AIOU Solved Assignments 1 & 2 Code 697 Autumn & Spring 2024

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Aiou Solved Assignments code 697 Autumn & Spring 2024 assignments 1 and 2  Course:  Assessment in Science Education (697) spring 2024. aiou past papers

Course:  Assessment in Science Education (697)

Semester: Autumn & Spring 2024

Level: M. Ed
ASSIGNMENT No.1

Q.1 a) Explain the term assessment and discuss its role in science education?

Answer:                                                                                                

The assessment standards provide criteria to judge progress toward the science education vision of scientific literacy for all. The standards describe the quality of assessment practices used by teachers and state and federal agencies to measure student achievement and the opportunity provided students to learn science. By identifying essential characteristics of exemplary assessment practices, the standards serve as guides for developing assessment tasks, practices, and policies. These standards can be applied equally to the assessment of students, teachers, and programs; to summative and formative assessment practices; and to classroom assessments as well as large-scale, external assessments.

This chapter begins with an introduction that describes the components of the assessment process and a contemporary view of measurement theory and practice. This introduction is followed by the assessment standards and then by discussions of some ways teachers use assessments and some characteristics of assessments conducted at the district, state, and national levels. The chapter closes with

The assessment process is an effective tool for communicating the expectations of the science education system to all concerned with science education.

two sample assessment tasks, one to probe students’ understanding of the natural world and another to probe their ability to inquire.

In the vision described by the National Science Education Standards,assessment is a primary feedback mechanism in the science education system. For example, assessment data provide students with feedback on how well they are meeting the expectations of their teachers and parents, teachers with feedback on how well their students are learning, districts with feedback on the effectiveness of their teachers and programs, and policy makers with feedback on how well policies are working. Feedback leads to changes in the science education system by stimulating changes in policy, guiding teacher professional development, and encouraging students to improve their understanding of science.

The assessment process is an effective tool for communicating the expectations of the science education system to all concerned with science education. Assessment practices and policies provide operational definitions of what is important. For example, the use of an extended inquiry for an assessment task signals what students are to learn, how teachers are to teach, and where resources are to be allocated.

Assessment is a systematic, multistep process involving the collection and interpretation of educational data. As science educators are changing the way they think about good science education, educational measurement specialists are acknowledging change as well. Recognition of the importance of assessment to contemporary educational reform has catalyzed research, development, and implementation of new methods of data collection along with new ways of judging data quality. These changes in measurement theory and practice are reflected in the assessment standards.

In this new view, assessment and learning are two sides of the same coin. The methods used to collect educational data define in measurable terms what teachers should teach and what students should learn. And when students engage in an assessment exercise, they should learn from it.

This view of assessment places greater confidence in the results of assessment procedures that sample an assortment of variables using diverse data-collection methods, rather than the more traditional sampling of one variable by a single method. Thus, all aspects of science achievement—ability to inquire, scientific understanding of the natural world, understanding of the nature and utility of science—are measured using multiple methods such as performances and portfolios, as well as conventional paper-and-pencil tests.

opportunity to learn. Student achievement can be interpreted only in light of the quality of the programs they have experienced.

AIOU Solved Assignments Code 697 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.1 b)  What do you know about aims, goals and objectives? Also describe how can you define them? Provide various examples?

Answer:                                                                                                

Aims, goals and objectives help to make your business successful day in and day out. Although they are interrelated, aims, goals and objectives have important distinctions and their roles in business are often confused. Aims relate to the end results, but goals and objectives help you achieve these results. Goals are abstract ideas, while objectives are more tangible and concrete.

Plan, Articulate and Document Aims, Goals and Objectives

Taking the time to plan, articulate and document in writing your aims, goals and objectives contributes to the success of your business. The three interrelated concepts concern future intentions and all three must be set in motion if your plans are to have a realistic chance of succeeding. You are more likely to reach a goal when you’ve planned and implemented objectives to achieve it. You’ll also see greater success in your business if you share your aims and strategies to achieve them with associates and employees who will be carrying out those objectives. Keep in mind that aims, goals and objectives must be clear and specific as well as realistic.

