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Overview Lessons & Materials Pre Mission Prep. Mission Day Assessment Student Pages


Assessment

Overview


Earth System Science Comparison


Grading Rubrics


ERT Member's Log


Team Evaluations


Program Evaluation


Overview  

The Operation Montserrat program makes use of several types of assessment materials. Please keep in mind that many of them are not intended for grading purposes.

  • The non-graded (formative) assessments ask students to present their current thinking on what they are learning in an informal and non-threatening way. Using these tools enables the teacher to check students' progress and make any necessary mid-course changes.

    Note: If you choose to use these for grading, we suggest using an all-or-none grade for completion or a three-level rubric for satisfactory completion (complete, near-complete, or needs work).

  • The graded (summative) assessments should be used to check for a student’s understanding at the completion of a unit. Please keep in mind that these assessments were not designed to be psychometrically valid or reliable indicators of an individual student’s achievement or skills. An outline showing when and how to use the assessments in conjunction with the lessons and activities is given in the Scope and Sequence in the Teachers’ Toolkit.

Non-Graded (Formative) Assessments

  • Application Materials- These are completed as 4-5 person Emergency Response Teams. Each application from each team should have the following:

    1) A letter of team commitment

    2) Emergency Response Team rules.

    3) One resume from each member of the team.

    4) A sample of Earth system science skills. Students will examine the impact of wildfires in Yellowstone National Park and complete two worksheets: Yellowstone Analysis and Sphere Analysis Tool.

    5) (Optional) A mission patch, a team motto, theme song or melody.

  • Emergency Response Team Member’s Log- Used like a learning journal after completion of each unit. The specific questions used in this log are based upon research which showed that by using these questions, students retained more knowledge at the completion of the program.
  • Team Evaluations- At the completion of each unit, ERT members will have the opportunity to provide feedback on how they think their team is doing. These evaluations should be done by each student for 1) themselves and 2) the group as a whole. As the teacher you may want to provide your own evaluation of the group each time as well.

Graded (Summative) Assessments

  • Article Review Questions- At the end of each article are three questions. These may collected as a means of evaluating student comprehension of the material.
  • Earth Science Analyses- For each unit, students will look at the impact of a natural disaster upon their sphere, and then develop a group response.
  • Worksheets- Throughout the program there will be opportunities for students to complete worksheets which go with the activities. For example, students will be completing data sheets and graphs when they practice how to analyze volcano data.
  • Hands-on Closure Questions- At the end of each hands-on activity are questions to wrap-up and debrief students on what they learned from the activity.
  • Briefings/ Reports- You may choose to have students work in groups to complete activities and then give a report at the end. For instance at t-Minus 1 Week students are asked to develop "contingency plans" for the island of Montserrat. These could be turned in and graded.