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Re: Assessment

I was part of the Project 2061 which used Science for all Americans
(SFAA) to develop curriculum. SFAA is a good read if you're interested
in what a group of folks thought every student should know by the time
he finished 12th grade. On the other hand, if you're more interested in
WHEN we thought certain ideas should be taught, then you'd want to read
our Benchmarks, which was developed by a group of about 20 educators
from various grade levels under the guidance of AAAS. We also developed
a set of concept maps that show linkages between concepts that guided
the development of Benchmarks. Those maps are available now in print
(but I don't remember off hand what they're called). All of these
materials are available for the public to read. SFAA is probably worth
reading by anyone, but you may get discouraged with how much we said
should be learned and how much really is. Benchmarks is an excellent
resource for the classroom teacher who needs to see how their part of
the puzzle fits into the big picture (an important element of good
teaching is to know why we teach what we teach). I don't know that the
maps are very useful if you didn't actually create them. But have a
look anyway.

Steve Clark, Ph.D.

On Friday, June 6, 2003, at 09:05 PM, Joseph Bellina wrote:

There is good practical book on such assessment by a woman named Love
at
TERC. Also go the AAAS website for lots of stuff.

joe


On Fri, 6 Jun 2003, Jim
Green wrote:

How does one assess the quality/proficiency of a school/school
district?

My local school district says that it is well above average. How
would
that be measured?

But I notice that the local middle school has more than 50% of its
students
on the honor roll. Reminds me of Lake Woebegone!

I caught a glimpse of a PBS program (Science Without Walls I think)
which
mentioned a couple of reports:

A Nation at Risk

Science for All Americans

Anyone know anything about these reports? Quality? Availability?

TX


Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. 574-284-4662
Associate Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556