Aims Are Desired Outcomes

An aim is a purpose or the desired outcome. Aims tend to be more general than goals and objectives because aims refer to the end results. But while they are general in nature, aims are also bigger. They are the vision for your business. Aims are not always accompanied by goals and objectives, but to achieve the desired outcome there must be an action plan in place. For example, a person might state his or her aim is to be a successful entrepreneur, without setting the goals and objectives that would help him or her to achieve this.

Set Specific Goals

Goals are specific statements of intent. For example, a company might have an aim to increase profits so they set a specific goal to increase profits by 25 percent within one year. A goal is usually broad and does not lay out the steps to achieve it. A goal is a target or destination. Goals keep you focused on your aim and on track working to achieve it.

Objectives Are the Action Plan

Goals are destinations and objectives are the actions needed to arrive at that destination. Objectives are measurable and there may be multiple objectives leading to your goals and aims. If your overall goal is to get a more rewarding job, for example, you may have a set of objectives that help you to achieve this. Such objectives might include sending letters to companies you want to work for, brushing up on interview techniques and learning skills or obtaining qualifications that would increase your employment prospects. Objectives are like a road map, giving you direction as to what you what you need to do and when you need to do it in order to achieve your business goals and aims.

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Q.2  a) How can you plan a good assessment? Describe its characteristics?

Answer:

Student assessment preparation should include an explanation of the expected responses, how the scoring will be done, and information on the types of questions that will be asked. Students are better able to prepare when they know what to expect.

Student Assessment Preparation

Let’s face it; test-taking is a stressful business for students. Even the most prepared student will quiver in the face of a test, and much of this anxiety comes from not knowing what is on the test or how the test will be graded. The student may even end up studying the wrong information. That’s why it is so important for teachers to prepare their students for a test in advance by mapping out the assessment and their expectations. There are a number of ways a teacher can accomplish this. He or she can:

  • Explain the testing instrument
  • Practice question types
  • Discuss the assessment criteria
  • Provide a rubric
  • Review the information being tested

Here’s how these strategies work.

The Testing Instrument and Practice Tests

Teachers assess student learning in several different ways. Whether it is showing your work on a math problem or writing a 5-paragraph essay, students do better when they know what testing instrument will be used to measure their knowledge. A testing instrument is a fancy term for question type. There are many types, including true/false, multiple choice, essay, and matching questions. Some students are better at decoding multiple choice answers, while others do better with long, written explanations.

The best advice for a teacher is to let students know what type of test will be given ahead of time. This gives the students time to practice and prepare for the test. One way students can prepare is by taking a practice test, which is simply an ungraded assessment that is similar to the actual test in form and content. It doesn’t have to be lengthy; just a few questions will get students warmed up for the real test. The practice session will help ease any fears of what is to come.

Assessment Criteria

Right before the test, it is a good idea to discuss the assessment criteria, which are the standards by which the test will be graded. If a test is worth 100 points, the teacher should explain point breakdown. Start with the overall score, and then break down how students can achieve the highest score. For example, an assessment with a three-part structure, including an essay question, ten multiple choice questions, and ten true/false questions, might be broken down like this:

Overall assessment is worth 100

Essay is worth 50 points

Multiple choice questions are worth 2.5 points each for 25 possible points

True/false questions are worth 2.5 points each for 25 possible points

The breakdown will help the student decide what to work on first. A student who likes to write may start with the essay portion. One who enjoys decoding multiple choice responses may begin there. Either way, knowing the criteria helps students organize their test-taking time.

Responsibility for the assurance of quality of assessment procedures rests with individual institutions. The General Board, through its Education Committee, sets a framework of expectations within which institutions should reflect on their assessment procedures and, if necessary, make changes to ensure that they are fit for purpose and effectively carried out.

