ASSESSMENT IN SECENCE EDUCATION

CODE 8628
NAME WAJEEHA RIAZ
ROLLNO: BY628989
SEMSTER: SPRING 2ND
PROGREM: B.ED (1.5)
Q1) Explain the type of assessment. How a good assessment can play a
substantial role in science education?

TYPE OF ASSESSMENT
6 Types of assessment to use in your classroom
There’s a time and place for every type of assessment. Keep reading to find creative
ways of delivering assessments and understanding your students’ learning
process!

1. Diagnostic assessment

Let’s say you’re starting a lesson on two-digit multiplication. To make sure the unit
goes smoothly, you want to know if your students have mastered fact
families, place value and one-digit multiplication before you move on to more
complicated questions.

When you structure diagnostic assessments around your lesson, you’ll get the
information you need to understand student knowledge and engage your whole
classroom.

Some examples to try include:

❖ Mind maps
❖ Flow charts
 ❖ KWL charts
❖ Short quizzes
❖ Journal entries
❖ Student interviews
❖ Student reflections
❖ Graphic organizers
❖ Classroom discussions

Diagnostic assessments can also help benchmark student progress. Consider

giving the same assessment at the end of the unit so students can see how far
they’ve come!

One unique way of delivering diagnostic assessments is to use a game-based

learning platform that engages your students. To set up a diagnostic assessment,
use your assessments tool to create a Plan that guides students through a skill
and automatically drops them down to pre-requisites when necessary.

2. Formative assessment

Just because students made it to the end-of-unit test, doesn’t mean

they’ve mastered the skill. Formative assessments help teachers understand
student learning while they teach, and adjust their teaching strategies
accordingly.

Meaningful learning involves processing new facts, adjusting assumptions and

drawing nuanced conclusions. Or, as researchers Thomas Romberg and Thomas
Carpenter describe it:

“Current research indicates that acquired knowledge is not simply a collection

of concepts and procedural skills filed in long-term memory. Rather, the
knowledge is structured by individuals in meaningful ways, which grow and
change over time.”
Formative assessments help you track how student knowledge is growing and
changing in your classroom in real-time.
While it requires a bit of a time investment — especially at first — the gains are
more than worth it.

Some examples of formative assessments include:

• Portfolios
• Group projects
• Progress reports
• Class discussions
• Entry and exit tickets
• Short, regular quizzes
• Virtual classroom tools like Secretive or Kahoot!

When running formative assessments in your classroom, it’s best to keep

them short, easy to grade and consistent. Introducing students to formative
assessments in a low-stakes way can help you benchmark their progress and
reduce math anxiety when a big test day rolls around.

Prodigy makes it easy to create, deliver and grade formative assessments that keep
your students engaged with the learning process and provide you with actionable
data to adjust your lesson plans.

Use your Prodigy teacher dashboard to create an Assignment and make formative
assessments easy!

Assignments assess your students on a particular skill with a set number of

questions and can be differentiated for individual students or groups of students.

3. Summative assessment

Summative assessments measure student progress as an assessment of learning

and provide data for you, school leaders and district leaders.
They're cost-efficient and valuable when it comes to communicating student
progress, but they don’t always give clear feedback on the learning process and
can foster a “teach to the test” mindset if you’re not careful.

Plus, they’re stressful for teachers. One Harvard survey found 60% of teachers said
“preparing students to pass mandated standardized tests” “dictates most of” or
“substantially affects” their teaching.

Sound familiar?

But just because it’s a summative assessment, doesn’t mean it can’t be engaging
for students and useful for your teaching. Try creating assessments that deviate
from the standard multiple-choice test, like:

❖ Recording a podcast
❖ Writing a script for a short play
❖ Producing an independent study project

No matter what type of summative assessment you give your students, keep some
best practices in mind:

❖ Keep it real-world relevant where you can

❖ Make questions clear and instructions easy to follow
❖ Give a rubric so students know what’s expected of them
❖ Create your final test after, not before, teaching the lesson
❖ Try blind grading: don’t look at the name on the assignment before you mark
it.
❖ Did you know you can use Prodigy to prepare your students for summative
assessments — and deliver them in-game?
❖ Use Assignments to differentiate math practice for each student or send an
end-of-unit test to the whole class.
 ❖ Or use our Test Prep tool to understand student progress and help them
prepare for standardized tests in an easy, fun way!
4. Ipsative assessments

How many of your students get a bad grade on a test and get so discouraged they
stop trying?

