ABSTRACT
Although testing is a common strategy for assessing student learning in college courses, tests often fail to capture the type of “thinking like a science teacher” that we expect of our methods students. Tests may provide a convenient method of establishing a grade, but they typically do not require students of science teaching to apply their learning to problems of practice. Thus assessing students in the science methods course requires forms of assessment different from those used in other college courses, such as science content courses. The purpose of this chapter is to help you build your knowledge of assessment as applied to the elementary science methods course setting. Thus you will develop PCK for assessing science teachers responsive to your orientation (see Chapter 3). In this chapter, we examine the purposes and principles of assessment that apply to the elementary science methods course, and describe a variety of strategies for assessing elementary educa-
tion students. Specifically we will address diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment strategies, share sample assignments, and discuss scoring and grading.
