The assessments are designed to help you diagnose what aspects of concepts students do and do not understand. For instance, do students understand the causal structure? Are they missing a key piece of information? Are they confusing two concepts? They also reveal different levels of understanding on the way towards the scientifically accepted explanations.
Assessment does not need to take time away from learning! Diagnostic assessments can reveal AND build understanding at the same time. For example, when students draw a food web, it engages them in: thinking about what a food web is, considering what they know and don't know, deciding what to include, and how to position and direct the arrows. As the students draw, teachers can assess whether students include the sun, producers, and decomposers, what direction the arrows go, whether they depict populations or individual animals, and so on. Click here to see a teacher's diagnosis of some student food webs.