Ipsative assessments are one of the types of assessment as learning that compares
previous results with a second try, motivating students to set goals and improve
their skills.

When a student hands in a piece of creative writing, it’s just the first draft. They
practice athletic skills and musical talents to improve, but don’t always get the
same chance when it comes to other subjects like math.

A two-stage assessment framework helps students learn from their mistakes and
motivates them to do better. Plus, it removes the instant gratification of goals and
teaches students learning is a process.

You can incorporate Ipsative assessments into your classroom with:

❖ Portfolios
❖ A two-stage testing process
❖ Project-based learning activities

One study on Ipsative learning techniques found that when it was used with higher
education distance learners, it helped motivate students and encouraged them to
act on feedback to improve their grades. What could it look like in your classroom?

5. Norm-referenced assessments
Norm-referenced assessmentsare tests designed to compare an individual to a
group of their peers, usually based on national standards and occasionally
adjusted for age, ethnicity or other demographics.

Unlike ipsative assessments, where the student is only competing against

themselves, norm-referenced assessments draw from a wide range of data points
to make conclusions about student achievement.

Types of norm-referenced assessments include:

• IQ tests
• Physical assessments
• Standardized college admissions tests like the SAT and GRE

Proponents of norm-referenced assessments point out that they accentuate

differences among test-takers and make it easy to analyze large-scale trends.
Critics argue they don’t encourage complex thinking and can inadvertently
discriminate against low-income students and minorities.

Norm-referenced assessments are most useful when measuring student

achievement to determine:

❖ Language ability
❖ Grade readiness
❖ Physical development
❖ College admission decisions
❖ Need for additional learning support

While they’re not usually the type of assessment you deliver in your classroom,
chances are you have access to data from past tests that can give you valuable
insights into student performance.
6. Criterion-referenced assessments

Criterion-referenced assessments compare the score of an individual student to a

learning standard and performance level, independent of other students around
them.

In the classroom, this means measuring student performance against grade-level

standards and can include end-of-unit or final tests to assess student
understanding.

Outside of the classroom, criterion-referenced assessments appear in professional

licensing exams, high school exit exams and citizenship tests, where the student
must answer a certain percentage of questions correctly to pass.

Criterion-referenced assessments are most often compared with norm-referenced

assessments. While they’re both valuable types of assessments of learning,
criterion-referenced assessments don’t measure students against their peers.
Instead, each student is graded on their own strengths and weaknesses.

GOOD ASSESSMENT OF SECINCE

The following are some of a good assessment.

When to Assess What

There are two important considerations to make when planning assessment:

when to assess and what to assess. As with other assessment guidelines,
fairness and transparency are the principles that should always guide your
practice. There is a balance that should be struck in the timing of assessments,
between the student having learnt enough to be realistically assessed and
sufficiently early in the course so the student and teacher have a good idea on
how they are progressing. Feedback also has to be given promptly after
assessment so that there is sufficient time for the student to reflect on the
teacher’s feedback, and act on the advice given. The teachers should also be
aware of student workloads, so that assessment is distributed over a period of
time. Assessment environments to be carefully selected so that are the
appropriate type of assessment being conducted. For example, if examinations
are offered, these should be held in a space to avoid students colluding or
cheating.

Selecting the Children

The greatest benefit of planning assessment is perhaps that it ensures that

information is gathered equitably about all the children, not just the ones who
need help or claim most attention. It depends upon keeping records and carrying
out the assessment systematically. Children must be assessed in relation to the
same skill.

Using the Children to help

The use of children’s self-assessment in helping their progress is not well

developed in primary schools, apart from the area of language where some
materials have built in means of children testing and recording their
achievement to certain level.

The Nature and use of Information

What kind of information results from gathering it as part of regular teaching?

The use of the information for the purpose of helping individual children is part
of the answer to the question of whether it matters that the children’s skills and
ideas are not assessed on the same activities. There is no comparison being made
between children and therefore no need for the subject matter to be controlled
providing each activity gives opportunity.
Q2) Distinguish between instructional and behavioral objectives?

INSTRUCTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL OBJECTIVE

It is also referred to as a behavioral objective or an instructional objective. ...

