Complex Assessment with Rubric Task

PHY 310 -- Readings for Teaching High School Physics
Illinois State University Physics Teacher Education
Carl J. Wenning, Program Coordinator (semi-retired)
Spring Semester 2021

 

Writing a good alternative assessment (alternative to paper-and-pencil examinations) is not an easy thing as this task will show. Be certain to read "Complex Assessment" in Teaching High School Physics before you begin.

In this activity you will develop a complex assessment that is a de facto “alternative assessment” – alternative to a paper-and-pencil test which is all too frequently used exclusively to assess student
knowledge and skills. Your task is to identify a complex task and then have students demonstrate content mastery of the subject matter. While a detailed car crash reconstruction activity is provided as an example through the course syllabus, you need not concern yourself with creating such a detail problem-based learning activity. Rather, you may choose a topic that is comparatively simple and develop an activity such as a lab practical, simulation, or real-life application to name but a few options.

 

  1. Write a COMPLEX high-school-level summative assessment as a set of guidelines for students.
  2. Your complex assessment must be associated with the content of the Simple Assessment Task.
  3. The complex assessment should include opportunities for students to demonstrate higher-order cognitive and scientific skills.
  4. Your assessment should constitute some sort of practical, messy, real-world problem.
  5. Your assessment can be an lab practical, a capstone project, an unusual homework assignment, portfolio, simulation worksheet, problem-based learning project, or other. See examples below.
  6. For your assessment, develop a detailed scoring rubric with multiple dimensions and quality indicators. (You need not work out the solution of the problem but the problem must appear to be solvable given its parameters.)
  7. The complex assessment guidelines should provide references if they will be needed by students to solve the problem.
  8. Submit drafts of your work for comments and later revisions.

Examples of simulation/animation resources:

Examples of real-work problem solving resources: