Assessment opportunities are designed to provide individualized information about student progress at key moments throughout each Amplify Science unit: the Pre-Unit, the Critical Junctures, and the End-of-Unit assessments. On-the-Fly assessments are also available as additional formative assessment opportunities.

Most Pre-Unit assessments are embedded within an activity of the first lesson of a unit. In kindergarten and Grade 1, the Pre-Unit assessment (as well as the End-of-Unit assessment) is oral. In Grades 2–5 they are typically written. Refer to the Digital Resources area of the Lesson Brief for materials needed for the assessment activity, such as the Clipboard Assessment Tool (K–1 only), copymasters (Grades 2–5 only), and an Assessment Guide that will help you interpret and leverage students’ responses.

If you and your students have digital experience licenses, students can complete their assessment digitally instead of using the copymaster.

Critical Juncture assessments typically occur towards the end of each chapter. The Materials and Preparation section will indicate when there is a Critical Juncture to prepare for, but you can also tell when an activity is designed to be a Critical Juncture assessment by the hummingbird icon that will appear within it. Selecting the hummingbird icon will tell you how to assess students’ understanding with the activity, and how to tailor instruction based on what you find. If you need guidance on answers to the assessment activity, refer to the Possible Responses tab.

End-of-Unit assessments are typically the last lesson of a unit. Some units have two-part (i.e., two lesson) End-of-Unit assessments. The easiest way to find the End-of-Unit assessment is to skim through the lesson titles. Lessons containing End-of-Unit assessments will always have that noted in the title.

Like the Pre-unit assessment, you can find materials for the End-of-unit assessments in the Digital Resources area of the Lesson Brief.

These embedded assessments leverage the formative opportunities in the learning experience students are already engaged in, such as creating models, analyzing data, actively reading, conducting investigations, and more. Refer to the Critical Juncture section above for guidance on finding information about using them.

You can find overall information about an individual unit’s assessments in the Assessment System resource, which is located within the Teacher References section on the Unit Overview page.

Click Read more > to expand the Assessment System resource.

The Assessment System resource contains a comprehensive list of all of the assessment opportunities in the unit, including the assessment’s location, a brief indication of what students are doing in that particular activity, what type of assessment it is, which Disciplinary Core Ideas, science and engineering practices, and cross-cutting concepts it specifically addresses, and the kind of evaluation guidance you can expect for it. If you are in a kindergarten or first grade unit, you will also find information on the Clipboard Assessment Tool (used for supporting oral assessment) in this section.

If you’re interested in focusing on information related to the unit’s Critical Juncture and On-the-Fly assessments in particular, check out the Embedded Formative Assessments resource, also located within the Teacher References section on the Unit Overview page.