Learning objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Discuss the different purposes for and teacher orientations to assessment in the classroom, and take a stance on your own view of the different roles and merits of these;
Describe some of the ways classroom assessment can contribute to and intersect with inquiry-based approaches to science learning;
Analyse the impact of different assessment tasks and approaches in relation to current ideas about what constitutes quality assessment; and
Identify and take a position on some of the issues and challenges inherent in classroom assessment for teachers of primary science.
Introduction
Talk of assessment often conjures up images of formal testing, but this is only one small aspect of the assessment activity that takes place in a classroom. Assessment can be observations made as students are working on a task or sense-making during a whole class discussion. It can be teacher feedback written in student books or offered during an investigation. It can be embedded in the student action of asking questions to clarify an idea, comparing their work with peers in order to improve it, and conducting another trial when the result of the first was a surprise to them. As these multiple images of assessment suggest, within any classroom, assessment takes on many forms and is undertaken by teachers and students for a range of purposes. However, it is the notion of assessment for learning that is integral to teaching, because it is responsive to student needs and interests as well as being a core professional competency and capacity for teachers to hold and work towards (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2011; New Zealand Teachers Council, n. d.). This chapter aims to do the following four things in supporting primary school teachers to better understand this concept:
Elaborate on the different purposes for classroom assessment;
Illustrate how the different purposes and forms of assessment can be brought together to support and showcase student science learning as something of relevance and value within students’ lives;
Explore some innovative and interesting ways that assessment can be used to empower students in the learning of science; and
Offer some suggestions for teachers who are seeking to enhance their practice of assessment in primary science classrooms.
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