Stanford NGSS Assessment Project

Courses

Four person at a table discussing.

Colleagues Sara Dozier, Dawn O'Connor, Anna Newman, and Bob Miller engage in vigorous debate as they work through a MOOC assignment. Image Credit: Neal Davis

SNAP is offering a series of four free hybrid MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).

All courses follow a hybrid online/face-to-face format in slightly different ways. The courses are designed to be taken in teams from a school, district, or state. Collaborative work among colleagues is critical to these courses. Each course involves Face-to-face meetings in which teams from a school, district, or state meet to engage in this collaborative work. These meetings can be facilitated by the teams. All of the resources needed to run these meetings are provided through the course platform. Please contact the SNAP project team at jwerthei@stanford.edu.

The courses are designed follow a sequence, though they can be taken out of sequence. We highly recommend beginning with Course 1, but if you have a 3-dimensional assessment that you want to improve or you want to develop a multidimensional rubric it is possible to move from Course 1 to Course 3 or Course 4.

Course 1. Performance Assessment in the NGSS Classroom: Implications for Practice.

In this course, you will learn how to use performance assessments to inform instructional decisions in service of equitable, student-centered, 3-dimensional learning.

You will watch instructional videos on your own and complete assignments collaboratively with groups of your colleagues. The course platform provides all of the instructions and materials needed to run the face-to-face meetings virtually or in person.

This course is self-paced and we estimate that it takes approximately 12-15 hours to complete.

Registration is open and ongoing. Visit the registration page for more details.

Course 2. Developing Performance Assessments for the NGSS Classroom.

In this course, you will learn how to develop high-quality performance assessments that are embedded into your instructional practice.

You will work through the steps of developing a 3-dimensional performance assessment in development teams of 2-3 while watching the instructional videos. Your development team will need to meet with at least one other team for face-to-face meetings at two points during the course to provide feedback on the development .

Prerequisite: Course 2 is designed to be taken after Course 1. If you have substantial experience with NGSS we recommend that you at least skim through Course 1 (try double speed!) before beginning Course 2.

Registration is open and ongoing. Many more details about the course and its structure are available on the registration page. It takes approximately 20-30 hours to complete (highly variable).

Course 3. Using Student work to Strengthen Performance Assessments for NGSS.

In this course, you will learn how to prepare a science performance assessment for pilot testing in a classroom and you will learn to analyze artifacts from pilot testing to revise and improve the performance assessment.

You will work through the steps of preparing to implement a performance assessment and analyzing the student work in teams of 2-4 while watching the instructional videos. At the end of the course your team will meet with another team to provide peer feedback on your analysis and revisions.

Prerequisite: We recommend that participants use SNAP Course 2 to develop the performance assessment that you are analyzing. It is possible to use Course 3 to prepare to use an assessment that your team did not create (or that you created using another resource), but this course requires the use of performance outcomes and if you do not have POs for your assessment we recommend that you use Session 2 of Course 2 to help you develop them before you start this course.

Registration is open and ongoing. Many more details about the course and its structure are available in the course introduction. It takes approximately 11-12 hours to complete (highly variable).

Course 4. Evaluating Student Work from Performance Assessments to Guide NGSS Teaching and Learning

In this course, you will learn to develop and use educative rubrics to integrate performance assessments seamlessly into your instructional practice.

You will learn SNAP's process for developing multidimensional rubrics, and you will learn how to use these rubrics to provide actionable feedback that guides instructional decisions, feedback to students, and to create a classroom culture that gives students agency over their NGSS learning. During this course, we discuss strategies for using the rubrics to assign grades, when necessary, while still using the assessment for learning.

Registration is open and ongoing until December, 2022. Many more details about the course and its structure are available in the course introduction. It takes approximately 16-18 hours to complete.