Unit 4 Assignment 4B

11/22/2014

Assessment

Lorand Irinyi

National University

Class: TED634-60386-1411

Instructor: Deborah Spellman Smith

Abstract
Assessment, as it is traditionally defined, is a process of collecting evidence of what students
know and can do. There are two basic kinds of assessments, formative and summative. The
assessment plan, described and presented below, is a summative assessment at the end of a larger
content unit titled Conservation of Energy, and the rationale for having chosen this combination
of traditional and non-traditional kind of summative assessment will be provided.

Standards, which will be addressed by this summative assessment, are the following:

Science Content Standards for California Public Schools Grades Nine through Twelve, Physics,
Conservation of Energy and Momentum
2. The laws of conservation of energy and momentum provide a way to predict and describe the
movement of objects. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students know how to calculate kinetic energy using the formula E=(1/2)mv2 .
b. Students know how to calculate changes in gravitational potential energy near Earth by
using the formula (change in potential energy)=mgh (h is the change in elevation).
c. Students know how to solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple
systems, such as falling objects.
h. Student know how to solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple systems

with various sources of potential energy, such as capacitors and springs.

The literacy and mathematics skills that students will need for this unit content are addressed by
California State Common Core State Standards:
English Language Arts & Literacy History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects
RST 2. Determine the central ideas or conclusion of a text; summarize complex concepts,
processes, or information presented in a text by paraphrasing them in simpler but still
accurate terms.
RST 3. Follow precisely a complex multistep procedure when carrying out experiments, taking
measurements, or performing technical tasks; analyze the specific results based on
explanation in the text.
RST 4. Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and
phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades
11-12 texts and topics.
WHST 1. Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
c. Use words, phrases and clauses as well as varied syntax to link the major sections of
the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationship between claim(s) and reasons,
between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.
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d. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms
and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
e. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows form or supports the argument
presented.

Mathematics
M1. N-Q. Reason quantitatively and use units to solve problems.
1. Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step
problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the
scale and origin in graphs and data displays.
2. Define appropriate quantities for the purpose of descriptive modeling.
3. Choose a level of accuracy appropriate to limitations of measurement when reporting
quantities.

In this assessment I want to measure students ability to explain the concepts of Kinetic
Energy, Potential Energy, and Conservation of Energy. I want to measure students ability to
apply those concepts correctly to solve problems using the formula E=(1/2)mv2 to calculate
kinetic energy of an object; to calculate changes in gravitational potential energy near Earth by

using the formula (change in potential energy)=mgh; and I want to measure students ability to
solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple systems, such as falling objects. I
want to measure students ability to differentiate between kinetic energy and potential energy. I
want to measure students ability to design a simple system (roller coaster) combining kinetic
energy, potential energy and the concept of conservation of energy; and I want to measure
students ability to justify in written form their design for said simple system conceptually and
mathematically.

Assessment

The assessment I will administer to the students will be as described below:

Conservation of Energy test

This test is comprised of three parts.

Use complete, grammatically correct sentences. Show all your work whether conceptual or
mathematical. You will be scored on all work shown. You will get credit for all partial, but shown
work. A simple number value answer to calculations will earn you only partial credit. For full
credit you must justify all your answers. For definitions you must provide a real life example in
your own words with the appropriate mathematical expression(s) describing the defined
concept(s). For full score for the design problem you must justify all your design elements with
words as well as calculations for full credit.

Part I
Define the concept of kinetic energy verbally and mathematically and explain what it means in
real life. Illustrate this concept in your own words with an authentic real life example. (10 points)

Define the concept of potential energy in general verbally and explain what it means in real life.
Illustrate this concept in your own words with an authentic real life example. (10 points)

Define the concept of gravitational potential energy verbally and mathematically and explain

what it means in real life. Illustrate this concept in your own words with an authentic real life
example. (10 points)

Define the concept of conservation of energy verbally and mathematically and explain what it
means in real life. Illustrate this concept in your own words with an authentic real life example.
(10 points)

Part II

Solve each of the following problems. Show all your work for full credit. Circle your answers.

