Assessment in science: an art

It can be difficult to assess student learning during an inquiry lesson. How do you determine a student has learned if their path will not result in a static, answerable series of questions? However you approach this issue, assessment is a necessary evil, a driving force of modern classrooms.

I personally like the phrase assessment for learning because it implies a work in progress. Inquiry lessons are not neatly packaged lessons that have definitive answers, as and science. Assessing your students for future learning is a vital resource for an educator to anticipate what learning is needed next.


Here is a slide I made for class on student's self reflections.

I made sure to animate this one

Next, I was tasked with reviewing a PowerPoint and jot down some ideas about assessment. I really liked this slide because it broke down the things that can be assessed in a classroom. These are things I have seen before but have been unable to put a name to. I feel as though so much emphasis is placed on the first category while ignoring the other two. The first category is testable, and graph-able, while the other two are indicators of a student's disposition. They are not easy to quantify. 

This slide showed the difference between three types of assessment, and the next slide gave examples of all three types.

These three types are used to inform the next type. Assessment is not linear, it is a cycle.