Benchmarks
Schoolnet Benchmarks
Teachers should complete one of the four required benchmarks sometime during the specified month depending on their pacing guide. Each benchmark is 20 questions, and the topics are as follows:
Benchmark 1: Ecology
Benchmark 2: Organic Molecules/Cells
Benchmark 3: Mitosis/Photosynthesis/DNA
Benchmark 4: Genetics/Biotechnology/Evolution
Additionally, on the district Biology Site, you will find optional formative assessments that you may download and use at your discretion. The questions go along with the units in the pacing guides. Feel free to copy and paste the questions and use them on your unit tests or use them as they are. Please do not, however, post them publicly on your teacher web-site.
Thee are also benchmarks available for Physical Science. They assess the topics in the chart below. Please e-mail katherine.martin@nhcs.net if you'd like them assigned to your students.
The NHCS Physical Science Collaborative group has created district benchmarks for teachers to administer in their courses. The purpose of these benchmarks is for the teacher to gain information on the progress of his or her students on the standards taught. These assessments are formative in that they are designed to inform instruction, determine needs for remediation, reteaching, or acceleration. Teachers should give these in accordance with their pacing guide when they naturally fit within their curriculum.
The Schoolnet benchmarks will be assigned at the beginning of each semester and teachers should see them on their assessment dashboard when they log in. Students will assess through their Schoolnet accounts with the code provided by the teacher. Additional resources for Physical Science can be found on the NHCS Google Site linked here.