Science Assessment and technology from a major textbook company

I recently had the opportunity to look at an elementary Science teaching guide from a major publisher. I looked in detail at one unit “Observing Weather.”

I noticed that:
They referenced the National Science Education Standards (see page #) without including the actual standard in the lesson plan. The referenced the general standard but no specific part of it.

Students were assessed in a group about the science concept (baseline assessment). No individual scoring was done.
I did not see any mention of what the teacher was to do once he/she had the information from the baseline assessment.

For the final assessments, students were to go back and modify their original baseline assessment.

Reteaching was simply going over the same material.

The final assessment was primarily memorization although the students had done numerous higher level thinking activities. It did not look like the textbook assessed the science standards but it was hard to say since it did not identify the specific part of the standard that it was teaching in the unit.

In the unit overview resource section there was no mention of technology. After searching carefully within the unit there was a mention of CD section and a few websites. Although “Observing weather” has many possible technology-infused activities from watching the weather, seeing others’ experiments, seeing animations, etc., these were not mentioned.

The unit was a hands-on unit with the students do many mini-experiments but they did not use technology to see weather in action.

How do you use technology in your science units to help students succeed in the science standards?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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