Planning Assessments

Before we start talking about the formative assessment that will help to check student's understanding and if they addressed the standards that have been applied in the lesson we teach; let me mention about the importance of understanding to provide a high-quality science education. All students should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science through building up a body of key elements of knowledge and concepts to encourage understanding skills.

I believe that Formative assessments is largely about the student’s role in learning, they offer a set of guiding practices that when implemented, make it look different in every classroom. 

The other type of assessment is the Summative AssessmentThe goal of summative assessment is to evaluate or measure the level of student learning and proficiency at the end of the unit related to some standards. such as; final project, midterm exam.

Formative assessment
The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by teachers to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning by recognizing where students are struggling, addressing problems immediately and target the areas that need work.

One of the Objectives that I have mentioned:

Explain that all organisms are composed of cells and explain the functions of the cell (e.g., growth, metabolism, reproduction, photosynthesis).

Formative assessment that could be used for that objective:

• Warm up/ Do Now: At the beginning of the lesson; teacher writes down a question "How does structure relate to function in living systems?" on the board in front of the class and students place the answer in their notebook.
  "Do Now” method used at the beginning of the class to get students engaged and ready to learn. Because we know that once students entering the classroom the time will be wasted unless we set expectations for our students, so this method will make the best use of time and allow to check students knowledge background.
  
  

• Think-pair-share assessment type will be followed by asking a specific higher-level question about the function of the cell (growth, metabolism, reproduction, photosynthesis) that students will be discussing. Students will be given enough time to "think" about what they know or have learned about it. Each student should be share their thinking with their partner/another student, discuss ideas, and ask questions of their partner about the organisms that are composed of cells. Then "share" into a whole-class discussion and explain the function of the cell. We know the importance of sharing the ideas by having small group teaching that provides opportunities for in-depth discussion in science between students to help each other and improve the critical thinking and problem solving skills. During the discussion teacher use Thumbs up/Thumbs down to see if other students agree with the answer of each group to make the whole class engaged and improve student's critical thinking.

• Thumbs up/Thumbs down Let students show by hands how much time they need to finish their discussions or worksheet. The teacher will use thumbs up/thumbs down to see if other students agree with the answer of other students that will keep them engaged in the lesson.

• White Boards: Teacher asks a discussion question “How does structure relate to the function of a cellular structure?". Students write responses and show work on a board that they hold up. This way of checking understanding will keep everyone active and on task, either by sharing or thinking.
• Exit tickets: A question will be posted to all students prior to class ending “How does structure relate to the function of a cellular structure?”, Students will write their answer on a piece of paper and hand it in as they exit. This formative assessment technique engages all students and provides the all-important evidence of student learning for the teacher based on the skills and objectives that have been covered in the class. This allows teachers to take a quick glance at the level of understanding each student is at

All in all what we are doing during this module in Teach-Now program is like an eye-opener for me on a very huge content which I have found it the base for every teaching/learning process.
Studying about the standards, unpacking, backward mapping and the SMART objectives with the skills that students will be able to master, to the assessments and lesson planning which are the cornerstone of the learning process as we can see in the following picture that shows the importance of formative assessments in the lesson planning.

References:
1. Daydreaming or Deep in Thought? Using Formative Assessment to Evaluate Student Participation by Carolyn Ives. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/daydreaming-deep-thought-using-formative-assessment-evaluate-student-participation/ on December 15, 2016.
2. Rick Wormeli: Formative and Summative Assessment video. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4 on December 15,2016.