Maryland Science Assessments :: Essays Papers

Maryland Science Assessments Within the discipline of science there are facts, principles, skills, and processes of five classified standards: earth/space, biology, chemistry, physics, and environmental science. In the State of Maryland, the main assessment tool is the MSPAP (Maryland State Performance Assessment Program). Also, an individual teacher has to do assessment of his/her students throughout the school year. A teacher needs to know what to assess and how. Through an interview, a teacher of Bodkin Elementary has given her opinion about the state assessment test MSPAP. Maryland State has one major test that brings up many opinions of professionals in the education field. With state and classroom assessments Maryland’s intention is to measure their school improvement within the discipline of science as well as mathematics, reading, writing, language usage, and social studies. The Maryland State Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) is "an assessment or testing program whose primary purpose is to provide information that can be used to improve instruction in schools"(MSDE, 1999). Students in third, fifth, and eighth grades take the MSPAP assessment each May. The assessment was created to be able to test the how well the students could solve problems both individually and with others, to see if they can use background knowledge to solve real world problems and to see if students can use knowledge from one subject into another. Students normally work in groups to complete the task they are given for each subject. Students are required to write extensively unlike other forms of assessment or testing where students fill out bubble forms such as scantron. The MSPAP assessment takes five days with 105 minutes spent each day on the assessment. Sample problems are given to teachers to help their students prepare for they type of activities and writing assignments they will be given on the task. One example task for eighth grade science students is to look at scientific data on the solar system and to write at least three questions that they can ask after looking at the data(Carr, 2000). After students have asked the questions they then need to "describe three repeating patterns of astronomical change that occur in the sky above us"(Carr, 2000) The MSPAP was created in May, 1990 by many teachers and administrators after the State Board of Education came up with learning goals that they wanted to reach by the year 2000. The MSPAP has six sections: reading, writing, language use, mathematics, science, and social studies.