CAESL Aims to Transform Assessment in Science Classes

Mark Wilson

“CAESL’s goal,” said Cal Professor Mark Wilson, one of the Berkeley directors of this ambitious collaboration, “is to improve assessment in the science classroom, and through that, ultimately, to improve student learning.” CAESL (pronounced KAY-zull) stands for the Center for the Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning. UC Berkeley, the Lawrence Hall of Science, Stanford, UCLA, and WestEd are collaborating on this many-faceted project, funded by the National Science Foundation.

“Right now,” said Karen Draney a UCB post-doc who is research coordinator for CAESL,“there is a disconnect between state-level, standardized assessment and what teachers do in classrooms. That disconnect is profoundly damaging—it makes teachers take weeks out of their curriculum to teach curriculum to teach to a test, and it’s not an accurate picture of what students are really doing.”

To remedy this situation, CAESL is working through five distinct “strands,” each designed to approach assessment from a different angle.

One strand nourishes research on assessment in science classes by funding doctoral and master’s students working in this field. Currently seventeen graduate students spread over the three universities in CAESL receive support to study and investigate this topic. Their coursework includes innovative use of long-distance learning through videoconferenced courses, allowing students from all three campuses to share the best expertise of each university. UCB’s Mark Wilson has already taught one of these courses, and Karen Draney is currently the instructor for another. “I can only say positive things about the opportunity to share ideas with students on other campuses,” said Brent Duckor, a UCB grad student who has taken one of these classes and is now serving as the teaching assistant for another one. “It’s a little disconcerting at first having students so far away,” said Draney, “and it’s not easy getting students who are not on-site to participate fully, but once they do, it’s great to get more points of view.”

Karen Draney using long-distance learning in her classroom

The second strand of CAESL provides professional development for classroom science teachers. CAESL has chosen the eighth-grade FAST science curriculum on buoyancy as a pilot project to study the effects of enhancing assessment in a particular series of lessons. Teachers are trained to use an evaluation system CAESL has pioneered that embeds assessment in the curriculum. This embedded assessment provides much richer information for teachers about which students are learning which concepts and at what level, allowing the instructors to modify and target their lessons. The CAESL assessment system even provides detailed feedback for the teacher on individual students, showing several dimensions of their grasping of concepts, not just a number score that provides little guidance for either the teacher or student on how to deepen learning.

CAESL is using the same principle to enhance instruction in teacher education programs. Working with credential candidates at San Francisco State and at Stanford, CAESL’s third strand involves instructing future science teachers on how to use its assessment methods to provide more pinpoint and effective education.

CAESL’s fourth strand makes use of applied research and development. The project is not just studying existing assessment tools, it is creating new ones that provide multi-dimensional feedback for teachers. As part of this, CAESL is establishing a set of principles for student assessment, a general framework for what an effective assessment tool should look like. The list of principles includes more traditional notions of assessment such as “accurate and efficient.” It also includes cutting-edge ideas about how to align assessment with curriculum and with the latest in research. In addition, CAESL’s framework encircles a broader notion of fairness than has been the case with many past assessment tools, taking into account “students’ opportunities to learn and their diverse backgrounds.”

CAESL’s last strand is a public one, not confined to the university, or even to the classroom. The project is working with many sectors of the community in the production of online learning tools. “Part of CAESL’s mission is to bring about greater public understanding of assessment, testing, and accountability issues,” said Wilson. To this end, the project has established a website on the Apple Learning Interchange, with the support of Apple Computer, Inc. The Interchange is an online library of articles on subjects related to education. To identify the topics of interest, CAESL surveyed parents, caregivers, teachers, and school administrators. The articles have been reviewed by CAESL researchers for accuracy, balance, fairness, and accessibility.

“CAESL operates on the principle that an assessment system needs to be teacher-centered,” Draney concluded. “When the teacher is the person in charge, instruction and assessment go hand in hand—you’re assessing what you’re teaching, and teaching what you’re assessing. If the system also maintains the standards of reliability and validity that have traditionally been important, all involved feel they can benefit.”

For more information about CAESL, visit their web site at www.caesl.org.

 

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