AIOU Solved Assignments 1&2 Code 8628 Autumn & Spring 2024

Aiou Solved Assignments code B.ed 8628 Autumn & Spring 2024 assignments 1 and 2  Course: Assessment in Science Education (8628) spring 2024. aiou past papers

Course: Assessment in Science Education (8628)
Semester: Autumn & Spring 2024

Level: B.Ed (1.5 Years)
ASSIGNMENT No. 1

Q.1 Write down a comprehensive note on the nature of practical work and abilities in the teaching of science subjects.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss the role of practical work in the teaching and learning of science at school level. It may be useful, however, to begin with some general remarks about science and science education, to lay out a framework for the discussion later in the paper. First, and most fundamentally, we might ask: what is science, and what are its characteristics? The word ‘science’ is variously used in ordinary discourse in English to refer to a product (a body of knowledge), to a process (a way of conducting enquiry) and to an enterprise (the institutionalised pursuit of knowledge of the material world1 ). The distinctive characteristic of scientific knowledge is that it provides material explanations for the behaviour of the material world, that is, explanations in terms of the entities that make up that world and their properties.

 Through its choice of questions to address and the kinds of answers to accept, its methods of enquiry, and its procedures for testing and scrutinising knowledge claims, the scientific community has succeeded in building up a body of knowledge which is consensually accepted by that community and often also beyond it. Whilst this is always open to revision, its core elements are stable and beyond reasonable doubt. We value science (as a product, as an enquiry process, and as a social institution) because of its success in explaining phenomena in elegant and parsimonious ways, which are intellectually satisfying and which often facilitate the purposeful manipulation of objects, materials and events. The aims of science education might then be summarised as: 

• to help students to gain an understanding of as much of the established body of scientific knowledge as is appropriate to their needs, interests and capacities; 

• to develop students’ understanding of the methods by which this knowledge has been gained, and our grounds for confidence in it (knowledge about science). The second of these is often referred to as ‘understanding the nature of science’, and encompasses elements of science both as an enquiry process and as a social enterprise. It includes an understanding of how scientific enquiry is conducted, of the different kinds of knowledge claims that scientists make, of the forms of reasoning that scientists use to link data and explanation, and of the role of the scientific community in checking and scrutinising knowledge claims. The two aims are closely inter-related. Indeed the second could be said to be entailed by the first: to claim to know something, it is not enough simply to believe it to be the case, but also necessary to have adequate evidence to support the claim (or at least to know what Norris (1992) terms ‘the general shape that a justification would have to take’ (p. 236)). In other words, you have to be able to say not only that you think it is the case, but also why. Additional reasons have been put forward by science educators for emphasising knowledge about science.

 First, a better understanding of the structure of scientific knowledge and the forms of argumentation used by scientists may help students to learn science content. Second, citizens in a modern society need some understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge in order to evaluate claims that may affect their everyday decisions (e.g. about health, diet, energy resource use) and to reach 1 ‘World’ here should be interpreted broadly; the subject matter of science is the material universe. ‘Material’ includes living matter. 2 informed views on matters of public policy (e.g. genetic therapies, methods of electricity generation). Third, the characteristics of science as ‘a way of knowing’, and its ‘institutional norms’ of universalism, communalism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism (Merton, 1942), are of cultural (and perhaps moral) significance and value. These rationales reflect elements of two distinct perspectives which Irwin (1995) has termed the ‘enlightenment perspective’ and the ‘critical perspective’ and which, he suggests, underpin the concerns of various individuals and groups to improve scientific literacy and public understanding of science. Whilst the two aims of science education identified above are closely inter-related, there is also one quite significant difference between them. The first might be stated as bringing students’ understandings closer to those of the scientific community. But it is rather harder to say whose ideas about science we wish to bring students’ understandings closer to. Unlike scientific knowledge, where there is consensus about core knowledge claims, there is rather less agreement about the characteristic features of scientific enquiry and scientific reasoning. In one sense, professional scientists clearly know more ‘about science’ than any other group, but their knowledge is often largely tacit – ‘knowledge in action’ rather than declarative, propositional knowledge. 

