Assessments

The Amplify Science curriculum was constructed to develop deep science knowledge and understanding, not merely touching on each science concept, but allowing for a depth of coverage in a variety of modalities for each. The program’s system of assessments tied to unit learning progressions (called Progress Builds, more below) provides an innovative means of supporting all students in developing this deep understanding. By aligning instruction to focused, meaningful, and standards-based learning goals through the use of instructionally embedded, multi-modal assessment opportunities and carefully sequenced Progress Builds, Amplify Science ensures that every student is achieving the level of understanding required by each unit.

  • On-the-Fly Assessments (formative): Three-dimensional tasks integrated throughout the lessons. On-the-Fly Assessment opportunities are designed to help a teacher make sense of student activity during a learning experience (e.g., student-to-student talk, writing, model construction) and to provide evidence of how a student is coming to understand core concepts and developing dexterity with SEPs and CCCs.
  • End-of-chapter assessments (formative): Variety of multidimensional performance tasks, intended to assess student progress, occurring at the end of each chapter. Examples include written scientific explanations, argumentation, developing and using models, and designing engineering solutions.

  • Student Self-Assessments (formative): One per chapter; brief meta-cognitive opportunities for students to reflect on their own learning, ask questions, and reveal ongoing thoughts about unit content.

  • Grades 6–8 Science Seminar and final written argument (formative and summative components): Culminating performance task for each core unit where students are introduced to a new real-world problem, collect and analyze evidence, examine a number of claims, and then engage in a full-class discussion where they must state which claims are best supported by the evidence, all while making clear their reasoning that connects the evidence to the claims. After the seminar, students then individually write their final scientific argument, drawing on the DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs they have used over the course of the unit to develop a sophisticated and convincing argument that addresses the problem they’ve been investigating. Rubrics, scoring guides, and examples of student responses at each scoring level are provided to teachers to support the assessment of students’ understanding of concepts and specific practices.

  • End-of-Unit Assessment (summative): Targeted conversations (K–1), written responses (grades 2–5) or a combination of auto-scored multiple-choice questions and rubric-scored written responses (grades 6–8). Summative assessments for each unit are designed to provide valid, reliable, and fair measures of students’ progress and attainment of three-dimensional learning.