Assessing Scientific Inquiry

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Assessing Scientific Inquiry

• Presented by

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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!

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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.

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Assessing Your Inquiry

• Fantastic!
• Good
• So-so
• Needs work
• Embarrassing

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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.

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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

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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

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A, N, C Pattern
 
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A,N,CThe Mysterious Threads

• What do the Threads represent?
• Why were they created?
• Which are more important?

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A, N, C

• A Application of Scientific Knowledge
• N Nature of Scientific Inquiry
• C Communication

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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.

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Scientific Inquiry

• Scoring Scale

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Exemplary
5
Strong
4
Proficient
3 Developing
2 Emerging
1 Beginning
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Scientific Inquiry Key Distinctions

• Within the Threadswhat differentiates a 3 and a
  4?

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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 4th
  grade?
• Phase In Schedule and Work Sample Guidelines and
  FAQ documents are located in Science Teaching
  Learning to Standards http//www.ode.state.or.us/t
  ls/science/

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OK, OK Lets 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.

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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.

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Scoring to Improve Student Success Words of
Wisdom

• Assessment is only truly successful when
  results are used to improve instruction for
  individual students.
  -Johnson, 1987

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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.

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Scoring more papers

• Remaining Anchor papers
• Score each paper (whole numbersbe braveand
  dont peek!)
• Compare at table, reach consensus?
• Tally scores/reveal anchor scores
• Be sure to align yourself with consensus scores.

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Scientific InquiryDocumentation Sheet
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Scientific InquiryScoring Sheet
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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

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End of Session 2 ?
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Goals for Session 3

• Introduce formative assessment
• Provide Research Base
• Develop and apply process for formative assessment

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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.

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Value of Feedback

• Research suggests FEEDBACK is MORE important than
  grades.

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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. 1987 and 1988)

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The Role of Formative Assessment in Inquiry

• Student work
• Scoring guide
• Scores Feedback
• (For state/district) (For students/teachers)

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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?
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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

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Classroom Issues

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

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The Journey Continues
For more information contact Leslie Phillips,
Office of Assessment and Evaluation, Oregon
Department of Education leslie.phillips_at_state.or.u
s or 503-378-3600 Ext. 2317