One of the biggest shifts we have made in elementary science is how we assess students. Moving from only assessing students' knowledge of content to assessing how students process science content through definable science skills is difficult, but vital.
NSTA’s position statement on assessment states: “Quality science assessments should be mechanisms for accessing information on students’
- understandings of science content and process knowledge and skills
- abilities to think critically and solve simple to complex problems
- capabilities of designing scientific experiments, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions
- capacities to see and articulate relationships between science topics and real-world issues and concerns
- skills using mathematics as a tool for science learning”
As a science leadership team, we have chosen to use four main categories of scientific skills to assess and provide feedback: ask questions & define problems, plan & carry out investigations, analyze & interpret data, and construct explanations & design solutions. These are rigorous skills that will allow students to demonstrate science content knowledge through scientific thinking and application.
It has been exciting to see all of the amazing science thinking students have been doing this year through the use of the teacher-created planners. Students of all ages are actively reading, writing, and speaking about relevant science topics and more and more students are designing their own investigations and analyzing the results. This is the science knowledge that will carry with them throughout their education, and I look forward to building great assessment tools that provide students with high quality feedback on those skills.
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