Key expectations

The four key expectations of the General Board are:

  1. that the key criterion for using a particular form of assessment should be its effectiveness in properly assessing the intended learning outcomes of the course;
  2. that assessment procedures and policies should be communicated clearly to students, their advisors and examiners, in particular through published marking and classing criteria for each Part of the Tripos and all taught postgraduate programmes (preferably on a website with open access);
  3. that forms of assessment and the procedures for implementing them should be subject to regular review, and any changes to exam arrangements must be published in good time in the Reporter;
  4. that forms of assessment, either in form or in practice, should not treat any candidate less fairly than another on the grounds of sex (including gender reassignment), marital or parental status, race, ethnic or national origin, age, colour, disability, sexual orientation or religion.

In determining assessment practices, institutions (or Boards of Examiners) should take into account learning outcomes; the form of assessment; and the available resources.

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b).       Discuss the domains of educational objectives in detail?

Answer:

Developing and delivering lessons by teachers are integral in the teaching process. It is hence important for teachers to ensure that the three (3) domains of learning which include cognitive (thinking), affective (emotions or feeling) and Psychomotor (Physical or kinesthetic) to be achieved. It is imperative to understand that there are different categories of learners who have varying needs and as such different methods must be adopted in the planning and delivery of lessons to ensure that such needs are addressed. The world of education has gradually adopted the strategy of ‘Every child matters’ structure that requires that all learners with different needs are counted.

This article aims to evaluate the three domains of learning (cognitive, affective and psychomotor) and their benefits to addressing the different learning styles of students.

DOMAINS OF LEARNING

Initially developed between 1956 and 1972, the domains of learning have received considerable contributions from researchers and experts in the field of education. Studies by Benjamin Bloom (on cognitive domain), David Krathwohl (affective domain) and Anita Harrow (Psychomotor domain) have been encompassed into the three domains of learning (Sousa, 2016).

A holistic lesson developed by a teacher requires the inclusion of all the three domains in constructing learning tasks for students. The diversity in such learning tasks help creates a comparatively well – rounded learning experience that meets a number of learning styles and learning modalities. An increased level of diversity in the delivery of lessons help engage students as well as create more neural networks and pathways that helps with recollection of information and events.

Learning helps develop an individual’s attitude as well as encourage the acquisition of new skills. The cognitive domain aims to develop the mental skills and the acquisition of knowledge of the individual. The cognitive domain encompasses of six categories which include knowledge; comprehension; application; analysis; synthesis; and evaluation. Knowledge includes the ability of the learner to recall data or information. This is followed with comprehension which assesses the ability of the learner to understand the meaning of what is known. This is the case where a student is able to explain an existing theory in his or her own words (Anderson et al, 2011). This is followed by application which shows the ability of the student to use the abstract knowledge in a new situation. A typical case is when an Economics student is able to apply the theory of demand and supply to the changing market trend of clothing during a particular season. The analysis category aims to differentiate facts and opinions. The synthesis category shows the ability to integrate different elements or concepts in order to form a sound pattern or structure to help establish a new meaning. The category of evaluation shows the ability to come up with judgments about the importance of concepts. A typical scenario is when a manager is able to identify and implement the most cost effective methods of production in the bid to increase profits whilst sustaining a high level of competitive advantage.

AIOU Solved Assignments Autumn & Spring 2024 Code 697

Q.3  a)  What do you know about assessment of knowledge??

Answer:

Ideas for measuring growth in student knowledge and understanding.?

The following three examples offer ways to uncover students’ knowledge and understanding of curriculum content, including their ability to connect prior knowledge with new ideas and concepts.

Concept mapping

Concept mapping can be built on over time to show progress and growth in knowledge and understanding and also reveal connections or misconceptions that help you target need.

