Tom Hathorn of the Bethel School District (here in Washington state) has created a brilliant resource for 5th grade teachers: the 5th Grade Science MSP Practice Kit. This toolkit assembles and modifies many science assessment resources from OSPI into an organized and useable form that pushes beyond “drill and kill” test prep.
Clarification: The intent of this toolkit is NOT to promote abandoning authentic science instruction for test prep. The purpose of the kit is to provide:
- 5th grade students some familiarity with a scenario-based test structure
- a structure for teachers to engage students with science assessment items
- students with an opportunity to talk about their science ideas and to revise their thinking
- teachers and students with formative opportunities focused on science standards
The 5th Grade Science MSP toolkit contains:
- An overview of the 5th grade Science MSP
- A lesson structure for students to take a set of test items and then engage in discourse and revised thinking
- Teacher tracking tools and suggested calendars for planning
- Student-friendly scoring rubrics and student work samples- These are intentionally NOT identical to the OSPI rubrics. For example- the Writing a Conclusion rubric is based on Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning rather than Conclusive Statement, High/Low Data, and Explanatory Language.
- Survey tools for checking student confidence during the course of the practice
Download a copy of the MSP Practice Kit Gr 5 (2012) and feel free to share. I’m hoping this will be a useful tool for several districts, schools, and teachers. Please SHARE BACK any improvements, modification, etc that you make to these materials.