I designed an integrated unit of work in science as part of my Masters of Teaching degree at the University of Western Australia. The unit was developed for a year five classroom and had the goal of creating a solar system model per each group of four children working together. The assessment strategy for the unit was an integral part of the planning component. A strategy of active assessment was utilised across the entire unit of work. Hanauer (2009) defines active assessment as a process where the educators develop an assessment strategy and assessment tools that provide significant benefits in the learning experiences of the students. Hanauer (2009) continues stating that students. Within an active assessment, strategy students are not merely performing a passive act of describing their understanding; instead, they are developing skills and understanding during the assessment process.

Initially, a comprehensive diagnostic assessment was implemented to establish the students' prior knowledge of the Solar System. The Assessment Reform Group (1999) states that the most productive assessments are the ones that teachers use to adjust their teaching.

The diagnostic assessments in the first two lessons of the unit of work, both part of the 5Es teaching and learning model, was explicitly designed to develop a framework of prior knowledge to be used in the explain phase of the model, during the fifth lesson, where students will be focusing on scientific facts about the solar system. The benefits of assessing student's progress within a unit planned using the 5Es model is that the assessment process can happen at any learning stage (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006). Diagnostic checklists were developed to assess active learning led by students who created in groups posters and visual organisers determining their prior knowledge about the Solar System. A prior knowledge that was continuously peer-assessed and revised as the children shared and developed their inquiry together as a group.

Integration with literacy added the opportunity for children to develop their creative writing skills while being assessed on their learning. The assessment of an incursion of a Noongar Elder who shared knowledge about the Noongar connection with the Cosmos was conducted during a literacy lesson subsequent to the incursion. During the literacy lesson, students wrote a story about two Noongar people talking about astronomy on the riverbank of the Swan River, at a time before colonialism. Skamp and Peers (2012) assert that active assessments of this type are at the core of the benefits of implementing the 5Es learning model.

Finally, the summative assessment conducted in the evaluative phase of the 5Es model was another active assessment where the students created in their groups a documentary film about the process of making their solar system model in their groups. Furthermore, to solidify and consolidate their understanding, students wrote a script for the documentary during an integrated literacy lesson prior to the final science lesson. Assessing the acquired student knowledge during the literacy lesson allowed the teacher to be able to adjust and if necessary scaffold students and clarify concepts that still remain unclear, thus leading into the final lesson with an additional level of learning achieved.

Reference list:

Hanauer, D., Hatfull, G., & Jacobs-Sera, D. (2009). Active Assessment: Assessing Scientific Inquiry (1st ed. 2009.). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89649-6

Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Based Teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86.

Monk, J., & Silman, C. (2011). Active Learning in Primary Classrooms: A Case Study Approach. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315833484

Skamp, K., & Peers, S. (2012). Implementation of science based on the 5E learning model: Insights from teacher feedback on trial Primary Connections units. Lismore, NSW: Southern Cross University.