Assessment in Science: A Guide to Professional Development and Classroom Practice

This text combines professional development and classroom practice in a single volume. The pragmatic nature of the book should make it a valuable resource for administrators and staff developers interested in designing professional development programmes, and for science teachers looking for techniques and examples of classroom-based assessments. Features of the book include: practical strategies and tools for implementing successful professional development programmes in science assessment, teacher stories and case studies about classroom-based assessment practice and how these teachers changed their assessment practice, examples of classroom-based assessments and scoring guides, samples of student work with teacher commentary, and examples of how the national reform documents in science education served as tools in professional development programs and in designing classroom-based assessments. "Assessment in Science" seeks to expand the existing literature on science assessment by sharing a model for professional development, and examples of teacher-developed assessments with accompanying student work and teacher commentary. Chapters written by science teachers tell how they assess students and how they have changed their assessment practice, as well as how changing assessment practice has resulted in a change in their science instruction. Assessment in Science is targeted at practising professionals in science education: administrators, staff developers, science teachers, and university science educators. Assessment in Science has applicability to graduate-level courses in science education and in-service courses for science teachers. The teacher chapters are also appropriate for use in undergraduate science methods courses to illustrate classroom-based assessments.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction to Assessment in Science: A Guide to Professional Development and Classroom Practice.- Section I.- 2. A Professional Development Framework for Collaborating with Teachers to Change Classroom Assessment Practice.- 3. The NRC Standards as a Tool in the Professional Development of Science Teachers Assessment Knowledge and Practice.- 4. Facilitating Change in Classroom Assessment Practice: Issues for Professional Development.- 5. Thinking about Assessment: An Example from an Elementary Classroom.- 6. A Framework for Thinking about and Planning Classroom Assessments in Science.- Section II.- 7. Assessment for Emergent Science Literacy in Classrooms for Young Children.- 8. Tools for Assessing and Teaching Science in Elementary and Middle School.- 9. Assessing Children’s Science Learning and Process Skills in the Elementary Classroom.- 10. Pedagogical-Assessment Activities in a Middle School Life Science Classroom.- 11. The Multidimensional Assessment of Student Performance in Middle School Science.- 12. Developing and Using Diagnostic and Summative Assessments to Determine Students’ Conceptual Understanding in a Junior High School Earth Science Classroom.- 13. Alternatives to Teaching and Assessing in A High School Chemistry Classroom: Computer Animations and Other Forms of Visualization.- 14. Authentic Assessment in High School Science: A Classroom Perspective.- Section III.- 15. What We Have Learned: A Summary of Chapter Themes.- Notes on Contributors.- Author Index.