NSTA Atlanta 2018 - Day 3

Another full day of learning has wrapped up here in Atlanta at the NSTA conference.  It has been filled with quite a few interesting sessions, new people and new ideas.  Here is the summary from today:

Featured Presentation: 3-D Science Assessment: How Do You Still Make Construction a Priority?:  Dr. Stephen Pruitt let off the morning with a session around how the commonwealth of Kentucky is tackling their state assessment system - note the emphasis on system.  From classroom embedded assessments to what are called TCTs (Through Course Tasks) to the state assessment that will be given in 5th grade, 8th grade and high school, all three levels are meant to work together to produce evidence of three dimensional learning from students.  They are also supposed to be focused on sense making and phenomena.  Dr. Pruitt also emphasized that they all will revolve around the performance expectations (or for the larger tasks, a bundle of them).  I was able to snap a quick picture of one of the examples of a TCT, which includes graphical data to go along with it.

Another interesting comment from Dr. Pruitt was that he hopes he will not find himself writing a book sometime in the next 30 years entitled "The Lost Dimension", referencing the cross cutting concepts in our standards, since these continue to be the most challenging to both teach and assess.  This was definitely a reoccurring theme throughout the conference.

Assessing 3-D Learning with Instructionally Supportive Tasks and Rubrics:  In this session we had a chance to evaluate both some tasks and some student responses using rubrics.  I think I can summarize the work with three points:

• Scoring 3D assessment tasks is very challenging, even with a rubric
• The value of working with a group cannot be overemphasized when evaluating student work, especially the first time using a rubric
• It is very challenging to have a robust two or three dimensional assessment that is also fast/easy to score.  Make sure the time you spend on more formal assessments will get the information you need.

You can find the presenter's slides and other resources here, including a link to the portal hosted by the Concord Consortium where they are working to get these assessments online.

Integrating Engineering Design and 3D Printers into your Current Lessons and Activities:  I always try to attend at least one session on 3D printing when I'm at a conference in order to make sure I know what others are doing around the country and see if there are any additional tools I should be aware of.  The presenters made use of Tinkercad, which is that same design software I've been recommending to schools as well.  I had a chance to share some of the work we've been doing at the AEA and in schools with 3D printing and even made a possible contact that might be able to provide funding for schools interested in getting their own 3D printers.  I also learned about another 3D design tool called Onshape that might be another good option for schools.  The big takeaway was that no matter what the lesson or project was, the printer played a role as a means to an end (a design solution) rather than an end in and of itself, just like any tech tool should be.

The presenters haven't put their presentation up as of this writing, but I'll keep an eye out for it soon.

Classroom-Embedded Assessments (CEAs): 3-D Assessments for Learning in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms:  The presenters have been working in Kentucky and we had a chance to go through one of the tasks the teacher cohort had created to be used at the classroom level as a 3D formative assessment.  It was challenging to really get a good handle on the quality of the assessment when it was completely isolated from the instruction, but they were willing to share all the work that the group had done - you can find them here.  The link to the presentation is here.

Designing and Using Equitable 3-D Formative Assessments to Support Meaningful NGSS Investigations:  The final session of the day was with Dr. Phillip Bell and focused on tools and resources to address equity issues in science teaching and assessment.  A few bullet point takeaways:

• There are "playlists" on STEM Teaching Tools site around topics that make it a little easier to navigate all the tools, which are great for organizing shorter PD session.  You can find them here.
• Formative assessment as a verb, not a noun
• There was much discussion when developing the framework for FIVE dimensions, with the additional two including interest and identity, two key components in addressing equity.

The nuts and bolts for most of the session can be found here as part of Resource C from the ACESSE group.

I hope you've found these summaries interesting and I'm looking forward to getting back to Iowa to continuing our work on moving implementation of the Iowa science standards forward, especially around assessment and making the crosscutting concepts explicit in teaching and assessment.  Please let me know if any of the topics from these posts have sparked additional interest or questions about how they can be used by you or others at your school and I'd be happy to provide some additional details.