1. What is the kinetic energy of a school bus full of students with a total mass of 5000 kg
traveling with a speed of 80 km/h? (5 points)

2. How much faster will this bus be able to travel after it will have dropped off 12 students
with a total mass of 600 kg? (5 points)

3. What is going to be the speed of the same bus, without the driver stepping on the gas
more, if it climbed a hill with a height of 20 m? (5 points)

4. The same bus dropped off another 5 students with a total mass of 250 kg and the driver

des not step on the accelerator any harder than before, but will descend 30 m on the other
side of the hill. What will be the speed of the bus at the bottom of the hill? (5 points)

5. What will the driver have to do to have the same speed as at the beginning of the trip?
Speed up or slow down at the bottom of the hill? Why? (5 points)

6. Bobby is at a skate park. He has his inline skates on and weighs 65 kg with his full
equipment He is dropping into a 6 m trough. What is the largest weight he can scoop up
at the bottom of the trough if he wants to reach the top of the other side of the trough, a
gain of 4 m, without using his legs for extra push? Why? (10 points)

Part III
Design a simple roller coaster with a mass of 2000 kg that has one loop-the-loop element in it
with a radius of 10 m. Justify your design in writing and support your justification with
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mathematical calculations. Show all your work. Partial credit will be given for all correct writing,
justification and calculations. (25 points)

Rationale for the Assessment

This is a summative assessment at the end of an instructional unit whose goal is to evaluate
student learning by comparing it against the standards identified further above, as well as

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provide me, and my students, with information about the attainment of knowledge. Although
this type of assessment will require from me more time and attention to correct, I chose it for
several reasons. Multiple-choice test just simply would not have provided an accurate enough
picture of the level of either student learning or of teaching. Assessment should be more than
merely a test at the end of instruction to gauge learning. It should be an integral part of
instruction that guides teachers and enhances students' learning. I used for instructional
purposes reading-guides, a teacher-made device intended primarily to help students locate,
consider, and write about important information in assigned reading material (McKenna and
Robinson, 2014, p. 47), this assessment would also give me a measure of the efficacy and
usefulness of my teaching methods. As McKenna and Robinson (2014) stated to make
instructional decisions that turn content literacy into an asset, a teacher must have three types
of information: (1) the proficiency of students, (2) the nature of the written materials, and (3)
the literacy-related demands made by the teacher him- or herself. A balance of the three
should be an important goal (p. 50). The literacy-related demands I put on students by using
study guides would be assessed by this summative assessment. By providing students with
selective guides, I decided what students should know after completing the assignment by
identifying important ideas, concepts, and supporting details (McKenna and Robinson,
2014, p. 136). By having done this I was the one to decide what students can be expected to
do as well as [to] identify the information needed to do it (McKenna and Robinson, 2014, p.
136). This assessment will show whether I did all that correctly.

Reading and writing strategies

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There are numerous reading and writing strategies available to teachers to help their students
in learning content material. These strategies are varied in their nature and applications but all of
them thrive to help students make presented content material their own, to reach deeper
understanding, and to achieve higher-order thinking. By helping students make sense out of what
they read and help them understand further what they read by writing about it in a structured,
ordered way, both to themselves and to an audience which can be either their teacher or their
peers, they will gain further and deeper understanding of the content material, and will reach
better content mastery. The right reading and writing strategies will use and apply true and tried
methods, which are often content-specific, to help students learn how to learn the content
material to their best advantages. Of this I am fully convinced. Where teachers must exercise
great caution and attention is, where and how they will administer these strategies, and which
strategies to administer to begin with. I feel that not all reading and writing strategies are equally
applicable to every content material. It is the teachers duty and responsibility to choose the right
strategies that will help his/her students in learning his particular content material. For instance,
my content area is physics, and I learned in this class that, there are reading and writing
strategies that are far more helpful and applicable to helping students learn physics than, say,
history. I feel that using those strategies judiciously and fully will help students not only in their
basic levels of content mastery, but will help them achieve higher-order content mastery, and will
enable them to fully integrate the learned content material into their consciousness, and will
become one their intellectual tools to be used in their every day lives, and help them become
better informed, better educated citizens making better decisions for themselves, as well as for
their families and for their larger communities.

References

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McKenna, Michael C., Robinson, Richard D. (2014). Teaching through Text, Reading and
Writing in the Content Areas. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Science Content Standards for California Public Schools Kindergarten through Grade Twelve.
Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

California Common Core State Standards English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social
Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Retrieved from
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf

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