Assessing Scientific Inquiry  Presented by:

Goals for Scoring Sessions  Learn to reliably score student work using the Scoring Guide.  Understand that knowledge of the scoring guide is needed to elicit scorable student work.  Score student work--anchor papers, “new” candidate anchor papers and your own students’ work.  Have fun and learn from each other!

A Science Challenge!  What do you know about straws and how you can use them to move objects?  We claim: “Characteristics of the straw will control how far you can blow the cotton ball”  Carry out a quick investigation (10 minutes)  As a team, report your findings to the group.

Assessing Your Inquiry  Fantastic!  Good  So-so  Needs work  Embarrassing

Enter the Scientific Inquiry Scoring Guide…  It defines the important aspects of a task,  provides clear assessment guidance,  and promotes uniformity of assessment and feedback to students/teachers.

Oregon's Scientific Inquiry Scoring Guide Was developed to include the following…  Science content mastery as assessed with a standardized knowledge and skills test and  Science process which must be experienced and practiced.  Process (via work sample) is assessed using the scoring guide

What are the scoring dimensions?  4 Dimensions: Forming a Question or Hypothesis Designing an Investigation Collecting and Presenting Analyzing and Interpreting Results  Can you build the scoring guide?.. Puzzle Activity

A, N, C Pattern…

A,N,C…The Mysterious “Threads”  What do the “Threads” represent?  Why were they created?  Which are more important?

A, N, C…  A: Application of Scientific Knowledge  N: Nature of Scientific Inquiry  C: Communication

Scientific Inquiry in Your Classroom  Which dimensions do you already spend the most time doing in the classroom?  Activity: Chart your own classroom investigations into a dimension.

Scientific Inquiry Scoring Scale Exemplary Strong Proficient 3 Developing 2 Emerging 1 Beginning

Scientific Inquiry Key Distinctions  Within the Threads…what differentiates a 3 and a 4?

Important Issues!  What do we mean by “preponderance of evidence?”  Can evidence from throughout the work be used to score each dimension?  Did you know, beginning this year, one work sample is required per year beginning in 4 th grade?  Phase In Schedule and Work Sample Guidelines and FAQ documents are located in Science Teaching & Learning to Standards

OK, OK Let’s do some scoring already!……But first, some rules. Rules of the Road for scoring… We are not here to change the guide. We are not here to dispute the anchor papers or the tasks. We ARE here to understand that experienced teachers have reached scoring consensus. We ARE here to calibrate our scoring.

Scoring the First Anchor Paper! The anchor paper: “for each Benchmark” Met the Standards in each dimension Why this score? Make notes and discuss with a partner.

Assessment is only truly successful when results are used to improve instruction for individual students. -Johnson, 1987 Scoring to Improve Student Success : Words of Wisdom

Remember the rules… Rules of the Road for scoring… We are not here to change the guide. We are not here to dispute the anchor papers or the tasks. We ARE here to understand that experienced teachers have reached scoring consensus. We ARE here to calibrate our scoring.

Scoring more papers …  Remaining Anchor papers  Score each paper (whole numbers…be brave…and don’t peek!)  Compare at table, reach consensus?  Tally scores/reveal anchor scores  Be sure to align yourself with consensus scores.

Scientific Inquiry Documentation Sheet

Scientific Inquiry Scoring Sheet

Learning from student work…  What do we tell the student?  What do we learn as the teacher? How does this inform our instruction?  T-CHART the feedback …

End of Session #2

Goals for Session #3  Introduce formative assessment  Provide Research Base  Develop and apply process for formative assessment

Formative Assessment and the Scoring Guide  Scoring Guide is intended to be more than a final assessment tool.  Teachers and Students both can improve inquiry skills through use of the scoring guide.

Value of Feedback Research suggests FEEDBACK is MORE important than grades.

Research Basis of Formative Assessment  Writing assignment with students using well- known scoring criteria  Three treatments - Students received Grades alone Grades + feedback Feedback alone  Performance improved only in group that received feedback alone! ( Butler,R and 1988)

Student work Scoring guide ScoresFeedback (For state/district) (For students/teachers) The Role of Formative Assessment in Inquiry

Formative Assessment Process Targeted Oregon Science Standards Student Inquiry Work ID gaps between standards and student work Classroom Instruction? Student Performance? What should we do? What should students do?

Practicing Feedback  Look at the chosen piece of student work  Use Highlighting colors  Make notes as you identify gaps; note implications for both student and teacher.  T-chart recording

Classroom Issues  Time to score PLUS time to generate feedback  Who provides feedback ( can students help each other)?  Forms of feedback

The Journey Continues For more information contact Leslie Phillips, Office of Assessment and Evaluation, Oregon Department of Education or Ext.