Concept maps come in many forms. For example:

  • spider: students write the central idea inside a bubble in the centre of the map. They add sub-ideas by labelling a line drawn from the central bubble
  • hierarchical: students present information in a hierarchical fashion with the most general or important concepts at the top of the map and the more specific or less important concepts arranged below
  • flowchart: students organise information as a linear process to describe a sequence of events, stages, phases or actions that lead to an outcome
  • systems: students organise information in a format similar to a flowchart, but with the addition of ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’.

The educational evidence base

Concept mapping was found by Project Zero  to be a robust instrument for uncovering students’ thinking about thinking. As an assessment tool, it is:

  • non-threatening
  • open-ended enough to allow for rich and detailed responses (including associative, emotional, strategic and meta responses)
  • manageable for you to incorporate into your assessments.

How it might be used in practice

You can use concept mapping at the beginning of a unit to uncover what students know and understand. You can then add to it throughout a unit to show a student’s growth and depth of understanding over time.

You can use individual maps as the basis for constructing a whole-of-class map.

Guides on concept mapping:

  • Carnegie Mellon University offers this guide for designing and using concept maps.
  • The University of Delaware offers an alternative guide to creating a concept map, including this example for chemistry

Making thinking visible

Tools and processes that make knowledge, understanding and thinking visible to both teachers and students can take the form of a wide variety of simple scaffolds. These are designed to prompt or deepen individual or collective thinking, while simultaneously revealing where learners are in their learning at any point in time.

The following examples are thinking routines developed by Project Zero to support teachers and students to make thinking visible. They can be used across various year levels and content areas to uncover what students know and understand, and to see the connections they are or aren’t yet making:

  • Interpretation with justification routine: what makes you say that?
  • A routine for activating prior knowledge and making connections: 3-2-1 bridge
  • A routine for organising understanding of a topic through concept mapping: generate, sort, connect, elaborate
  • A map for tracking and guiding understanding: peel the fruit
  • A structure for activating and building prior knowledge, establishing a purpose for learning and for summarising what was learned: 

AIOU Solved Assignments 1 Code 697 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.3   b) How can you develop a test for assessing different categories of 
knowledge?

Answer:

In order to gauge how much students have learned, it is not enough to assess their knowledge and skills at the end of the course or program. We also need to find out what they know coming in so that we can identify more specifically the knowledge and skills they have gained during the course or program.

You can choose from a variety of methods to assess your students’ prior knowledge and skills.  Some methods (e.g., portfolios, pre-tests, auditions) are direct measures of students’ capabilities entering a course or program. Other methods (e.g., students’ self-reports, inventories of prior courses or experiences) are indirect measures. Here are links to a few methods that instructors can employ to gauge students’ prior knowledge.

What do you want your students to learn?  You have identified the important knowledge and skills in your goals, standards, and objectives.  Always return to those statements before you consider what to teach or assess.  That applies to quizzes or tests covering sections, chapters, units, quarters or semesters. The content named in your subject-area standards and the skills identified in your process standards define the domain which is to be taught, learned and tested.

  Should I be Assessing Standards or Objectives?

That depends on how broad or narrow your assessment is.  If you are just testing to see if students have mastered the material in one section or a couple days of class material, then you probably want to know if they mastered certain objectives.  Normally, however, your assessment focus should be on standards.  A central principle of the standards-based reform movement has been that we as educators have focused too much on the minutiae of the curriculum at the expense of broader, more substantial goals.  By teaching to and assessing the broader and more complex competencies described in standards, we will emphasize and develop deeper learning (Newmann & Wehlage, 1993Wiggins, 1998).  If, by the end of a unit or quarter or semester your students have mastered the content and skills described in your standards, you are unlikely to be too concerned that they have not mastered every specific objective.  Thus, most assessments, particularly those covering more material, should focus on measuring student progress towards the standards.

