques


Book Description

This revised and greatly expanded edition of the 1988 handbook offers teachers at all levels how-to advise on classroom assessment, including: What classroom assessment entails and how it works. How to plan, implement, and analyze assessment projects. Twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects. Fifty classroom assessment techniques Step-by-step procedures for administering the techniques Practical advice on how to analyze your data Order your copy today.