Instructional objectives are specific, measurable, short-term, observable student
behaviors. They indicate the desirable knowledge, skills, or attitudes to be
gained. An instructional objective is the focal point of a lesson plan

An instructional objective is a statement that will describe what the learner will
be able to do after completing the instruction. Instructional objectives are
specific, measurable, short-term, observable student behaviors. They indicate
the desirable knowledge, skills, or attitudes to be gained. Additionally, what is
an example of an instructional objective? A measurable instructional objective is
one that can be observed or one that generates data points. For example, the
learner will apply compassion skills to handle irritable customers and log and
report the outcome of each call by the end of the month. Learning can be defined
as change in a student’s capacity for performance as a result of experience
(Moore, 2009). The intended changes should be specified in instructional
objectives. Viewed in this context, an objective can be defined as a clear and
unambiguous description of your instructional intent. An objective is not a
statement of what you plan to put into the lesson (content) but instead a
statement of what your students should get out of the lesson. Instructional
objectives are related to and necessary as behaviors in order to acquire a
terminal behavioral objective. Instructional objectives can be thought of as
intermediate behaviors to be acquired during the instructional period but not
the final behavior toward which the learning is being oriented. They are
intermediate in that they occur between the initiation of instruction and the
learner’s arrival at the desired terminal behavior. Generally, they are logically
and empirically derived, and thus necessary as acquired behaviors before the
learner can obtain the terminal behavior. Sometimes they are called enabling
objectives.

A behavioural objective is stated in terms of student’s behavior to achieve desired

behavior. Behavioural objective is a clear and unambiguous description of your
educational expectations for students. When written in behavioural terms, an
objective will include three components: student behavior, conditions of
performance, and performance criteria.

Q3) How can we different between knowledge of ways and means

from knowledge of specific for the purpose of classification.
Knowledge of Specifics

In each subject there are many specifics that one has to learn at the initial stage.
These are given below.

Knowledge of Terminology

A teacher should know that which word/ term in the concerned subject the
student should know. For example.

Example from Gen.

Science a meter is a unit of a) Energy b) Force c) Distance d) Pressure e)

Example from Biology

What is production of a new and useful material by cells called? a) Agglutination

b) Secretion c) Digestion d) Induction

3. Example from Chemistry

Air is classified as a a) Compound b) Electrolyte c) Element d) Mixture

4. Example from Physics

Which of the following is a unit of work

a) Coulomb b) Dyne c) Erg d) Pound

The students are required to select one of the most suitable answers. A minor
variation requires selection of a single phrase from the test.

There are a lot of words or a mass of facts including the names of peoples, dates,
historical developments and discoveries or inventions. Here, too the teacher has
to decide what to use Bloom says that the facts in a field, “can be distinguished
from the terminology in that the terminology generally represents the
conventions or agreements with a filed while the facts are more likely to represent
the finding which can be tested by other means than determining the unanimity
of workers in the field or the agreements they have for the purposes of
communication.”

Knowledge of Ways and Means Specifics

This area of knowledge is a bit more complex than the measurement of

terminology and facts. It includes the knowledge which is mostly the result of
agreement and convenience rather than the knowledge which is more directly a
matter of observation, experimentation and discovery. This knowledge is more
commonly the reflection of how workers in the field think and attack problems
rather than the results of such thoughts or problem solving.

Knowledge of Conventions

The tradition or mutual agreement upon some areas of knowledge by all the
people of the world fall into this category. For example, mathematics symbols
and sheets of music. Such convections must be learned on the way to mastery
of a field.

Knowledge of Trends and Sequences

It means the order of events i.e.; how things happen or how they have happened
over a period of time.

Examples

From General Science

Objective: To discover whether the students know the major stages in the life
history of certain insects or other organisms. What are the stages in the life
history of housefly –in order of occurrence? a) Egg-larva-pupa-adult b) Egg-larva-
adult-pupa c) Larva- egg-pupa – adult d) Pupa-larva –egg- adult.

From Physics

As the speed of sound waves in air is increased a) the temperature will rise. b)
The air will rise. c) The pressure will fall. d) The temperature will fall.

Knowledge of Classification & Categories

Biology provides a good example of man’s need to systematize phenomena.

Example

From General science.

Which of the following is a physical change? a) Burning a gasoline b) Evaporation

of water c) Mixing of salt and pepper d) none of these.

