ASSESSMENT
In this unit, there are a variety of assessments. The unit starts off with a pre-assessment, which really just gives me an idea of if students know anything about bacteria and viruses or not. Those with experience deficit may need a bit more explanation in the lab, and more examples of diseases, transmission, where bacteria are found, etc. Throughout the unit, there are more opportunities for pre-assessment in the form of open brainstorms about bacteria and viruses. This allows any student to contribute, because the topic is large and open-ended, and there are no wrong answers.
There is a lot of informal formative assessment. During lecture, I ask the students questions, in particular questions connecting the lecture material to the experience in the lab. It is necessary to make sure that students are seeing the connection between the lecture material and the lab, because the lab is a common experience that makes up for the experience deficit mentioned in the previous paragraph. During the lab, when students are designing and carrying out their experiments, I go around and ask each group to see in they are on track. In order to keep track of when groups get on the right track for this, I have a copy of the seating chart, which I can use to check off groups that are up to that point. This assessment won’t be entered into the grade book, but it is still important for monitoring student progress toward the goals of developing experiments with a control.
Formal formative assessment comes in the completion of the lab. Students have the grading guide and a self-assessment rubric for this, so they know what I am expecting. In grading, I will be seeing if they accomplished goals of designing an experiment with a control, predicting where bacteria will grow, knowing conditions in which bacteria can survive, using data to make and support conclusions, and evaluating the validity of experimental results. The lab provides opportunity for students with diverse interests—they get to choose what to test and how to test it. Another assignment providing opportunities for this is the argumentative writing assignment. While the topic is the same for everyone, the assignment allows students to share opinion, experience, and examples from research that they find interesting and pertinent to the topic at hand (a topic relevant to their lives!). There is a formula for scientific argumentation, so given my clear criteria of assessment, this project is doable by students of any level of writing. There will be variation in the sophistication of the arguments, but as long as students have all components of the argument, they can be successful. Another form of formative assessment is the study guide to be completed for homework. While this is not collected, it gives students an idea of what they know about bacteria concepts. Formative assessments in the lesson on viruses address goals of understanding virus structures and life cycle, epidemiology, and understanding the differences between bacteria and viruses. The Venn Diagram and Bacteria and Virus Bingo are more for the student to know how he/she is doing, so the student will know how far along he/she is toward meeting the goals before the next day’s summative assessment.
The summative assessment, a quiz on bacteria and viruses, tests the important concepts of bacteria and viruses. It does not show accomplishment of the goals relating to experiment design and evaluation and scientific argumentation, because I feel those were fairly well-covered in the lab and the writing assignment. Most of the understanding and knowing goals, however, are addressed in this assessment.
The bacteria lab (24 points), the argumentative writing assignment (18 points), the virus lab (8 points) and the quiz (25 points) will be entered into the grade book.
There is a lot of informal formative assessment. During lecture, I ask the students questions, in particular questions connecting the lecture material to the experience in the lab. It is necessary to make sure that students are seeing the connection between the lecture material and the lab, because the lab is a common experience that makes up for the experience deficit mentioned in the previous paragraph. During the lab, when students are designing and carrying out their experiments, I go around and ask each group to see in they are on track. In order to keep track of when groups get on the right track for this, I have a copy of the seating chart, which I can use to check off groups that are up to that point. This assessment won’t be entered into the grade book, but it is still important for monitoring student progress toward the goals of developing experiments with a control.
Formal formative assessment comes in the completion of the lab. Students have the grading guide and a self-assessment rubric for this, so they know what I am expecting. In grading, I will be seeing if they accomplished goals of designing an experiment with a control, predicting where bacteria will grow, knowing conditions in which bacteria can survive, using data to make and support conclusions, and evaluating the validity of experimental results. The lab provides opportunity for students with diverse interests—they get to choose what to test and how to test it. Another assignment providing opportunities for this is the argumentative writing assignment. While the topic is the same for everyone, the assignment allows students to share opinion, experience, and examples from research that they find interesting and pertinent to the topic at hand (a topic relevant to their lives!). There is a formula for scientific argumentation, so given my clear criteria of assessment, this project is doable by students of any level of writing. There will be variation in the sophistication of the arguments, but as long as students have all components of the argument, they can be successful. Another form of formative assessment is the study guide to be completed for homework. While this is not collected, it gives students an idea of what they know about bacteria concepts. Formative assessments in the lesson on viruses address goals of understanding virus structures and life cycle, epidemiology, and understanding the differences between bacteria and viruses. The Venn Diagram and Bacteria and Virus Bingo are more for the student to know how he/she is doing, so the student will know how far along he/she is toward meeting the goals before the next day’s summative assessment.
The summative assessment, a quiz on bacteria and viruses, tests the important concepts of bacteria and viruses. It does not show accomplishment of the goals relating to experiment design and evaluation and scientific argumentation, because I feel those were fairly well-covered in the lab and the writing assignment. Most of the understanding and knowing goals, however, are addressed in this assessment.
The bacteria lab (24 points), the argumentative writing assignment (18 points), the virus lab (8 points) and the quiz (25 points) will be entered into the grade book.