Introduction

AAAS Project 2061 is recruiting elementary, middle, and high school science teachers who are able to pilot test assessments with their students between mid-April and the end of the school year. The assessment tasks of this study are being designed to Assess Students' Progress on the Energy Concept Using Three-Dimensional Items (ASPECt-3D).

Please register before April 20, 2018.
Background:
AAAS Project 2061 is developing assessment tasks that can measure students’ ability to use the three dimensions outlined by the Next Generation Science Standards – science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas – to make sense of energy-related phenomena. We are currently interested in learning how students respond to these assessments so that we can continue to improve on them and design new assessments.

We are recruiting elementary school, middle school, and high school science teachers and college or university professors willing to administer the online pilot test with their students between April 23 and June 29, 2018. These assessments will be administered online and should take one class period to complete.

About the tests:

Each student will be given multiple assessment "tasks". Each task focuses on an energy-related scenario or phenomenon and required students to use their content knowledge and science practices to make sense of the phenomenon. Tasks may include multiple-choice, short-response, fill-in-the-blank, graphing, and/or modeling questions. Some questions will contain follow-up questions which ask the students to explain their response and/or provide feedback on the task. Students should complete as many questions as they can in a single class period. The pilot test will be administered through our web-based testing utility.

It is not necessary for your students to have had formal instruction on energy at the time of testing. Our goal is to receive feedback from students with a wide range of understandings of this topic.

These tests are not intended to evaluate teachers or students. Individual student and teacher data will remain strictly confidential and individual students will not be identifiable. Our only interest is to learn how students respond to these tasks so that we can design questions that are valid measures of what students know about important energy ideas and science practices.

In order to participate:
  • You must be a science teacher or professor in the United States.
  • Your students must be in the grades 4-12 or be undergraduates.
  • You must obtain permission to participate from the appropriate school or district personnel. Please do not register until you obtain permission.
  • You must reserve enough computers (desktops, laptops, or tablets) that have a reliable internet connection for all students in your classes on the day of testing (1 per student).
As a thank-you, each participating teacher will receive a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

Participation in this study is limited, so registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. If necessary, we will also adjust our selections to achieve representation from urban, rural, and suburban schools from different parts of the country. Teachers who are selected to participate will be notified by email.

If you have any questions about the study, please contact us at jhardcastle@aaas.org or at 202-326-7043.
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