  Representative Sample of Items (Questions) 

Even if you are not trying to assess every concept taught, covering all the substantial learning from a unit or quarter or semester can be a time-prohibitive task.  Thus, most tests assess a representative sample of the content domains.  Teachers who construct the tests are normally responsible for determining what is a representative sample.  To make sure a sample of test questions is sufficient and representative, teachers sometimes create a matrix of standards (or objectives) and the level or type of skill required.  This matrix is often called a Table of Specifications.  For example, here is a Table of Specifications for a section in a statistics course using state/department standards.

AIOU Solved Assignments 2 Code 697 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.4  a) Develop a test to assess different categories of comprehension for secondary level.

Answer:

Designing tests is an important part of assessing students understanding of course content and their level of competency in applying what they are learning.  Whether you use low-stakes and frequent evaluations–quizzes–or high-stakes and infrequent evaluations–midterm and final–careful design will help provide  more calibrated results.


Here are a few general guidelines to help you get started:

  • Consider your reasons for testing.
    • Will this quiz monitor the students’ progress so that you can adjust the pace of the course?
    • Will ongoing quizzes serve to motivate students?
    • Will this final provide data for a grade at the end of the quarter?
    • Will this mid-term challenge students to apply concepts learned so far?

The reason(s) for giving a test will help you determine features such as length, format, level of detail required in answers, and the time frame for returning results to the students.

  • Maintain consistency between goals for the course, methods of teaching, and the tests used to measure achievement of goals. If, for example, class time emphasizes review and recall of information, then so can the test; if class time emphasizes analysis and synthesis, then the test can also be designed to demonstrate how well students have learned these things.
  • Use testing methods that are appropriate to learning goals. For example, a multiple choice test might be useful for demonstrating memory and recall, for example, but it may require an essay or open-ended problem-solving for students to demonstrate more independent analysis or synthesis.
  • Help Students prepare. Most students will assume that the test is designed to measure what is most important for them to learn in the course. You can help students prepare for the test by clarifying course goals as well as reviewing material. This will allow the test to reinforce what you most want students to learn and retain.
  • Use consistent language (in stating goals, in talking in class, and in writing test questions) to describe expected outcomes. If you want to use words like explain or discuss, be sure that you use them consistently and that students know what you mean when you use them.
  • Design test items that allow students to show a range of learning. That is, students who have not fully mastered everything in the course should still be able to demonstrate how much they have learned.

Multiple choice exams

Multiple choice questions can be difficult to write, especially if you want students to go beyond recall of information, but the exams are easier to grade than essay or short-answer exams. On the other hand, multiple choice exams provide less opportunity than essay or short-answer exams for you to determine how well the students can think about the course content or use the language of the discipline in responding to questions.

If you decide you want to test mostly recall of information or facts and you need to do so in the most efficient way, then you should consider using multiple choice tests.

The following ideas may be helpful as you begin to plan for a multiple choice exam:

  • Since questions can result in misleading wording and misinterpretation, try to have a colleague answer your test questions before the students do.
  • Be sure that the question is clear within the stem so that students do not have to read the various options to know what the question is asking.
  • Avoid writing items that lead students to choose the right answer for the wrong reasons. For instance, avoid making the correct alternative the longest or most qualified one, or the only one that is grammatically appropriate to the stem.
  • Try to design items that tap students’ overall understanding of the subject. Although you may want to include some items that only require recognition, avoid the temptation to write items that are difficult because they are taken from obscure passages (footnotes, for instance).
  • Consider a formal assessment of your multiple-choice questions with what is known as an “item analysis” of the test.
    For example:
    • Which questions proved to be the most difficult?
    • Were there questions which most of the students with high grades missed?

This information can help you identify areas in which students need further work, and can also help you assess the test itself: Were the questions worded clearly? Was the level of difficulty appropriate? If scores are uniformly high, for example, you may be doing everything right, or have an unusually good class. On the other hand, your test may not have measured what you intended it to.


