Page 38 - Science - Grade 9, DE-STREAMED COURSE (SNC1W)

Culturally Responsive and Relevant Assessment and Evaluation in Science
Culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy (CRRP) reflects and affirms students’ racial and social identities, languages, and family structures. It involves careful acknowledgement, respect, and understanding of the similarities and differences among students, and between students and teachers, in order to respond effectively to student thinking and promote student learning.
Engaging in assessment from a CRRP stance requires that teachers gain awareness of and reflect on their own beliefs about who a science learner is and what they can achieve (see the questions for consideration provided below). In this process, teachers engage in continual self-reflection – and the critical analysis of various data – to understand and address the ways in which teacher identity and bias affect the assessment and evaluation of student learning. Assessment from a CRRP stance starts with having a deep knowledge of every student and understanding of how they learn best.
The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning. Assessment for learning creates opportunities for teachers to intentionally learn about each student and their sociocultural and linguistic background in order to gather a variety of evidence about their learning in a way that is reflective of and responsive to each student’s strengths, experiences, interests, and cultural ways of knowing. Ongoing descriptive feedback and responsive coaching for improvement are essential for improving student learning.
Teachers engage in assessment as learning by creating ongoing opportunities for all students to develop their capacity to be confident, independent, autonomous learners who set individual goals, monitor their own progress, determine next steps, and reflect on their thinking and learning in relation to learning goals and curriculum expectations. One way in which teachers differentiate assessment is by providing tasks that allow multiple entry points for all students to engage and that enable all students to access complex science.
Assessment of learning is used by the teacher to summarize learning at a given point in time. This summary is used to make judgements about the quality of student learning on the basis of established criteria, to assign a value to represent that quality, and to support the communication of information about achievement to each student, parents, teachers, and others.
The evidence that is collected about student learning, including observations and conversations as well as student products, should reflect and affirm the student’s lived experiences within their school, home, and community, learning strengths, and scientific knowledge. This process of triangulating evidence of student learning allows teachers to improve the accuracy of their understanding with respect to how each student is progressing in their learning.
When teachers engage in the process of examining their own biases regarding classroom assessment and evaluation practices, they might consider some of the following questions:
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