The eminent philosopher of science, Imre Lakatos, once memorably commented of scientists’ explicit knowledge of their practices that ‘most scientists tend to understand little more about science than fish about hydrodynamics’ (Lakatos, 1970: 148). But the views of philosophers of science also differ, as do those of science educators, certainly at the level of detail and perhaps more fundamentally. Furthermore, the questions that drive enquiry, and the methods of enquiry commonly used, vary across the sciences – so that generalisations about ‘the nature of science’ are rarely persuasive, and are often open to rather obvious objections. In thinking about this second aim of the school science curriculum, and the role of practical work in achieving it, it may be important to be clear as to whether we wish to promote a tacit ‘knowledge-in-action’ of science, or a more explicit, reflective and declarative knowledge. It is also important to distinguish, and keep in mind, that the school science curriculum in most countries has two distinct purposes. First, it aims to provide every young person with sufficient understanding of science to participate confidently and effectively in the modern world – a ‘scientific literacy’ aim. Second, advanced societies require a steady supply of new recruits to jobs requiring more detailed scientific knowledge and expertise; school science provides the foundations for more advanced study leading to such jobs. 

These two purposes may lead to different criteria for selection of curriculum content, to different emphases, and (in the particular context of this paper) to different rationales for the use of practical work. In this paper, I am using the term ‘practical work’ to refer to any teaching and learning activity which at some point involves the students in observing or manipulating the objects and materials they are studying. I use the term ‘practical work’ in preference to ‘laboratory work’ because location is not a critical feature in characterising this kind of activity. The observation or manipulation of objects might take place in a school laboratory, but could also occur in an out-of-school setting, such as the student’s home or in the field (e.g. when studying aspects of biology or Earth science). I also prefer not to use the term ‘experiment’ (or ‘experimental work’) as a general label, as this is often used to mean the testing of a prior hypothesis. Whilst some practical work is of this form, other examples are not.

AIOU Solved Assignments Code 8628 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.2 What is the nature of affective objectives and abilities? Why is there need to evaluate affective objective?)

“The affective domain describes the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel another living thing’s pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth in attitudes, emotion, and feelings” (wiki aricle: Taxonomy of Instructional Objectives).

Before we delve into what that definition means, let’s take a look at this video (or try this link?). While you are watching, think about what the video is trying to get you to do and how it goes about achieving this goal. What instructional elements does it include?

The video teaches a very simple concept: the proper way to cough. The message is also simple: cough into your clothing and not into your hand. The video likely could have gotten its point across in only a few seconds. Why then is the video over five minutes long?

The answer to this lies in the true objective of the video. One might at first assume the objective of the video to be psychomotor in nature, and indeed, the video does want to change your physical behavior. The video however, reveals a deeper objective in the first few seconds when is states “The purpose of this video is to make coughing into one’s sleeve fashionable”. The video wants to change your attitude or belief toward coughing. This places the objective squarely in the affective domain.

Think of some experiences you have had learning. What did instructors do or not do to really make you believe in what they were teaching? How did they try to change your attitude and beliefs about a topic? If you’d like, you can record your thoughts in the class blog. Keep those experiences in mind as you continue through this module.

In this lesson, you will learn what comprises the affective domain, how it differs from other domains and how it can affect learning. At the end of this lesson, you should possess a basic understanding of the affective domain, its stages and how it affects learning.