Essay questions

“Essay tests let students display their overall understanding of a topic and demonstrate their ability to think critically, organize their thoughts, and be creative and original. While essay and short-answer questions are easier to design than multiple-choice tests, they are more difficult and time-consuming to score. Moreover, essay tests can suffer from unreliable grading; that is, grades on the same response may vary from reader to reader or from time to time by the same reader. For this reason, some faculty prefer short-answer items to essay tests. On the other hand, essay tests are the best measure of students’ skills in higher-order thinking and written expression.”
(Barbara Gross Davis, Tools for Teaching, 1993, 272)

When are essay exams appropriate?

  • When you are measuring students’ ability to analyze, synthesize, or evaluate
  • When you have been teaching at these levels (i.e. writing intensive courses, upper-division undergraduate seminars, graduate courses) or the content lends it self to more critical analysis as opposed to recalling information

How do you design essay exams?

  • Be specific
  • Use words and phrases that alert students to the kind of thinking you expect; for example, identify, compare, or critique
  • Indicate with points (or time limits) the approximate amount of time students should spend on each question and the level of detail expected in their responses
  • Be aware of time; practice taking the exam yourself or ask a colleague to look at the questions

How do you grade essay exams?

  • Develop criteria for appropriate responses to each essay question
  • Develop a scoring guide that tell what you are looking for in each response and how much credit you intend to give for each part of the response
  • Read all of the responses to question 1, then all of the responses to question 2, and on through the exam. This will provide a more holistic view of how the class answered the individual questions

How do you help students succeed on essay exams?

  • Use study questions that ask for the same kind of thinking you expect on exams
  • During lecture or discussion emphasize examples of thinking that would be appropriate on essay exams
  • Provide practice exams or sample test questions
  • Show examples of successful exam answers

AIOU Solved Assignments 1 & 2 Code 697 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.4  b)  Why we take application tests and explain the principles for assessing it?

Answer:

Constructing an assessment always involves these basic principles:

  • Specify clearly and exactly what it is you want to assess.
  • Design tasks or test items that require students to demonstrate this knowledge or skill.
  • Decide what you will take as evidence of the degree to which students have shown this knowledge or skill.

This general three-part process applies to all assessment, including assessment of higher-order thinking. Assessing higher-order thinking almost always involves three additional principles:

  • Present something for students to think about, usually in the form of introductory text, visuals, scenarios, resource material, or problems of some sort.
  • Use novel material—material that is new to the student, not covered in class and thus subject to recall.
  • Distinguish between level of difficulty (easy versus hard) and level of thinking (lower-order thinking or recall versus higher-order thinking), and control for each separately.

The first part of this chapter briefly describes the general principles that apply to all assessment, because without those, assessment of anything, including higher-order thinking, fails. The second section expands on the three principles for assessing higher-order thinking. A third section deals with interpreting student responses when assessing higher-order thinking. Whether you are interpreting work for formative feedback and student improvement or scoring work for grading, you should look for qualities in the work that are signs of appropriate thinking.

Basic Assessment Principles

Begin by specifying clearly and exactly the kind of thinking, about what content, you wish to see evidence for. Check each learning goal you intend to assess to make sure that it specifies the relevant content clearly, and that it specifies what type of performance or task the student will be able to do with this content. If these are less than crystal clear, you have some clarifying to do.

This is more important than some teachers realize. It may seem like fussing with wording. After all, what’s the difference between “the student understands what slope is” and “the student can solve multistep problems that involve identifying and calculating slope”? It’s not just that one is wordier than the other. The second one specifies what students are able to do, specifically, that is both the target for learning and the way you will organize your assessment evidence.

If your target is just a topic, and you share it with students in a statement like “This week we’re going to study slope,” you are operating with the first kind of goal (“the student understands what slope is”). Arguably, one assessment method would be for you to ask students at the end of the week, “Do you understand slope now?” And, of course, they would all say, “Yes, we do.”

