In response to increasingly diverse student groups in U.S. schools, educational researchers have developed curricula that respond to students' unique needs, cultures, and experiences. Curricula that embrace a pedagogy of empowerment are known as Culturally Responsive Curricula (CRC), and such curricula specific to science are referred to as…

Whole-class inquiry (WCI) assessments range from challenging, paper-and-pencil puzzles to lab-based problems that require students to apply their own gathered data to a new scenario; the latter might also require students to perform a lab with new parameters, or to answer a question using data from a previous lab. In this article, the authors…

Teachers know what a daunting job it can be to ensure that all students in a class learn effectively. In addition to the usual difficulties of gaining everyone's attention at once, instructors also run into the issue of preferred learning styles. In any classroom environment, the same topic is taught to multiple students, and each student may…

Presents information on a standards-based assessment for student laboratory work. Four criteria--planning and design, experimental execution, observation of changes, and interpretation and explanation--are presented along with standards for assessment of laboratory performance. Describes the benefits of teachers enunciating both criteria and…

In this article, the author talks about an inquiry-based activity involving yeast, wherein students learned about cell size. The activity allows students to employ math connections and to learn experimental techniques while practicing microscope skills. The activity can be adapted for students at all levels of biology. The author presents details…

Describes different evaluation techniques of student performance in the science laboratory. Evaluation techniques discussed include written reports, test items, practical tests, and observational assessment to evaluate both student performance and to promote development of specific skills. (DS)

Science education has moved from the traditional lecture-and-demonstration model toward a student inquiry model. Inquiry activities allow students to discover many relationships of science for themselves. However beneficial this shift may be, former assessment methods used in the traditional model may no longer effectively determine student…