The Case for Strengthening Assessment in the Science Classroom
This chapter provides a rationale for this
report: It presents a research base for the importance of understanding
and improving the assessments that occur daily in classrooms that can
directly influence learning. Teachers, teacher educators,
administrators, and policy makers may find this chapter particularly
relevant.
The goals for school science projected in the Standards
represent a significant shift from traditional school practice. The
document presents science as something that students actively do, rather
than something that is done to or for them by teachers and texts.
Science covers not only important facts but requires that objects and
events be described carefully, that questions be asked about what is
seen, that explanations of natural phenomena be constructed and tested,
and that the resulting ideas be communicated to other people. It
emphasizes the role of evidence in drawing conclusions. It involves
making connections between students' current understandings of natural
phenomena and the knowledge accepted and valued in the scientific
community. Science also entails problem solving and decision making in
the process of applying such knowledge to new situations and asking new
questions. It is a way of knowing and thinking. If teachers can
determine how well their students are meeting these new goals and
students can learn how to gauge their progress, both can use this
information to inform teaching and learning. By doing so, a vision for
school science becomes a reality:
The Standards present a vision of a
scientifically literate populace. They outline what students need to
know, understand, and be able to do to be scientifically literate at
different grade levels. They describe an educational.
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