The Assessment Game...

Last week at our IPL hui, we were talking about the core of our organisation -what are we about, what's our vision... Unfortunately I can tend to zone out a bit when it gets a bit talky and I'm not the one doing the talky (!), but this time someone said something that struck me.
The facilitator talked about how 'we're doing this for students'. It struck me because my general answer to the question "So what do you do?" is to reply "I support teachers in teaching science". In my head, I know the ultimate goal is to see student achievement improve and I do have these conversations with teachers and leaders and yes, we do see improvement but do we all think like this?
Imagine if we told the children we're doing science to improve achievement?! And here, I want to segway before I get a pile of responses talking about assessment-driven science programmes, you can't assess the capabilities because they're like the Key Competencies and they're not levelled and... I'm trying to think 'big picture' here. This is still a work in progress in my head but it's one that I want to keep challenging too.
The Science Thinking with Evidence assessment tool does give us some data on how children are doing with the capabilities. I know that there are other skills wrapped up in the assessment too, for example, literacy, but it's a start! I'm also thinking about the skills within the science capabilities. Gather and Interpret Data has a number of skills happening. Granted, they're not levelled, but children are

• observing
• measuring
• gathering information
• summarising
• inferring
• thinking
• discussing

As I plan my science through the year, how do I ensure that the children are going to continue to improve? Even if I use the levelled nature of science achievement objectives, I'm not much better off -apparently Year 1 to Year 4 is the same! As I have been doing with teachers, here's a great chance for that local curriculum: what do we expect children could be doing by the end of each year? By having some expectations and heading towards them, there will be more of an impetus on seeing the students develop and improve further. It will mean that teachers understand the capabilities or achievement objectives better but this is a good thing! Regardless of whether the National Standards were effective, it did mean we all understood literacy and mathematics better. 

I might not have a levelled assessment within a particular year level but simply acknowledge when children are exhibiting a particular indicator or skill in class (or at home). I'd also want some deep stuff in here too -not just observations and evidence but, as my last blogpost was about, the taking action bits, the discussions and higher level thinking. Which leads to a second segway -not all children are good at exhibiting in the way the teacher decides! Example #1: me! I did not like reading and certainly didn't like writing long screeds of answers! I also was rather shy (and believe it or not, I still am!) so didn't contribute to class discussions at all and this led to lovely school reports like Paul is a quiet, polite student who allows others the opportunity to share (Form Three!). I also used to get in trouble for bad handwriting but we'll leave that alone!

Yeah, this is all a big challenge... thinking about what we see as important for each year level (or at the end of Year 2, 4, 6 and 8), thinking about how we can assess or evaluate student progress and what indicators might look like, and thinking about how best to give opportunities for all students to progress. Without doing this, I tend to worry that science is pretty much the same across some of the year levels at least. 

I'm curious about what teachers think about this. Are you asking the same questions? Are you already doing this (and would like to share!)? Is it too much in an already crowded curriculum? And in a much quieter voice: Should this not even be a question but something we should be doing anyway?

So what kind of facilitator would I be to just leave things up in the air? As I'm looking through the variety of assessment examples I have, it has also occurred to me that the school may choose to have a series of values with the capabilities underneath, for example, Caring for the environment. I've also found some bits that I was working on (and then deleted half of it because I didn't want to put levels to the capabilities at that time) where I had the nature of science down the side and then examples of the capabilities in each. 

Although I like the idea of four or five big ideas the schools uses for science, I'll stick to the capabilities for now. You could do something similar with the nature of science achievement objectives instead. So here's a quick example based around some aspects of the first capability: Gather and Interpret Data. Of course there needs to be more here -gathering statistical data, interpretations and inferences, etc but I hope you can see this as an example.

Gather and Interpret Data

	Y1-2	Y3-4	Y5-6	Y7-8
Observing an object	·       Making simple observations focused around colour, shape, size ·       Using observation and touch when describing and beginning to use other senses ·       Beginning to describe observations by comparing to other objects ·       Can draw a representation of the object (but may be out of scale, wrong colours)	·       Using location words, 3-D words to describe shape,  beginning to measure using comparative words and then units of measurement ·       Using all senses confidently ·       Being careful with language when describing their observations ·       Continuing to connect their observations to other objects they have observed ·       Uses a device to support observations –camera, magnifying glass ·       Can draw a view of the object highlighting some features and colour	·       Using complex language when describing eg shades of colour, specific locations of features, measuring carefully using whole units of measurement and tenths ·       Able to describe the object clearly without the need to use other objects to make sense of description ·       Uses devices to make better sense of observations ·       Drawings show details of features and colour as well as labels ·       Beginning to understand the importance of ‘good observations’	·       Measuring using tenths ·       Labelling of object in observational drawings uses appropriate style of language ·       May use resources such as the internet, books, or people to make sense of features of their observation ·       Understands the importance of ‘observation’ in science and can explain why
Critiquing observations	·       Can challenge simple observations eg brown not yellow…	·       Beginning to critique in a courteous way ·       Challenges incorrect observations using simple vocabulary	·       Respectfully challenge others’ and own observations	·       Understands the need for critiquing, it’s importance in science
Scientists	·       Identify ‘as scientists’ when observing	·       Beginning to understand that scientists observe closely, just as they do	·       Identifying ways that scientists ‘gather’ data, observations, measurements…	·       Developing ways to gather data using technology ·       Exploring how scientists share their observations

So where are you with this thinking? Do you agree or disagree? Feel free to share!

Keep on sciencing

Paul