Knowledge of Criteria

It means how to make the student aware of the criteria for judging facts and
theories and conclusions.
Example

From Biology

Objective: to ascertain whether the student knows the criteria by means of

which animals can be classified. In trying to decide if the material is plant or
animal it would be most helpful for the biologist to find out if the cells in the
material

a. Reproduce b. Have nuclei c. Have thick walls d. Are filled with air

Example

From Biology

Objective: to ascertain whether the student knows the criteria by means of

which animals can be class In trying to decide if the material is plant or animal
it would be most helpful for the biologist to find out if the cells in the material

a. Reproduce b. Have nuclei c. Have thick walls d. Are filled with air. Knowledge
of the methods of inquiry, techniques, and procedures employed in a particular
subject field as well as those employed in investigating particular problems and
phenomena. Here, again the emphasis is on the individual’s knowledge of the
methods rather than on his ability to use methods in the ways. However, student
is frequently required to know about methods and techniques and to know the
ways in which they have been used. Such knowledge is most nearly of an
historical or encyclopedic type. This knowledge, although simpler and perhaps
less functional than the ability to actually employ the methods and techniques,
is an important prelude to such use. Thus before engaging in an inquiry the
student may be expected to know about methods and techniques which have
been to know about the methods and techniques which have been employed in
similar inquiries. In the later stage in his inquiry he may be expected to show
relations between the methods he has employed and the methods employed by
others.to find whether the student knows the methods geologists employ to make
inferences about the crust of the earth. Geologists have found that earth’s crust
is approximately 25 miles in thickness. They also think that this crust is made
up of different layers of materials. They have discovered this by studying. A.
Earthquake B. Sedimentary rocks C. Igneous or fire made instructions D. Barrier
reefs 3.2.3 Knowledge of the Universals and Abstractions in a Field It deals with
the concepts that have particular values for bringing organization to a multitude
of facts classification systems. It is necessary to teach facts and then retain them.
Knowledge of the major ideas, schemes, and patterns by which phenomena and
ideas are organized. These are the large structures, theories, and generalizations
which dominate a subject field or which are quite generally used in studying
phenomena or solving problems. These are at the highest levels of abstraction
and complexity stifled. These concepts bring together a large number of specific
facts and events, describe the processes and interrelations among these
specifics, and thus enable the workers to organize the whole in a parsimonious
form. These tend to be very broad ideas and plans which are rather difficult for
students to comprehend. Quite frequently they are so difficult because the
student is not thoroughly acquainted with phenomena the universals are
intended to summarize and organize. If the student does not get to know them,
however, he has a means of relating and organizing a great deal of subject matter
and as a result should have more insight into the field as well as grater
retentiveness for it.

Q4) Develop at least ten learning objective for comprehension?

TEN LEARNING OBJECTIVE COMPREHENSION.

1 Set Clear Corporate Learning Objectives

Corporate learning objectives are what a learner will learn, understand and be
in a position to perform as a result of taking part in a learning process. Properly
written learning objective are critical to any given learning process. They guide
how the learning activities are made and the choice of learning materials among
other things. In a nutshell, clear corporate learning objectives:

❖ Help provide clarity about the purpose of the training program

❖ Guide the formulation and development of the appropriate curriculum,
content and teaching methods
❖ Help develop accountability between the instructors and learners

2 Set Clear Learning Objectives

Once you have set the goals and scope of a corporate training program, it is
important to define specific information, attitudes, knowledge and skills to be
attained by the participants in the program. These form the basis for the
objective the training program. To set clear learning objective, it is important to
understand what objectives are made up of Learning objectives are known to be
made up of a number of components. The most known components are those
identified by an educational theorist Robert Merger. The major components are
audience, condition, standards and behavior. These components entail.

3 Audience:
Learning objectives should always specify the audience they are intended to
serve. Usually, the audiences are participants in a given training program. For
example in the phrase “learners will be able,” the learners are the audience.
Although there may be different groups of participants in a training program
such as learners, instructors, supervisors and facilitators, the objective should
describe the exact intended audience. This helps in making the objectives
measurable.
4 Behavior
Behaviors are observable actions that are supposed to be accomplished by the
end of a training session or program, and should be demonstrated during the
program. To write a clear learning objective, it is important to carefully choose
the most appropriate word that describes the behavior displayed by the
participants in the program after the training is done. The action verb that forms
part of your objective should be able to fully describe the specific behavior that
is expected from a participant after undergoing a training program.

