TPE 3: Interpretation and Use of Assessments
Unit Assessment: Properties of Light
Unit Summary— This unit is based adapted from the district supported FOSS science curriculum. Students used mirrors to explore reflection. Students experimented with the idea that light not only can be reflected by things but it can be absorbed. We spent three periods reviewing these ideas. Assessment Outline— For the summative assessment, I used two sources of information: a writing sample and a diagram question. The writing prompt is composed based on R.A.F.T. (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) style prompts. These prompts are used to give students a more engaging, more authentic purpose for writing. Our prompt asks them to write a letter to their friend Green Light, from the perspective of Blue Light. This will elicit information about color, reflection and absorption. The diagram question will let them show their mastery by drawing the route that light would need to take for a person to see an object. Assessment Instructions Accommodations—I have a few students who have difficulty writing a paragraph so I created an accommodation for the R.A.F.T. portion of this assessment. I wrote a letter that was missing key words and asked them to fill in the blanks. To verify their knowledge, I had them draw a line showing the behavior of blue and green light as they each hit blue, green and white objects. Assessment Accommodations Results-- Overall, the students did fantastically well. Here’s a graph showing student mastery of each of the unit learning goals. |