Even with a less cynical approach, suppose you were going to give an end-of-week assessment to see what students knew about slope. What would you put on it? How would you know whether to write test items or performance tasks? One teacher might put together a test with 20 questions asking students to calculate slope using the point-slope formula. Another teacher might ask students to come up with their own problem situation in which finding the slope of a line is a major part of the solution, write it up as a small project, and include a class demonstration. These divergent approaches would probably result in different appraisals of students’ achievement. Which teacher has evidence that the goal was met? As you have figured out by now, I hope, the point here is that you can’t tell, because the target wasn’t specified clearly enough.

Even with the better, clearer target—”The student can solve multistep problems that involve identifying and calculating slope”—you still have a target that’s clear to only the teacher. Students are the ones who have to aim their thinking and their work toward the target. Before studying slope, most students would not know what a “multistep problem that involves identifying and calculating slope” looks like. To really have a clear target, you need to describe the nature of the achievement clearly for students, so they can aim for it.

In this case you might start with some examples of the kinds of problems that require knowing the rate of increase or decrease of some value with respect to the range of some other value. For example, suppose some physicians wanted to know whether and at what rate the expected life span for U.S. residents has changed since 1900. What data would they need? What would the math look like? Show students a few examples and ask them to come up with other scenarios of the same type until everyone is clear what kinds of thinking they should be able to do once they learn about slope.

Design performance tasks or test items that require students to use the targeted thinking and content knowledge. The next step is making sure the assessment really does call forth from students the desired knowledge and thinking skills. This requires that individual items and tasks tap intended learning, and that together as a set, the items or tasks on the assessment represent the whole domain of desired knowledge and thinking skills in a reasonable way.

Here’s a simple example of an assessment item that does not tap intended learning. A teacher’s unit on poetry stated the goal that students would be able to interpret poems. Her assessment consisted of a section of questions matching poems with their authors, a section requiring the identification of rhyme and meter schemes in selected excerpts from poems, and a section asking students to write an original poem. She saw these sections, rightly, as respectively tapping the new Bloom’s taxonomy levels of Remember, Apply, and Create in the content area (poetry), and thought her assessment was a good one that included higher-order thinking. It is true that higher-order thinking was required. However, if you think about it, none of these items or tasks directly tapped students’ ability to interpret poems.

Plan the balance of content and thinking with an assessment blueprint. Some sort of planning tool is needed to ensure that a set of assessment items or tasks represents the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills intended in your learning target or targets. The most common tool for this is an assessment blueprint. An assessment blueprint is simply a plan that indicates the balance of content knowledge and thinking skills covered by a set of assessment items or tasks. A blueprint allows your assessment to achieve the desired emphasis and balance among aspects of content and among levels of thinking. Figure 1.1 shows a blueprint for a high school history assessment on the English colonies.

AIOU Solved Assignments Code 697 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.5 a) Draw a mind map for cognitive domain objectives and mention all its sub categories.

Answer:

Bloom’s Taxonomy is the most well-known for the work done in the Cognitive Domain. This is the second domain covered in the four part Study Skills and Bloom’s Taxonomy series. The first domain, the Affective Domain, was covered in the previous article and the next article will cover the Psychomotor Domain.

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and critical thinking of a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives. Most study skills training will therefore be focused on enhancing this domain.

According to Wikipedia, the online Encyclopedia, a great mythology has grown around the Taxonomy. I hope this article will take away some of the mysticism around the topic by reducing the principles to simple examples and seeing them holistically in a Mind Map.

The categories in the Cognitive Domain go from the lowest order to the highest order of human thinking. Many believe that each step must be mastered before you can move on to the next step. The jury is still out on this one.

I believe that by Using Mind Maps you naturally explore and apply each of the categories in this domain.

I will also tie each of the levels into Mind Mapping by using the Mind Map Principles and the seven steps in creating a Mind Map as a case study.

1. Knowledge

The knowledge category simply applies to the ability to recall what has been learned. The recall of dates, information, facts and even concepts is seen as a lower order skill, even though it is often the most emphasised when teaching study skills.

