Overview of Group Work:

Relevance: Building a shared understanding and experience with formative assessment in the 3D, NGSS classroom.

Please bring your thinking and reflections from Task A and B so you are ready to contribute to the group dialogue and also learn from your other team members. The work you do together in this module prepares you to approach the rest of the module with a shared understanding of formative assessment and the NGSS.

For this task please refer to Task A and B resources, Survey 5.A, survey responses as provided by your facilitator, and the images below.

Group Dialogue Part A:

1. Share examples of formative assessment from your practice. Refer to Task A Survey 5.A for your example if needed. What is similar about your examples? What is different?

2. Discuss differences between formal and informal formative assessment practices (page 2) of STEM Teaching Tools Brief on the Informal Formative Assessment Cycle.

Group Dialogue Part B:

3. Discuss the following questions:

Q: Do you think it's important to distinguish between a formal assessment cycle and an informal one? Why or why not?

Q: In what ways do you see formative assessment looking different when teaching NGSS? Refer to specific dimensions of the NGSS (practice, crosscutting concepts, or discipinary core ideas) as you share.

Q: How do you think formative assessment supports the vision of science for all students? How could you communicate this message of equity to your peers?

Group Dialogue Part C:

4. Look back at the Reasoning Triangle from Modules #1 and #2. In thinking about either the formal or informal assessment cycle from this task, where do you see modeling playing a role in making student thinking visible via formative assessment? See the second Reasoning Triangle below that incorporates reading, writing, and speaking to think about examples.

Group Dialogue Part D:

Open this resource from Task B to use: A Resource for Equitable Classroom Practices

5. Discuss the following questions:

Q1: What would you add to the Oregon Education Investment Board definition of Equity below? Why?

OEIB Equity Defintion: Equity in education is the notion that EACH and EVERY learner will receive the necessary resources they need individually to thrive in Oregon’s schools no matter what their national origin, race, gender, sexual orientation, differently abled, first language, or other distinguishing characteristic.

Q2: How does the quote below relate to how we talk about students who struggle with science? How can shifting away from deficit thinking along with the NGSS shift away from memorization of vocabulary towards "language in use" help us refocus our conversations around supporting every student?

"Finally, Hart and Risley draw attention to a real problem that teachers encounter every day in their classrooms: children enter school with more or less of the linguistic, social, and cultural capital required for school success. However, we take exception to the characterization of this situation in terms of linguistic or cultural deficiencies. Through the lens of deficit thinking, linguistic differences among poor parents and children are transformed into deficiencies that are the cause of high levels of academic failure among poor children. In this formulation, the ultimate responsibility for this failure lies with parents who pass on to their children inadequate language and flawed culture. But, in our view, the language differences Hart and Risley reported are just that—differences. All children come to school with extraordinary linguistic, cultural, and intellectual resources, just not the same resources. (p. 369 from Pathologizing the Language and Culture of Poor Children)

Q3: In your local context, what is the most common topic when around issues of equity (i.e. migrant students, students with special needs)?

Large Group Dialogue E

Our entire team will:

1. We will collaboratively craft an Equity Vision Statement that captures the rich material and ideas your group produced.
2. Contribute to your group's Equity Vision Statement to the Western Umatilla County Edition of the Oregon Science Project's Padlet. The link to our Padlet is here.
3. Other statements from around the state are found on the Padlet for the Oregon Science Project NGSS4Oregon Team, which is found here. This is where the eventual one from our own group will go, after all members have helped in creating it.