Additionally, you should be able to:

• Discuss how a learner might move through the fives stages of the affective domain
• Relate the affective domain to other learning domains
• Understand how the affective domain affects all learning in both positive and negative ways

There are three main topics to this lesson:

1. Affective Stages
2. The Affective Domain and Other Domains
3. The Affective Domain and Learning
4. How many of the examples were you able to explain? Can you think of other examples? Use the “edit this page” button at the top of the screen to add examples and explanations.
5. Now that we’ve further explored each stage, let’s take a look at how one might move through these stages with respect to the sneezing video from the beginning of the lesson.
6. Before continuing, you should revisit the sneezing video and think about how a learner might demonstrate each stage. Once you have done that, check yourself against the information below.
7. Receiving is being open to the information; you haven’t yet made any decisions at this stage, but you’ve agreed to at least receive the information. In our example, merely watching the video satisfies the receiving stage.
8. Responding is actively participating in the information. If the video had included tasks or an assessment and you had completed them, you would be satisfying the requirements of responding.
9. Valuing is attaching worth to the ideas presented. In our video example, if you had believed that the technique offered was worth considering and begun to think about implementing it in your everyday life, you have reached the valuing stage.
10. Organization is incorporating the new information into your existing schema. In the case of the video, this would include implementing the technique presented in your daily life.
11. Characterization occurs when you truly become an advocate of the new information. In the video example, this may mean telling others about the technique or finding some way to pass the information along to others.
12. Topic Task: Think back to a time when something caused you to cha

AIOU Solved Assignment 1 Code 8628 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.3 Describe in detail the methods of assessing affective outcomes.

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.

Principles for Assessing Higher-Order Thinking

Put yourself in the position of a student attempting to answer a test question or do a performance assessment task. Asking “How would I (the student) have to think to answer this question or do this task?” should help you figure out what thinking skills are required for an assessment task. Asking “What would I (the student) have to think about to answer the question or do the task?” should help you figure out what content knowledge is required for an assessment task. As for any assessment, both should match the knowledge and skills the assessment is intended to tap. This book focuses on the first question, the question about student thinking, but it is worth mentioning that both are important and must be considered together in assessment design.

As the beginning of this chapter foreshadowed, using three principles when you write assessment items or tasks will help ensure you assess higher-order thinking: (1) use introductory material or allow access to resource material, (2) use novel material, and (3) attend separately to cognitive complexity and difficulty. In the next sections, each of these principles is discussed in more detail.

Use introductory material. Using introductory material—or allowing students to use resource materials—gives students something to think about. For example, student performance on a test question about Moby Dick that does not allow students to refer to the book might say more about whether students can recall details from Moby Dick than how they can think about them.

You can use introductory material with many different types of test items and performance assessment tasks. Context-dependent multiple-choice item sets, sometimes called interpretive exercises, offer introductory material and then one or several multiple-choice items based on the material. Constructed-response (essay) questions with introductory material are similar, except students must write their own answers to the questions. Performance assessments —including various kinds of papers and projects—require students to make or do something more extended than answering a test question, and can assess higher-order thinking, especially if they ask students to support their choices or thesis, explain their reasoning, or show their work. In this book, we will look at examples of each of these three assessment types.

Use novel material. Novel material means material students have not worked with already as part of classroom instruction. Using novel material means students have to actually think, not merely recall material covered in class. For example, a seemingly higher-order-thinking essay question about how Herman Melville used the white whale as a symbol is merely recall if there was a class discussion on the question “What does the white whale symbolize in Moby Dick?” From the students’ perspective, that essay question becomes “Summarize what we said in class last Thursday.”

This principle about novel material can cause problems for classroom teachers in regard to higher-order thinking. For one thing, it means that only the teacher knows for sure whether a test item or performance assessment actually assesses higher-order thinking; others outside a given classroom can’t tell by looking whether or not an assessment requires higher-order thinking for that particular class. For another, the novelty of the material on an assessment is under a teacher’s control. Teachers who “teach to a test” by familiarizing the students with test material intended to be novel change the nature of the assessment. However well-intentioned, this practice short-circuits the intent of the instrument to assess higher-order thinking.

