Transcript Example of Scientific Teaching

What is the most important
function of assessment?
Assessment: More Than Just Grades
Michelle Withers
West Virginia University
Assessment Learning Goals
Participants will be able to:
• Explain how formative assessment enhances
student learning
• Distinguish between formative and summative
assessments
• Explain how summative assessment drives
learning.
• Align learning goals with summative and
formative assessments
So, how do we know what we know?
“… because as we know, there are known
knowns; things we know we know. We also
know there are known unknowns; that is to
say we know there are some things we do
not know. But there are also unknown
unknowns – the ones we don’t know we
don’t know.”
Donald Rumsfeld
Huh?
Think-Pair-Share
• How do you know when you know
something?
• How do you know when your students
know something?
• How do your students know when they
know something?
“Ongoing assessment plays a key role
– possibly the most important role –
in shaping classroom standards and
increasing learning gains.”
Black and Wiliam, 1998
How people learn
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
DISSONANCE
CONSTRUCTION OF
NEW KNOWLEDGE
Everyone has an
understanding of how the
world works:
some ideas are correct, some
incomplete, some wrong.
New information challenges
these views. If consistent with
the view, the info validates that
view. If inconsistent, the
difference must be reconciled
and explained.
In reconciling how the new
information contradicts a view,
new neural networks form.
Assessments help confront
misconceptions
As the acorn grows into the tree, from
where does the of the majority of the
biomass come?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Air
Soil
Water
Sun
Assessments help students
distinguish between what they
know and what they don’t know.
Genetic diseases, like PKU, confirm that there is a link
between an individual’s DNA and that individual’s
proteins.
Below is a DNA molecule and the amino acid sequence
that would result from translating the DNA sequence.
Which nucleotides are responsible for this particular
sequence of amino acids?
What do you know?
What do you need to know?
• 3’CGTTTTACCAAACCGAGTACTGAG
• 5’GCAAAATGGTTTGGCTCATGACTC
• TRP-PHE-GLY-SER
Assessments can aid
construction of new knowledge
Based on your understanding of natural selection and
traits that vary along a continuum, explain the changes
that occurred in the tree and dinosaur populations over
time?
These represent the
average for an entire
population
(AAAS 1999)
Assessments allow students and
instructors to gauge students’
progress during learning.
Darwin at the Olympics
• Work with your group to modify the 100meter dash such that it would become an
example of natural selection.
Representative answers
• “Add hurdles”
• “Make the runners run over rocky,
uneven ground to select for the ones
with best balance and speed”
• “Release a tiger behind the runners”
• “Kill the losers”
• “Only the first two runners across the
finish line can reproduce”
Three identical plates of radish seeds are incubated
under three conditions, with results as shown. Their
DRY weights in increasing order will be:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1, 2, 3
1, 3, 2
3, 2, 1
3, 1, 2
All the same
Reflection
• What did you learn or experience in the
role of student?
• What feedback did the assessments offer
the students?
• How do you think this feedback compares
with a traditional lecture classroom?
EnGaugements
• When you ask a student to do
something, they are simultaneously
engaged in learning and can gauge
their progress by whether or how well
they can perform.
– Handelsman et al., 2006 Scientific
Teaching.
Edu-Speak Demystified:
• Formative assessments
– Classroom assessments, homework,
online assignments
– Occur during the teaching event
– Provide regular feedback to both the
instructor and the students during the
learning process
• Summative assessments
– Exams, papers, presentations
– Typically occur at the end of teaching
– Usually major part of grade for the class
THE MONTILLATION AND USES OF
TRAXOLINE
It is very important to learn
about traxoline. Traxoline is a
new form of zionter. It is
montilled in Ceristanna. The
Ceristannians found that they
could gristerlate large
amounts of fervon and then
bracter it to quasel traxoline.
This new, more efficient
bracterillation process has the
potential to make traxoline
one of the most useful
products within the molecular
family of lukizes snezlaus.
QUIZ:
1. What is traxoline?
2. Where is it montilled?
3. How is traxoline
quaseled?
4. Why is traxoline
important?
Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used to
align of outcomes and assessments
Higher cognitive orders
(HOCS)
Lower cognitive orders
(LOCS)
Benjamin S. Bloom Taxonomy of educational objectives. Published by Allyn and
Bacon, Boston, MA. Copyright (c) 1984 by Pearson Education.
What % of higher order Bloom’s level
questions would you expect to find on an
typical intro bio exam?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
0-20
21-40
41-60
61-80
81-100
Application of Bloom’s Taxonomy Debunks the “MCAT Myth”
Alex Y. Zheng, Janessa K. Lawhorn, Thomas Lumley, and Scott Freeman25 JANUARY 2008 VOL 319 SCIENCE
Alignment
Learning
Goal
Outcome
Activity
(content +
behavior)
Assessment
(final)
What will
students learn?
If they have
learned it, what
will students
know and be able
to do?
What will
students do to
learn it?
How will students
demonstrate they
know it or are
able to do it?
Students will
understand the
transfer of
information from
DNA to proteins
during gene
expression.
Students will be
able to determine
the effect that a
mutation will
have on the
sequence of a
protein.
Students will
work in groups to
identify the
template strand
and reading
frame of a section
of a PKU gene
using the amino
acid sequence of
that gene and
determine the
result of a given
mutation.
Given a section of
a gene and its
corresponding
amino acid
sequence,
students will
determine the
new amino acid
sequence that
results from a
given mutation.
Case of the frustrated student
• This semester, I enrolled in intro microbiology. I approach this class
like most others: I attend lecture, read the textbook and turn in the
homework if it’s going to be graded. Prof. Lopez is great; he’s really
well organized and follows the book closely. The homework has
been helpful for learning the terms and information.
• The first midterm exam in this course was NOT what I expected.
None of the questions were multiple choice. We had to write our
short answers and essays. I barely had time to finish the exam.
Plus three of the questions tested us on things we never learned
and skipped stuff we had covered in class. For example, we learned
about the lac operon last week and it wasn’t even on the test. But
there was this question asking us to “describe a strategy that
bacteria use to regulate gene expression. How am I supposed to
know about that? I got a 72% on the test. What a crock.
• Forget microbiology; it’s not for me.
» (Handelsman et al., 2006)
Reflection
• What is the most important function of
assessment?
• Is your answer the same or different
than it was before this workshop? Why
or how?
Summary
• Formative assessment is one of the most
important strategies for aiding/improving
learning
• Summative assessment lets students
know what we think is important, so it
drives learning
• Alignment between learning goals,
summative assessments and formative
assessments/active learning is key!
Acknowledgments
• Clarissa Dirks, Evergreen State College
• National Academies Summer Institute on
Undergraduate Biology Education