Badger Key Stage 3 Science
Level-Assessed Tasks
Year 7
Andrew Grevatt
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Introduction
Why use these tasks?
ü Ready to use formative assessment tasks.
ü Engaging activities that promote learning and learners to use scientific knowledge and understanding.
ü Level ladder in learner-friendly vocabulary.
ü Linked to KS3 Science Framework Yearly Teaching Objectives.
ü Uses Assessment for Learning principles to promote progression through Science levels.
ü All tasks have been tried, tested and developed with learners of all abilities.
ü Open-ended, allowing learners to explain their ideas.
ü Fully differentiated.
ü Assesses knowledge and understanding of key concepts in each QCA topic.
ü Excellent diagnostic tool for highlighting individual and class misconceptions.
ü Encourages teacher and learner engagement with progression of scientific knowledge and understanding, through the National Curriculum levels.
ü Levels based on National Curriculum levels and recent QCA additional guidance on levels in Science.
ü Promotes the development of literacy skills.
How to use these tasks
Each task is a simple open-ended task that assesses knowledge and understanding of a significant concept from a QCA topic. The tasks should be photocopied with the task sheet and the level ladder back-to-back with the task’s improvement ladder. The level ladder can be used by teachers and learners to guide their response to the task.
Each task is available in two level ranges: levels 3-5 and levels 5-7. I chose this split because most learners are either working towards level 5 or working beyond level 5. Level 5 requires learners to start using abstract concepts like energy, forces, particles and cells. Once they can use these concepts, they are able to access levels 6 and 7 more easily. Most of the tasks are the same for both level ranges, but the demand of the task, key words and level ladders are suited to the ability of the learners.
As with all new approaches, learners may need to do a few of these tasks before they get the full benefit from them. The tasks are very open and to start with some learners can feel overwhelmed by the freedom. They may need a lot of support and encouragement for the first few, as their confidence grows the learners gain more independence at attempting the tasks.
Big Ideas in Science
The Framework is divided into six Big Ideas in Science – Energy, Forces, Particles, Cells, Interdependence and Scientific Enquiry. The first five can be seen as the “abstract concepts”, meaning that when learners can use these Big Ideas they can start to access criteria for Level 5 and beyond. My level descriptors use this language to encourage learners to use these ideas e.g. use the Big Idea of Energy to explain the chemical reaction. This acts as a prompt, rather than giving them the answers!
General approaches
These tasks are ideal to use either mid-way or towards the end of a topic. As the tasks have evolved and been trialled, many approaches have been tried. These are outlined below. Whatever approach you decide to use, make sure that the tasks are formative. It is important that these are not used as replacement summative tests. They are designed to encourage learners to demonstrate what they understand and to have the opportunity to improve. This is the foundation of formative assessment strategies: Where am I now? What am I aiming for? How do I get there? To aid this, learners must be aware of the level (and sub-level) for the end of the year.
The tasks are designed to give learners the opportunity to show their full potential in Science. To ensure this, I allow the class to use their notes from exercise books, text books and other secondary sources to help them with the task. I also encourage the learners to talk with their peers about the task and discuss their ideas. This rarely leads them to copy each other, but does encourage the development of their ideas and challenges their misconceptions. Some teachers have tried the test-conditions approach to the tasks, but find that it stifles the opportunities for learning.
Standard approach:
• Starter activity (5-10 minutes) to introduce the task. Make sure each learner knows which level they should be aiming for.
• Main activity (30-40 minutes) – learners attempt task. Teacher circulates, encouraging use of the level ladder and challenging misconceptions.
• Plenary activity (10 minutes) – self- or peer-assessment, where improvement ladders are used to decide on level and improvement targets.
• Homework activity – make the improvement, teacher collects and assesses them, giving one improvement target.
Alternative approaches:
Set the task for homework, mid-way through the topic. This should be attempted as a draft. I usually explain this to learners as doing a rough version, with no colouring in! These drafts are then collected by the teacher, who assigns a level and one or two improvement targets.
Encouragement of use of level ladder:
Some learners find it difficult to use the level ladder to guide their work. Strategies I have seen used include:
• encouraging the learner to tick or highlight the statements on the level ladder when they think they have satisfied it;
• laminating level ladders which can be ticked off using whiteboard markers, then wiped clean.
Assessment of the tasks
There are three approaches to assessing these tasks: teacher assessment, self-assessment and peer-assessment.
Teacher assessment:
If you have not used these tasks before, I would recommend starting with the teacher assessment approach for assessing the learners’ responses to the tasks. These are not like the standard national tests, where you have very clear guidance of what answers to accept and not accept. This approach is much more flexible and requires the use of professional judgement when assigning a level.
These tasks are not summative tests, so the level that is assigned to a learner’s work is only a “snapshot”. Learners often vary in their level from topic to topic. A good analogy to use with them is that of computer games. Computer games are often based on “levels” of success. Some people score higher levels on some computer games than others. The same will be experienced when doing the levelled assessment tasks. However, most learners show a general improvement trend when using these tasks.