Teachers should avoid short-circuiting assessments that are meant to evaluate higher-order thinking by using in class the same questions or ideas that they know will be on the test. Sometimes this is easier said than done, as students may complain—and rightly so—”we never did that before.” Students should be assessed on things they were taught to do, not surprised on a test or performance assessment with tasks for which they have had no practice.

The solution is that teachers who want their students to be able to demonstrate higher-order thinking should teach it. Dealing with novel ideas, solving problems, and thinking critically should not be something students feel they “never did before.” By the time students arrive at a summative assessment that requires higher-order thinking in the content domain of instruction, they should have had many opportunities to learn and practice, using other novel material

AIOU Solved Assignment 2 Code 8628 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.4 What are the learning problems? How can these learning problems be diagnosed? Also provide some suggestions to overcome these learning problems.

Learning disabilities aren’t contagious, but they can be genetic. That means they can be passed down in families through the genes, like many other traits we get from our parents and grandparents. Someone with a learning problem probably has other family members who have had some learning troubles, too.

Kids with learning problems are sometimes surprised to find out that one of their parents had similar troubles in school. But kids today have an advantage over their parents. Learning experts now know a lot more about the brain and how learning works — so it’s easier for kids to get the help they need.

Dyslexia (say: diss-LEKS-ee-uh) is a learning disability that means a kid has a lot of trouble reading and writing. Kids who have trouble with math may have dyscalculia (say: diss-kal-KYOO-lee-uh). And people who have trouble forming letters when they write may have dysgraphia (say: diss-GRAF-ee-uh). Other kids may have language disorders, meaning they have trouble understanding language and understanding what they read.

It can be confusing, though. What qualifies as “trouble” enough to be diagnosed as a learning disability? Reading, doing math, and writing letters may be tough for lots of kids at first. But when those early troubles don’t fade away, and it’s really difficult to make any progress, it’s possible the kid has a learning disability.

It’s very hard for a kid to know if he or she has a learning disability. But kids don’t have to figure all this out on their own. What a kid needs to do is tell someone. Start with your teacher and your mom or dad.

Even if you feel a little shy about it, tell them what kinds of problems you’re having in school. Maybe you read a chapter for homework and then can’t remember anything you read. Or in class, maybe everyone else seems to follow along easily, but you get stuck and don’t know what page everyone is on. You might open your book to do an assignment and have no idea where to start.

Kids with a learning problem also might answer “yes” to many of these questions:

• Do you struggle in school?
• Do you think you should be doing better than you are in school?
• Is reading harder for you than it should be?
• Does your head think one thing but your hand writes something else?
• Is writing slow and really hard for you?
• Do you make spelling and other errors when you write?
• Are you having trouble with math?
• Is it hard for you to keep your notebooks and papers organized? Do you end up losing or forgetting them?

But even if you say “yes” to some of these questions, you won’t know for sure that there’s a problem until you visit a school psychologist or a learning specialist. They can give you some tests to spot any learning problems you might have. They’ll also be able to identify what your strengths are — in other words, what you’re good at! Once a psychologist or learning specialist figures out what your learning problem is, you both can start working on solutions.

A kid might work with a tutor or specialist or even go to a special class. But often, kids with learning disabilities can continue in their regular classrooms and there’s no reason they can’t do normal stuff, like participate in school activities and sports.

Though some kids might feel shy about having a learning problem, it can be a relief to finally know what’s going on. Then, the kid doesn’t have to feel as worried and upset about school — because he or she is learning how to learn in new ways. The psychologist or learning specialist might even give you a learning plan — then you can see what the strategy is for helping you learn. They can even offer help with organizational skills. If you’re not organized, it’s hard to get any schoolwork done.

What You Can Do About Learning Problems

Finding out you have a learning disability can be upsetting. You might feel different from everyone else. But the truth is that learning problems are pretty common. And if your learning specialist or psychologist has figured out which one you’re facing, you’re on the right track. Now, you can start getting the help you need to do better in school.

AIOU Solved Assignment Code 8628 Autumn & Spring 2024

Q.5 Write down in detail the factors affecting the assessment.

