Assessment

Assessment is a critical part of teaching. How will you know if your students learned the content you had hoped they would learn, such as the names of the moon phases? How can we assess skills, which include the science practices, and even habits of mind, like engagement or curiosity? Assessment is important to all of the areas of learning in your classroom (McAfee, Leong, & Bodrova, 2015), and science and STEM is no exception.

There are different types of assessment, which you will likely learn more about in other classes. As a quick review, there are formal assessments, like standardized tests, and informal assessments, like anecdotal notes. There are also formative assessments, which are mean to directly inform your teaching practice and may be done before, during, and after teaching. Summative assessments, on the other hand, are meant to measure whether the learning objectives have been met at the end of some time period. For example, during a unit of study focused on the moon, the anchor standard I am going to address is, 1.ESS1.1: “Use observations or models of the sun, moon, and stars to describe patterns that can be predicted.”  I ask my 1st grade students to diagram one of the moon phases in their science journals that we have just talked about. I review these to see if students understand the term and can explain it, and if not, I will revisit the concept on the next day (formative, informal). At the end of the unit, I give my students a fill in the blank test that I created (summative, informal) to assess whether my students all now name the phases of the moon accurately (measuring content knowledge). I also ask them to do a short presentation in pairs to explain how the phases of the moon are created, using a model they have made (measuring practices like communicating thinking, creating and using a model, and demonstrates conceptual understanding).

We can also think of assessments in terms of the methods of assessment. We might use multiple choice or fill in the blank questions when we are asking students to do simple tasks, like recall. On the other hand, we might use more complex assessment methods such as performance assessments, when we are asking students to show that they understand and can complete more complex tasks (Arter, 1999). For the 3-dimensional science teaching approach we have discussed here, performance assessments are very often appropriate. This is because we want students not only to recall facts, but also to find out about scientific phenomena, or facts, for themselves by engaging in the science practices that scientists use, such as creating models. Below are some examples of performance assessments that you might use to assess your students’ learning in science or integrated STEM.

• For the standard K.LS1.2: Recognize differences between living and nonliving organisms and sort them into groups by observable physical characteristics, a kindergarten teacher asks each student to sort a set of pictures into living and nonliving things and explain how they did it. (see example rubric below)
• A 1st grade teachers asks students to select the best tools to use when observing objects in the sky. (TN 1.ESS1.2)
• A 2nd grade teacher asks students to create a list of observations and wonderings while viewing eagles on a webcam. (TN 2.LS1.1)
• A 3rd grade teacher asks students design an experiment to test the strength of different magnets. (TN 3.PS2.2)
• A 4th grade teacher asks her students to graph the results of an experiment on speed and energy and write a Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning response. (TN 4.PS3.1)
• A 5th grade teacher asks students to work in pairs to build, test, and improve a simple catapult. (TN 5.ETS1.1)