The level ladders are written in learner-friendly language, are related to National Curriculum levels and have been matched with national Science tests where possible. These should be used when assigning a level to a learner’s work. Additional guidance is given for teachers in the teacher notes - this should be used alongside the level ladder.
I take a very general approach to “Levelness”, outlined in the table below. If I am ever in doubt, I refer back to this and consider the ability of the learner. Then, using professional judgement, I can assign a suitable level along with a suitable improvement target.
Level 3 / · Uses some basic scientific words correctly.· Identifies causes and effects.
Level 4 / · Uses a range of scientific words correctly.
· Labels macroscopic diagrams correctly (e.g. digestive system).
· Describes reactions, functions and sequences of events simply using scientific vocabulary.
Level 5 / · Starts to use abstract concepts of Energy, Forces, Particles and Cells.
· Simple diagrams used to start to explain why or how.
Level 6 / · Uses abstract concepts to explain their ideas.
· Labels microscopic diagrams correctly (e.g. cells, particle diagrams).
· Can write word equations, use simple formulae to calculate.
Level 7 / · A detailed knowledge and understanding is used in explanations.
· Uses more than one abstract concept to explain phenomena.
· Can write balanced symbol equations.
Do not get too bogged down in which level to assign – make a judgement using the criteria, then assign the level. I find that learners do pick me up on anything they think has been badly judged! The resulting discussion is very useful to both parties.
Assigning sub-levels:
Many schools and colleges use sub-levels to help measure and monitor progression in scientific knowledge and understanding. These can be easily applied to these tasks. Most level ladders have about three statements per level. If the learner has satisfied one descriptor out of the three for Level 4, the Level 4c can be awarded; all three descriptors would mean that 4a can be awarded.
Some issues do arise over whether to assign a Level 4a or 5c (for example). At these boundaries, if it is not clear from the learner’s work then professional judgement comes into play. Decide what will help aid the learner’s progression the most.
Dealing with misconceptions:
The great advantage of open-ended tasks is that they allow learners to have freedom to express their ideas, knowledge and understanding about Science. This of course includes all their misconceptions as well. This is a particularly useful aspect of these tasks, but also can be daunting when assessing the work if a learner has many misconceptions demonstrated in their work. I usually circle anything that is not scientifically correct, but base the improvement target on the next step in progression. For example, a learner can…
What happens if the learner completely misses the point?
Sometimes learners can produce a piece of work that does not seem possible to assess using the level ladder. The simple approach is that the improvement target is to do the task again using the level ladder to guide. If it is a reoccurring issue, sit the learner next to someone who can use the level ladder and encourage them to work together. In order to pre-empt this issue, it is often useful to show the class the type of response you are looking for. This can be done using an exemplar.
Self-assessment and peer-assessment:
Encouraging learners to assess their own work or each others’ can be very valuable. As with anything new, learners will need more guidance and support to start with before their confidence develops to do this successfully. I would highly recommend that time is taken to help learners develop these skills with the support of these tasks.
Self-assessment can be done by guiding learners through the level ladder and encouraging them to tick off the descriptors they feel they have satisfied. Then they can use the improvement ladder to help decide on suitable improvement targets. Peer assessment can be useful because learners can learn from each other as well as engage with what is required for each level.
Generally learners are reasonably accurate at assigning levels, but in self-assessment there is an issue that they may not be aware of misconceptions that have been made. If you intend the learners to self-assess a piece of work in class, it is worth making sure that you challenge major misconceptions as you circulate.
With both these types of assessment, it is the process of discussing and deciding on a level that is important, not necessarily whether the work is assessed to the correct sub-level. The latter can be dealt with by the teacher.
Can these tasks replace tests?
At Uckfield Community Technology College, where these have been developed, we were setting SATs-style tests at the end of each topic. This amounted to 12 tests per year. What with marking and the time taken to do the test, we felt this was too much time wasted on testing. We moved to a model where the learners sit three summative tests a year, based on past SATs questions, the results of which are used in reports. To replace the topic summative tests, these level-assessed tasks are used to bring in formative assessment strategies and engage learners with progression and how to improve.
Contents
QCA Topic Task
7A Cells Making a model cell
7B Reproduction The race to make a baby
7C Food chains and webs The rock pool food web
7D Variation and classification Why do the Cheeky Girls look slightly different?
7E Acids and alkalis How do antacid tablets work?
7F Simple chemical reactions What happens when a candle is alight?
7G Solids, liquids and gases How does an ice cube melt?
7H Solutions What happens to sugar in a cup of tea?
7I Energy sources Where does electricity come from?
7J Electrical circuits How does a torch work?
7K Forces and their effects Journey of a pram or car
7L The solar system and beyond Jupiter’s moons
Exemplar work
Acknowledgements
This, my first publication, is dedicated to Geoff.
Many colleagues and sources have supported, influenced and provided inspiration for the development and improvements of these tasks.
I want to acknowledge all the teachers I have worked with in East Sussex schools, who have provided improvement suggestions or further inspiration, your comments have been valued.
All the teachers and technicians in the Science Department at Uckfield Community Technology College for supporting me in this project. Particular thanks go to Simon Holt and Ben Riley for their inspiration and feedback.