Description
If you want the latest research about assessment techniques that really work, you want Assessment in Science. This collection of informative, up-to-date reports is by authors who are practicing K-12 classroom teachers and university-based educators and researchers. Working in teams, they tried out and evaluated different assessment approaches in actual classrooms. The research is sound, but that doesn’t mean it’s hard to grasp. The book stays true to its title by capturing practical lessons in accessible language. As the introduction notes, the reports feature “classroom testing stories, standards-based assessment techniques, teaching-testing dilemmas, portfolio struggles and triumphs, and knowledge of the research on assessment.”
The 18 chapters are structured for ease of comprehension, moving from a detailed description of how the research was carried out, to research findings, to concrete implications for the classroom. There is also a “Links to the Standards” box and resources list in each chapter. Included throughout are 28 tables and 25 figures, some of which are classroom rubrics teachers can actually use.
Though it’s enlightening for classroom teachers at all levels, Assessment in Science is also ideal for curriculum supervisors and professors who teach science education—and anyone else who needs to know what’s most current in proven assessment techniques.
Contents
Introduction
About the Editors
1. A Knowledge-Based Framework for the Classroom Assessment of Student Science Understanding
2. Developing Assessment Items: A How-to Guide
3. Assessment in Support of Conceptual Understanding and Student Motivation to Learn Science
4. Adaptive Inquiry as the Silver Bullet: Reconciling Local Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Procedures With State-Mandated Testing in Science
5. Science Standards Influence Classroom Assessment Practices
6. Usable Assessments for Teaching Science Content and Inquiry Standards
7. Using Rubrics to Foster Meaningful Learning
8. Professional Development and Teacher Learning: Using Concept Maps in Inquiry Classrooms
9. Coming to See the Invisible: Assessing Understanding in an Inquiry-Focused Science Classroom
10. Evolving Ideas: Assessment in an Evolution Course
11. Varying Instructional Methods and Assessment of Students in High School Chemistry
12. Integrating an Assessment Plan Into a K-12/University Engineering Partnership
13. Performance Assessment Tasks as a Stimulus for Collaboration Among Preservice and Inservice Teachers
14. Assessment in Support of Contextually Authentic Inquiry
15. Helping Students Understand the Minds-On Side of Learning Science
16. Revised Views of Classroom Assessment
17. Moving Beyond Grades and Scores: Reconsidering Assessment Feedback
18. Mind Mapping as a Flexible Assessment Tool
Index