- I am supposed to teach to the standards, so how does the Causal Patterns in Science curriculum relate to the standards?
- How are the assessments on the site different from other forms?
- My school talks about helping all students learn, but if I don't grade on a bell-curve, I get accused of giving out too many As. What should I do?
- How can I score a kid high on a causal model when I know that s/he is not working as hard as s/he can?
- I like the idea of encouraging self-assessment, but I am not so sure that my students will be very good at it. How can I help them get started?
1. I am supposed to teach to the standards, so how does the Causal Patterns in Science curriculum relate to the standards?
Most of the science concepts in the Causal Patterns in Science Series are present in the standards. In some cases, the curricula go further than the standards call for and aim for deep understanding of the concepts. The approach introduced in these materials can be used to teach the science concepts that you are responsible for in a deeper way that focuses on the structure of the explanations and enables greater transfer.
2. How are the assessments on the site different from other forms?
Different forms of assessment hold different assumptions about the nature of learning. For example, compare the following approaches. A common form of assessment compares students' performance to others and places each student's performance within a bell curve. It assumes that a certain percentage of students will excel, perform at average, and fail by the design of the scoring. These are often called "norm-referenced tests."
Another form of assessment focuses on whether students have achieved a certain set of criteria or met a standard. It measures levels of understanding for that concept. It assumes that all students can be successful and can meet the highest level of understanding. These are often called "criterion-referenced tests." The assessments here focus on helping all students attain the concepts. The assumptions behind the approach here are that all students can succeed, that they will "trade up" for better and better explanations, and that by diagnosing their ideas, we can design the best instruction to help them learn.
3. My school talks about helping all students learn, but if I don't grade on a bell-curve, I get accused of giving out too many As. What should I do?
Assumptions from one framework can creep into practice whether we realize it or not. We might implicitly compare students in order to benchmark our expectations for what they should have learned in a certain unit without explicitly using a bell curve model. If schools do not have a clearly articulated assessment philosophy, teachers can find themselves caught in the middle. They say, "I work really hard to make sure that all of the students meet the learning goals, but if I give all the students a top grade, the administration wants to know what is going on." If you find yourself in the middle like this, it may be time for your school to initiate conversations to talk about your collective assessment philosophy and goals.
4. How can I score a kid high on a causal model when I know that s/he is not working as hard as s/he can?
It is tempting to treat the scores as a reward or punishment for effort paid rather than an acknowledgement of what level the student is working at and what they need to work on next. However, the causal model portion of the rubric is to help you diagnose what the student does or doesn't understand to help you make instructional decisions. Some of our collaborating teachers asked for a section to the rubrics that scored the effort invested in the explanation and the model to help them in keeping these criteria (effort vs. causal understanding) separate. Therefore, the rubrics contain both.
5. I like the idea of encouraging self-assessment, but I am not so sure that my students will be very good at it. How can I help them get started?
Most students need practice in order to learn to self-assess well. However, right from the beginning, you are sending an important message by having them engage in self-assessment. It underscores that they are learning for their understanding and that they can work on developing the habits of good learners—this includes metacognition and self-assessment. One way to help learners to get started focusing on their own understanding is to ask them to consider, each time they learn a new scientific explanation, whether it is 1) sensible to them (Does it make sense? Do they comprehend it?); 2) plausible to them (Do they think that it works as a possible explanation for the phenomena/evidence at hand?); and finally; 3) believable to them (Do they believe it? Are they willing to adopt it as the explanation/model that they use?)
