We have a new publication about the impacts of our work!
One goal of this work is to develop a CKT assessment instrument that can be scored efficiently and used as an indicator system on a large scale. Thus, we only developed discrete, automatically-scorable items. They included several item types: single-select multiple choice, multiple-select multiple choice, grid, and drag-and-drop items.
CKT Assessment Tasks
Here we provide examples of various CKT assessment items about matter and its interactions that we developed and piloted during this project. Each CKT item:
is aligned to one of the five matter topics and one of the seven WOTS instructional tool categories.
includes an opening scenario that describes an instructional situation and provides relevant information, such as information about students, learning goals, a classroom, or where the activity is located within an instructional sequence.
may also include various static stimuli such as copies of students’ written work or images of science instructional materials, as well as more dynamic stimuli such as video or audio snippets providing access to student talk or work or showing students interacting with one another or teachers in an instructional setting.
Note: These items do not appear in the final assessment instrument but may be useful to teacher educators.
CKT Matter Item Maps
Each CKT item example document includes four sections:
Section 1 (item information) provides details about the item type and grade band, as well as identifies the WOTS instructional tool, science teaching practice, and content topic with which the item is best aligned.
Section 2 (item content) includes the teacher-focused instructional scenario, the item stem, and the response information.
Section 3 (key information) identifies the item’s intended correct response and provides a written rationale for both the item key and the distracters.
Section 4 (pilot information) provides results from piloting the specific CKT item with a sample of pre-service elementary teachers in the United States, including the proportion correct, the item-total correlation, and the median item response time.
The items linked below correspond to the intersections of content and WOTS shown above.
This multiple-selection assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 3.4 Generating or selecting diagnostic questions to evaluate student understanding of specific models and representations when teaching about the properties of matter. The task asks teachers to identify which questions would be appropriate to ask to scaffold the students’ thinking about their design for a hat.
This multiple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 7.2 Evaluating investigation questions for quality when teaching about the properties of matter. The task asks the teacher to identify which student question most effectively demonstrates that students are considering how the properties of a material will affect the strength of a house for pigs.
This multiple-selection assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 4.3 Developing or selecting instructional moves, approaches, or representations that provide evidence about common student misconceptions and help students move toward a better understanding of the idea, concept, or practice when teaching about the conservation of matter. The task asks teachers to select appropriate questions to ask to best support the students’ understanding of how the properties of a parachute’s materials affect the time it stays in the air.
This multiple-selection assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) STP 4.3 Developing or selecting instructional moves, approaches, or representations that provide evidence about common student misconceptions and help students move toward a better understanding of the idea, concept, or practice when teaching about the conservation of matter. The task asks teachers to select appropriate instructional approaches that would help students gain a better understanding of the conservation of matter during a phase change.
This multiple-selection assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) STP 1.2 Identifying the big idea or instructional goal of an instructional activity when teaching about the conservation of matter. The task asks teachers to identify which learning goals would be best supported by a given activity.
This multiple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) STP 3.1 Evaluating or selecting scientific models and representations that predict or explain scientific phenomena or address instructional goals when teaching about the conservation of matter. The task asks teachers to evaluate student analogies as evidence of understanding of a model.
This multiple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) STP 6.1 Critiquing student generated explanations and descriptions for their generalizability, accuracy, precision, or consistency with scientific evidence when teaching about the small particle model of matter. The task asks teachers to evaluate student explanations to identify possible misconceptions.
This multiple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 1.2 Identifying the big idea or instructional goal of an instructional activity when teaching about the small particle model of matter. The task asks teachers to identify the concepts that would best be supported by enacting a particular activity.
This multiple-selection grid assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) STP 4.3 Developing or selecting instructional moves, approaches, or representations that provide evidence about common student misconceptions and help students move toward a better understanding of the idea, concept, or practice when teaching about changes in matter. The task asks teachers to identify instructional moves that will help students develop their conceptual understanding.
This mutliple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) STP 7.1 Selecting investigations or demonstrations that facilitate understanding of disciplinary core ideas, scientific practices, or crosscutting concepts when teaching about changes in matter. The task asks teachers to select how to use the available materials to demonstrate an irreversible change.
This mutliple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 6.1 Critiquing student generated explanations and descriptions for their generalizability, accuracy, precision, or consistency with scientific evidence when teaching about changes in matter . The task asks teachers to select a student response that demonstrates that the student accurately connects evidence to a claim about changes in matter.
This mutliple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 4.3 Developing or selecting instructional moves, approaches, or representations that provide evidence about common student misconceptions and help students move toward a better understanding of the idea, concept, or practice when teaching about properties of matter and measurement. The task asks teachers to select an instructional move that would help students refine their explanations.
This mutliple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 5.4 Supporting and critiquing students’ participation in and use of verbal and written scientific discourse and argumentation when learning about properties of matter. The item asks teachers to select questions that would best support students develop stronger argumentation skills.
This multiple-choice assessment item focuses on science teaching practice (STP) 2.2 Choosing resources that support the selection of accurate, valid, and age appropriate goals for science learning when teaching about the properties of matter. The item asks teachers to select materials that would best challenge students’ existing definitions of a liquid.