Answer:

Contrasting to the traditional approach of curriculum design in which the curriculum contents and the teaching resources are the major issues to be considered at the first place, the focus of OBE is on designing and teaching a course based on learning outcomes.  It is a student-centred approach as all the processes in course development are built around the ultimate goal of facilitating the student to successfully demonstrate the learning outcomes.  From one perspective, the processes are backward in nature as the course developers will consider the output prior to the process and the input. 

Outcome Based Assessment is the process of developing the appropriate assessments for the learning outcomes as well as conducting some necessary activities to make the assessments valid, reliable and fair.  OBA plays a critical role in OBE since without the presence of valid, reliable and fair assessments, it would not be possible to tell what and how the students have achieved with respect to the pre-determined ILOs.  The steps below summarise the chronological processes that are involved in OBE: 

1. identifying and determining the intended learning outcomes to be achieved
2. developing assessment tasks that can demonstrate students’ competency in achieving the intended learning outcomes
3. devising appropriate teaching and learning activities which students can accomplish the assessment task developed

Figure 1. Processes in OBE

The Impact of Outcome Based Assessment on Teaching and Learning

Figure 1 above shows the major processes in the implementation of OBE.  To course developers and course instructors who are used to work in the traditional approaches, the processes involved in OBE and OBA bring about some fundamental challenges.  The student-centred notion in OBE guides the development of ILOs, assessment tasks and even teaching and learning.  It may no longer be appropriate to use direct instructions in teaching curriculum contents.  A better way to ensure that the students would be able to demonstrate the learning outcomes may need to focus on active knowledge construction by the students themselves.  Since outcomes are to be identifiable and measurable, course instructors may plan their teaching in such a way that evidences of learning outcomes are collected at a regular interval.  These evidences, apart from being useful in determining students’ progresses, also help the instructors to critically re-think about their assessment tasks and instructions.   Variances in students’ performance when testing against the desired ILOs provide necessary information for the course instructors and even the course developers to evaluate their assessment task design, pedagogy strategies, and appropriateness of the ILOs.

Outcome Based Assessment & Its Applications

Regarding the processes involved in the design and implementation of OBA, they can generally be divided into two stages: moderation of assessment tasks design and moderation of assessment decision.  Moderation is a process for developing consistency or comparability of assessment judgments and it can be applied to a range of assessment contexts.  The purpose of having moderation is to provide official confirmation or ratification of assessment quality.  The aforementioned two stages of moderation take care of two different aspects of assessment development and implementation – the former focuses on how to design the right assessment tasks and the later focuses on how to make the right judgement based on the evidences collected in the assessment conducted.  To illustrate how these two stages of work are to be done and what the main issues are to be concerned, some examples from a course in physical education will be used for demonstration in the discussions that follow.

Figure 2. The Moderation Cycles of OBA

Figure 2 above shows all the major processes to be gone through in implementing OBA.  These processes include: (1) Writing of ILOs; (2) Design of Assessment Tasks; (3) Implementation of Assessment Tasks; (4) Standardisation of Judgement; (5) Adjustment of Results; and (6) Reporting Results and Providing Feedback on Assessment Design.  Processes (1) and (2) are what we refer to as moderation of assessment task design; and Processes (4) and (5) are referred to as moderation of assessment decision.  

Moderation of assessment task design is a pre-assessment moderation mechanism which occurs before the assessment tasks are implemented.  Writing of the intended learning outcomes and then the design of the assessment tasks are the two main processes that need to be worked on.  The major goals at this stage are to get the assessment tasks and the criteria right as well as to check the fairness and validity of the assessment tasks.  Moderation of assessment decision is a post-assessment moderation mechanism which occurs after the assessment tasks are completed.  Standardisation of judgement and adjustment of results are the two main tasks to be done. The major goals at this stage are to get the assessment judgment right and to check the consistency of assessment decisions.

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