Description
What is assessment?
How do you assess your students’ progress?
How do they assess themselves and their peers?
How do you assess the effectiveness of your own teaching?
College Science Teachers Guide to Assessment provides busy professors with 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, and covers general assessment topics (such as validation of survey instruments) and traditional and alternative assessment techniques in both science and science education classrooms. A series of how-to assessment practices that have been successfully utilized in the field and practical tips to enhance assessment in the college science classroom are also included.
For college science professors, this handy reference will help you:
• Use multiple choice questions to assess comprehension and expose faulty thinking
• Gain an intrinsic understanding of assessment techniques in a variety of settings, including the laboratory, online classes, and large undergraduate science courses
• Learn ways to teach assessment techniques to preservice teachers
• Explore alternative assessment techniques such as electronic portfolios, scientific posters, and Wetscience
• Realize the value of peer assessment, student reflection, exam corrections as a means of assessment, and student-led teaching models
• Avoid the practices that jeopardize meaningful student assessment
• Determine sensible and fair ways of assessing students
Contents
Section 1. General Assessment Topics
Chapter 1: Survey Instrument Validation:
The First Commandment of
Educational Research
Cynthia Cudaback
Chapter 2: Building a Culture of Faculty-Owned Assessment
Don Haviland, Karol Dean, and Eleanor D. Siebert
Chapter 3: Quantitative Assessment of Student Learning in Large Undergraduate
Science Classrooms: Approaches and Caveats
Anneke M. Metz
Chapter 4: Means of Linking Research to Practice in Organizing a Course on Student Assessment
HsingChi von Bergmann
Section 2. Assessment in the College Classroom
A. TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENTS
Chapter 5: Writing/Using Multiple Choice Questions to Assess Higher-Order Thinking
Kerry Cheesman
Chapter 6: Tips on Classroom Assessment:
How to Teach Our Students to Take Multiple Choice Exams
Linda Tichenor
Chapter 7: Better Multiple-Choice Assessments
William J. Straits and Susan Gomez-Zwiep
B. ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Chapter 8: Alternative Forms of Assessment for the College Science Laboratory
Kerry L. Cheesman
Chapter 9: Assessment of Students Learning through the Creation of Scientific Posters
Kerry L. Cheesman and Nancy J. Swails
Chapter 10: Using Electronic Portfolios for Assessment in College Science Courses: Instructor Guidelines and Student Responses
Jerry A. Waldvogel
C. TEACHER EDUCATION ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Chapter 11: Wetscience: A Means of Assessing Math, Science, and Technology Incorporation into a Service Learning Outreach Program
Mark A. Gallo
Chapter 12: Gauging the Nature of Science (NOS): An Alternate Form of Assessment
Thomas J. Melvin
Chapter 13: Authentic Assessment:
Using 5-E Lesson Plan Development to Evaluate Science Content Learning With Preservice Teachers
Holly Travis
Section 3. How-To Section
Successful Classroom-Tested Practices and Instructions and Rubrics for Their implementation)
Chapter 14: Formative Assessment with Student Remotes and Email
Robert A. Cohen
Chapter 15: Peer Assessment: Value, Fears, Headaches, and Success
Anne Coleman
Chapter 16: Working with Student Engagement
Grace Eason
Chapter 17: Promoting Student Reflection on Exams
Grace Eason
Chapter 18: Hypothesis Modification Activity
Brian J. Rybarczyk and Kristen Walton
Chapter 19: Exam Corrections and Analysis, Student Perspective
Kathryn H. Sorensen
Chapter 20: Exam Analysis, Instructor Perspective
Kathryn H. Sorensen
Chapter 21: Inquiry-Based Labs: The Scientific Report
Bonnie S. Wood
Chapter 22: Student-Authored Book Reviews
Bonnie S. Wood
Chapter 23: Student-Led Teaching Models
Bonnie S. Wood
Section 4. General Practices to Improve Assessment
Chapter 24: Eleven Assessment Lessons Learned at the Gate
Mary H. Brown
Chapter 25: Developing Assessment Performance Indicators
Peter Kandlbinder
Chapter 26: Practices That Jeopardize Bona Fide Student Assessment
Thomas R. Lord
Chapter 27: Varied Assessment: A Brief Introduction
William J. Straits and R. Russell Wilke
Chapter 28: Assessments That Assist in Motivating Students
Ellen Yerger
Index