Third post: Evaluation and assessment

This time, I will be explaining the work I have made in Assessment as a methodology applied to CLIL.

Teacher's assessment

I will begin by sharing the Teacher's assessment rubric that I made for my unit:

Mark Activity	1 (needs development)	2 (Novice)	3 (Competent)	4 (Expert)
Starting activity	Can’t tell any difference between chemical and physical change	Can explain some examples but can’t make a scientific definition	Can make good definition with appropriate examples	Makes a perfect scientific definition with examples
Adjusting chemical coefficients	Does not participate in the activity	Knows how to identify an incorrect reaction but fails to adjust by himself or herself	Can do most of the exercises	Can do all the exercises and explain the need of doing the adjustment
Chemical reaction rate	Can’t explain the topic he or she worked with	Is able to explain his or her topic to others and has a basic knowledge of the other topics	Knows all the topics of reaction rate	Knows all the topics of reaction rate and can tell some real life examples
Practice (chemical reaction rate)	Does not participate in the activity	Can understand the phenomena that takes place but can’t design an experimental proposal	Can make a reasonable research proposal and explains the results of the experiment	Makes a good research proposal and explains the results perfectly
The mol	Can’t explain anything from the new concept	Has a basic idea of the concept and application	Knows the concept and can make most numerical exercises	Can explain the concept and mathematically apply it
Concentration calculations	Can’t make conversion factors	Makes some of the required calculations	Makes most of the required calculations	Makes all of the required calculations and explains them
Driving question	Can’t understand what is being asked	Can explain what is asked but can’t answer it	Knows how to approach it and gets to the solution	Gets the answer and explains all of the steps
Language	Never uses English	Knows some of the CALP and uses some of the BICS and scaffolded language	Uses English most of the time and knows all the CALP and some of the BICS and scaffolded language	Uses English most of the time without mistakes
Working diary	Not used or poorly done	Frequently done but not concisely and correctly	Frequently and extensively done but with some mistakes	Done every day, extensively and correctly

Peer's assessment

Secondly, I will share with you the Peer's assessment. That is: a tool for students group to assess their work in a task.

Activty: chemical reaction rate

You will work in groups of 4. After finishing the tasks, each member of the group will get marks by the other members of the group. The marks will range from 1 to 4, being 1 the lowest mark and 4 the highest.

Name	Contribution to task development	Team work and cooperation	Personal work	Final mark

Self assessment

In third place, I am sharing with you a self assessment tool for students. It should help them to find their weakest and strongest points and how to improve their work.

Read the rubric. It has a series of items that will be evaluated. Think about the activities that you have been doing and your work on them. Follow the criteria from the rubric and propose a mark for each of the items.  

Activity	Mark (1-4)
Starting activity
Adjusting chemical coefficients
Chemical reaction rate
Practice (chemical reaction rate)
The mol
Concentration calculations
Driving question
Language
Working diary

Now, explain in the back of the paper the reason of the marks you have given to yourself. Which is the activity you did best and why? Which one is the worst and why? Which are the kind activities that you perform better?

Finally, what could you do to improve you work? 

Thinking routine

Next, I am sharing with you a thinking routine adapted to a topic of my unit:

TITLE OF THE THINKING ROUTINE: Question starts. This is an “understanding routine”. It will take place around “the mole” topic

EXPLANATION: The mole topic is a very abstract one. I will introduce some basic ideas about the topic and then let them think some questions about it. These questions will help to introduce the topic and they will try to understand the following explanations and activities in order to have better answers to their questions.

RESOURCES: List of questions: Why…? Why is the volume the same in any substance? Why is it useful to use Avogadro’s number? How would it be different if…? What are the reasons...? What are the reasons of the mass difference between atoms? Suppose that… Suppose that 2 molecules of CO react with 1 molecule of O2 to generate 2 molecules of CO2. Would the volume increase or decrease? What if we need to know…? Can we predict the volume of the products? What if we knew...? What is the purpose of...? What is the purpose of using the mole concept by scientists? What would change if the molecule is formed by 4 atoms instead of 1?

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO USE IT? I will introduce some basic ideas about the topic and then let them think some questions about it. They will answer to the questions by pairs and they will share some of them with the class. These questions will help to introduce the topic and they will try to understand the following explanations and activities in order to have better answers to their questions. Then, we will work in the mole topic and they will have time to reexamine their answers.

Finally, I will answer the required questions:

• What did you learn? I learnt to do a rubric. I have never done or used one before. I also learnt about assessment tools
• How did you learn? By reading and trying to apply it to my CLIL unit.
• Do you have any problem? No
• Would you like to investigate a bit more about any subject? Yes, about thinking routines. I find there are a lot of them but it is not easy to find what you need.
• Which question do you propose to someone who read this post to help you with CLIL? Are you familiarised with thinking routines applied to science? Which ones are useful for you?