Assessment Overview
Each unit in BSCS Biology includes an assessment system, designed to take advantage of multiple opportunities for assessment of different types that are designed to function together. For more on this program’s approach to assessment, see the Teacher Handbook.
CHAPTER 4
Lesson 1
FORMATIVE | Pre-assessment: initial models: Students create initial models to show their understanding of why some people get heart disease and others do not.
Lesson 2
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Students make connections in their science notebooks between the coronary artery disease reading to the flow of cholesterol in the body diagram.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool for the first time in this unit. This tool is for students to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing.
Lesson 3
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Student I2 annotations on their diagrams can help reveal their understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships being shown by the model.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing.
Lesson 4
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Model Tracker: After completing this lesson and before the next (Synthesize) lesson, use the Model Tracker Formative Assessment Tool to assess individual student progress across this chapter and whole-class readiness for the Synthesize Lesson.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing.
Lesson 5
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: The Health Clinic advertising task provides an opportunity for students to apply their understandings of cholesterol (also present in their consensus model and their argument) by asking them for three “key take-aways” that would help individuals connect cause-and-effect relationships about cholesterol that they figured out in this chapter to their own health.
Chapter 4 Assessment
SUMMATIVE | This assessment requires students to use core ideas, science practices, and crosscutting concepts to make sense of phenomena. Some of the phenomena used are similar to the ones the students experience in the classroom, while others are new and require students to apply what they learned. Scoring guidance is provided. This task is appropriate for grading.
CHAPTER 5
Lesson 6
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Students ask questions as they discuss what to add to their Driving Question Board; in this discussion you can take stock of how the practice of asking questions gives direction to student thinking about future investigations.
Lesson 7
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Student thinking can be revealed in what they choose to note when gathering evidence and making claims in the jigsaw activity. During this activity students will need to use both the Science Close Read Protocol and the I2 Strategy.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing, taking into account any feedback from you at the end of the last chapter.
Lesson 8
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Students will generate a system model using physical representations of chromosomes that needs to represent independent assortment of multiple chromosomes through the process of meiosis.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing, taking into account any feedback from you at the end of the last chapter.
Lesson 9
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Model Tracker: After completing this lesson and before the next (Synthesize) lesson, use the Model Tracker Formative Assessment Tool to assess and provide feedback on individual student progress across this chapter, and to assess whole-class readiness for the Synthesize Lesson.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing, taking into account any feedback from you at the end of the last chapter.
Lesson 10
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: The “Polygenic Risk Scores: Three Perspectives” task is an opportunity for students to use the critique portion of the Argument Tool and identify strengths and limitations in arguments written by someone other than themselves.
Chapter 5 Assessment
SUMMATIVE | This assessment requires students to use core ideas, science practices, and crosscutting concepts to make sense of phenomena. The phenomena and contexts are new and require students to apply what they learned. Scoring guidance is provided. This task is appropriate for grading.
CHAPTER 6
Lesson 11
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: As students are writing questions on sticky notes, look for how students are connecting the practice of asking questions to a mechanistic causal understanding of health outcomes.
Lesson 12
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Students’ use of new data to inform revisions of their initial models is a good opportunity to assess success with this lesson’s learning goals.
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Students’ competence with using the I2 strategy and other data analysis skills can be assessed by examining their answers on Student Sheet 2.12.E: Bone Cells.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing, taking into account any feedback from you at the end of the last chapter.
Lesson 13
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Students read and summarize scientific study abstracts to determine that environmental factors can cause increased risk of heart disease and how genes can interact with the environment.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing, taking into account any feedback from you at the end of the last chapter.
Lesson 14
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Group posters reveal student recognition of the different scales at which risk can be addressed.
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Model Tracker: After completing this lesson and before the next (Synthesize) lesson, use the Model Tracker Formative Assessment Tool to assess and provide feedback on individual student progress across this chapter, and to assess whole-class readiness for the Synthesize Lesson.
FORMATIVE | Student self-assessment: Students will use the Model Tracker Self-Assessment and Feedback Tool to monitor their own progress in modeling the learning they are doing, taking into account any feedback from you at the end of the last chapter.
Lesson 15
FORMATIVE | Formative assessment: Students revise their argument from Lesson 10 based on new information they’ve learned in lessons 11–14. This is an opportunity to see students’ thinking as they critique their own work based on new evidence and justify their position by either revising their claim or confirming the new evidence still supports their original claim.
Unit Assessment
SUMMATIVE | The Unit Assessment is a scenario-based three-dimensional assessment that requires understanding of the unit’s DCIs, transfer of those ideas to a new context, as well as its focal practices and crosscutting concepts. Scoring guidance is provided. This task is appropriate for grading.