3.

FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Assessments may be formative or summative in nature. You do formative

assessment when you ask questions while discussion is going on. You do summative
assessment when you give a test at the end of the topic. If you want to know the prior
knowledge of the students about the topic as well as their strengths and weaknesses,
then you can administer a diagnostic test to determine where to start your instruction.
Assessment has two components: measurement and evaluation.

4. TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENT VS. AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

Traditional assessment has the following characteristics:

 It focuses on knowledge and recall of information.

 It tends to reveal only whether the student can recognize, recall or "plug in" what
was learned out of context.
 It provides little insights into the way learners think.
 It relies on indirect or proxy items - efficient, simplistic substitutes from which we
think valid inferences can be made about the student`s performance.
 It is usually limited to paper-and-pencil, one-answer questions.
 It asks the student to select or write correct responses, but does not provide
reasons for their choice.
 It does not assess student`s ability to apply their understanding to real world
problems.
 It provides rare opportunity to plan, revise and substantiate responses even when
there are open-ended questions.
 It standardizes objective "items".
 It is easy for teachers to check.

One commonly used traditional assessment too is the multiple choice test. A multiple-
choice test item consists of a stem and options. The student has to choose from a number
of options. In most forms, one of the options is the correct answer and the others
are distractors. This test is effective for testing knowledge and memory and for
problem-solving.

Traditional assessment is not the only way to gauge the achievement of the students.
There are many classroom situations in which you may need to use non-paper-and-pencil
tests to gather information about your pupil`s` achievement. Some of these are the
development of different science process skills, manipulating a microscope, measuring,
and social skills such as cooperation, courtesy and leadership.

To gather appropriate information about such performances, you need to observe and
judge each of your pupil's/student's actual performances, you need to observe and judge
each of your pupil's/student's actual performance or products. Assessment in which
pupil's/student's create an answer or a product that demonstrate their knowledge and
skills are called performance-based assessment. This kind of assessment is a form
of authentic assessment.

Performance-based assessment is concerned primarily with the student's ability to

translate knowledge into observable performance or products. It has the following
characteristics.

 is concerned primarily with the pupil's/student's ability to translate knowledge into

observable performance or products;
  requires pupil's/student's to manipulate equipment, to solve a problem, or make
analysis;
 can be used to chart the progress of each member of the class;
 provides rich evidence of the level of performance skills; and
 is time-consuming to construct and administer but produces rating forms that can
be repeatedly used with the same or new pupil's/student's.

Performance comes in many forms - oral contribution in a class, laboratory work, event
task, and extended task. The latter forms of performance tasks are described below.

 In event task, students are given a set of materials with minimal instruction. The
students are tole to make predictions first before they perform the activity.
 An extended task is an activity that allows students to connect the science
concepts learned in the classroom to the home environment. The situations on the
next page demonstrate the difference between an event task and an extended
task.

Your assessment may be used on observations of student's performance or samples of

various performances done by the student. These include:

 Systematic observations. These are observations obtained when you make

notes describing learner's performance according to present criteria.

 Checklist. The use of checklist enables you to describe the dimensions that must
be present in an acceptable performance and extend systematic observation.

 Rating Scale. This observation instrument can be used to gather observations just
like a checklist. However, rating scales are better to use since there are written
descriptions or dimensions and scales of values on which each dimensions is rated.

 Portfolio. A portfolio is another assessment tool that you can use to gather
information about your students. Students put together the materials they have
produced about a science concept. The student portfolio includes products such as
worksheets, pictures, assignments completed, data sheets, written conclusions,
experiment reports, maps, stories, plans, tapes, videos, and other written materials
related to work completed for a unit or course. The portfolio is highly individualized
and students can use it to evaluate themselves and gain a realistic picture of what
they have accomplished in a unit, semester, or year.
 Anecdotal records. These are written accounts of significant individual student
events and behaviors that the teacher has observed. It provides information about
the learner, the date of observation, name of the teacher observing, and a factual
description of the event.

5. SCORING ASSESSMENT THROUGH RUBRICS

A scoring rubric is a scoring guide that uses criteria to differentiate between levels of
student proficiency. The use of a scoring rubric is an innovation for assessing the
accomplishment of student learning at its highest level, with progressively lower levels
further and further from the ideal achievement. It is used to prepare students for the
assessment and to assign final grades.

SCORING RUBRICS

A scoring rubric has several components. It includes one or more dimensions on which the
work of the students is rated, as well as definitions and examples to clarify the meaning
of each trait or dimension. The scoring rubric rating scales may be numerical, qualitative
or a combination of the two. Qualitative rubrics may have scale points with labels such as:

 Not yet, developing, achieving

 Emerging, developing, achieving
 Novice, apprentice, proficient, distinguished
 no evidence, minimal evidence, partial evidence, complete evidence

A rubric has a uniform set of precisely defined criteria or guidelines that will be used to
judge student work. Examples of criteria are:

 has knowledge of places where to collect rocks

 knows what tools to bring for rock sampling
 identifies rocks through physical and chemical properties

There are many forms of rubric. A rubric with two or more separate scales is called
an analytic rubric. If a rubric uses only a single scale, it is a holistic rubric.