Traditional education has mostly focused on the ability to recall information, but in recent years most countries’ education systems have moved to something that resembles Bloom’s taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain.

What must not be forgotten when ‘moving up the ladder’ is that the ability to recall information is the foundation upon which the other categories are built. A common error is to move onto the higher levels without first mastering the ability to recall information. This is particularly dangerous if this step is skipped in the formative years of a child’s life.

Example: List the Mind Map Principles and the seven steps in creating a Mind Map.

2. Comprehension

You should be able to demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter. This is best done by explaining in your own words, or comparing to something else.

Example: Explain the Mind Mapping Principles in your own words. Compare the Mind Mapping principles to the Seven Steps in creating a Mind Map.

3. Application

Applying what you have learnt in a new situation or in solving a problem.

Example: Create a Mind Map summary of a book, or chapter of a book, using the Mind Map Principles and the Seven Steps in creating a Mind Map.

4. Analyze

Breaking up the information into parts, comparing, questioning and analyzing. Distinguish between facts and inferences.

Example: Rank the Mind Map principles in order of importance with reasons, based on the relative benefit of each principle. Which benefits are absolutely necessary and why? Which are not necessary and why not?

5. Synthesis

Combining the elements learned and perhaps forming a new pattern, new meaning or new structure.

Example: Use the Seven Steps in creating a Mind Map to combine various sources into one cohesive Mind Map, while blending the thoughts of the original authors with that of your own.

6. Evaluation

Judge the value of what you have learned, defend the principles and choose the best option when applying the principles. Evaluate whether you should use the new found knowledge in a situation, or whether you old know would suffice.

Example: Decide which steps or principles your are going to use or discard when creating a Mind Map. Introduce your own principles where necessary. Combine linear notes with Mind Maps when taking notes.

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Q.5 b) Explain the difference between modes of assessment and types of assessment.

Answer:

Modes and Types of assessment

Pre-assessment 
Before beginning a new topic, concept or subject in a course, accomplished faculty members find out what students already know about the topic.  Even though their knowledge may be partial or incorrect, finding out what their understandings are and adjusting teaching strategies to build on or correct misperceptions will enhance student learning.  Strategies for determining what students know can be quick, simple and timely.  Have students answer an open ended question in a one minute quickwrite on a 3”x5” card and collect them.  Have students respond with a show of hands or using technology.  Ask several students to come up to the whiteboard and work a problem in front of the class and have the rest of the students use a thumbs up or down to agree or disagree with the solution.  Ask students to name the principle behind an example flashed on a PowerPoint slide.  These are just a few of many ways to elicit feedback quickly, even in a large course setting.  Once the student perspective is elicited use it to tailor your teaching to the needs of the class.  Dispel misconceptions, further explain areas of weakness, and reduce time for areas where students already understand.  New faculty members who utilize pre-assessment strategies will better meet the learning needs of their students.

Formative assessment

One way to think about formative assessment is as practice, without holding students fully accountable for skills and concepts that have just been introduced.  Students who are involved in formative assessment, serve both as assessors of their own learning and as resources to other students. A key feature of formative assessment is descriptive feedback as students learn.  In this way students become aware of what they are doing well, and where they need to focus more attention.  Formative assessments come in many forms but include homework problems, quizzes, drafts of papers with responses, and even “clicker” feedback used during a lecture to measure student understanding. What instructors do with the knowledge they gain from formative assessment determines whether it is effective for improving student learning.  Accomplished faculty members use what they learn during formative assessment to adjust their teaching, reteach, or redirect student efforts toward achievement.

Summative assessment

Summative assessments are spread out and occur after instruction as a final measure of learning for a particular topic in a course or for the entire course.  These assessments typically occur too far down the learning path to provide feedback for a particular learner, although they do serve an important measure for faculty to determine how effectively they have taught a topic, and whether to revise their teaching in the future when they teach the same course.

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