5 Standard:
Learning objectives should identify to what standards a given skill or knowledge
must be achieved by the learner. In other words, the standards used in objectives
give the proficiency to which the training will elicit in the learners. It is, therefore,
important for you to give the specifics of how a learner will be able to perform a
given task in terms of quality and quantity

After undergoing a given training program. For example in the objective, “…the
learners should be able to identify 95% of errors…” the phrase ‘95% of errors’ is
the standard.

6 Condition:
A condition in an objective specifies the conditions under which given tasks
should be performed. These are the actual conditions a given task should take
place. The conditions may include time and place. An example of a condition in
an objective is “after this program the learners should be able to take less than
five minutes in successfully predicting the performance of a given stock,” here
the phrase “less than five minutes” represents the condition.

7 Specific
Go through your objectives and ensure that they clearly describe the attitudes,
skills and knowledge that the learner is expected to demonstrate after
undergoing a given training program.

8 Measurable
Check your objectives to ensure that the achievement of the objective can
actually be measured by an assessment strategy such as observation, test items
or problem-solving exercises. It is important for objectives to be measurable
otherwise it would be difficult to assess the success of the training program.

9 Action-oriented
Ensure that your objectives are action oriented. They should all have an action
verb that demonstrates the skills. Knowledge and attitudes to be acquired

10 Realistic
Your objectives should be reasonable. Ensure that they are all reflect reasonable
expectations in terms of the attitudes knowledge and skills to be acquired within
the given time frame and training scope.
11 Time-bound
The learning objectives should have a time limit. This is usually done by using
the phrase “by the end of this training”. This can be done by any other means,
but the time frame must be specified.

Q5) Construct at least ten test item appropriate to the evaluation of

application objective.

TEN TEST ITEM

1 Length of Test

In theory, the more items a test has, the more reliable it is. On a short test a few
wrong answers can have a great effect on the overall results. On a long test, a
few wrong answers will not influence the results as much. A long test does have
drawbacks. If a test is too long, and particularly if students are doing the same
kind of item over and over, they may get tired and not respond accurately or
seriously. If a test needs to be lengthy, divide it into sections with different kinds
of tasks, to maintain the student's interest.

2 Clear, Concise Instructions

It is necessary to give clear, concise instructions. It is useful to provide an

example of a worked problem, which helps the students understand exactly what
is necessary. What seems to be clear to the writer may be unclear to someone
else.

3 Mix It Up

It is often advantageous to mix types of items (multiple choice, true-false, essay)

on a written exam or to mix types of exams (a performance component with a
written component). Weaknesses connected with one kind of item or component
or in students’ test taking skills will be minimized.

4 Test Early

It is helpful for instructors to test early in the term and consider discounting the
first test if results are poor. Students often need a practice test to understand
the format each instructor uses and anticipate the best way to prepare for and
take particular tests.

5 Test Frequently

Frequent testing helps students to avoid getting behind, provides instructors

with multiple sources of information to use in computing the final course grade
(thus minimizing the effect of “bad days”), and gives students regular feedback.
It is important to test various topics in proportion to the emphasis given in class.
Students will expect this practice and will study with this expectation.

6 Check for Accuracy

Instructors should be cautious about using tests written by others. Often, items
developed by a previous instructor, a textbook publisher, etc., can save a lot of
time, but they should be checked for accuracy and appropriateness in the given
course.

7 Proofread Exams

On written exams, it is important to proofread exams carefully and, when

possible, have another person proofread them. Tiny mistakes, such as
misnumbering the responses, can cause big problems later. Collation should
also be checked carefully, since missing pages can cause a great deal of trouble.

8 One Wrong Answer

Generally, on either a written or performance test, it is wise to avoid having

separate items or tasks depend upon answers or skills required in previous items
or tasks. A student’s initial mistake will be perpetuated over the course of
succeeding items or tasks, penalizing the student repeatedly for one error.

9 Special Considerations

It is important to anticipate special considerations that learning disabled

students or non-native speakers may need. The instructor needs to anticipate
special needs in advance and decide whether or not students will be allowed the
use of dictionaries, extra time, separate testing sites, or other special conditions.

10 A Little Humor

Instructors have found that using a little humor or placing less difficult items or
tasks at the beginning of an exam can help students with test anxiety to reduce
their preliminary tension and thus provide a more accurate demonstration of
their progress.