Developing Assessments for Science

Children are around scientists before they come out of the womb.. (I would know this because I am 5 months pregnant) My child is learning and discovering before he is even born. I think science is very difficult to assess sometimes. There are different types of ways to assess students however, I believe that sometimes science is a continuous assessment for students. Teachers present the background and preparation for students to think, investigate, and discover in science however like scientist there is continuous research and debate that can go into it. That is why I think a checklist or rubric to make sure we know students are on the same level we want them to be is a good assessment for science instead of the typical right or wrong assessment. When I was school, my science learning was mainly from science tests that had no creative thinking behind it and you either knew the information or didn't. We received a grade and learning the material was reading the chapter and answering the questions. As teachers, we are starting to change that by using more creative thinking and by making sure that our students know that they are scientists with using hands on activities which have more for the teacher to evaluate the students learning instead of just giving a grade in the grade book.