Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 31 (2012) 292 – 296

1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Hüseyin Uzunboylu.doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.12.057

Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000

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WCLTA 2011

Constructivist approach of evaluation strategies in science education

Florentina Iofciu *, Cristina Miron, Stefan Antohe Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest, Bucharest – Magurele, 077125, Romania

Abstract

Constructivist approach of science education is undertaking of wide scope nowadays, mainly in teaching and learning processes. According to constructivist evaluation there are important the skills students achieved during learning process, their abilities to use in real life, what they learned and the way they refer themselves to others. New constructivist learning strategies are more and more numerous, so the evaluation has to be discriminating from the traditional one. Constructivist teachers develop alternative evaluating methods according to students‟ different learning styles as to offer to everyone the opportunity to express themselves. During evaluation process students may interact one to each other, may use ICT or online environments. Auto evaluation and peer review evaluation are also encouraged as to develop communication and social skills. Assessing testes and home works in traditional way will not be a common preoccupation for today teacher, but to think out of how to implement new evaluating strategies. In this paper we present some alternatives to traditional evaluation for middle and college school students who studied advanced science concepts in constructivist classes.

Keywords: Constructivist evaluation, science education, learning styles;

1. Introduction

According to Egon Guba‟s work (Guba & Lincoln, 2001) constructivist evaluation is that form of evaluation based on the propositions (basic assumptions) undergirding the constructivist paradigm. There are two phases of constructivist evaluation: discovery and assimilation. The discovery phase of constructivist evaluation represents the evaluator‟s effort to describe “what‟s going on here”, the “here” being the evaluand and its context. The assimilation phase of constructivist evaluation represents the evaluator‟s effort to incorporate new discoveries into the existing construction or constructions (or, in the new discovery is sufficiently different from or in conflict with the existing construction or constructions, replacing them) so that the “new” (more informed or sophisticated) construction will fit (subsume older and newer meanings, work (explain what happens), demonstrate relevance (enable the core problems to be resolved, ameliorated or better defined) and exhibit modifiability to (be itself open to change).

The constructivist approach to evaluation is heavily philosophical, service oriented, and paradigm driven. The approach rejects the tenets of logical positivism and instead embraces phenomenology and critical theory. Constructivist evaluation rejects the existence of any ultimate reality and employs a subjectivist epistemology. It sees knowledge gained as one or more social - psychological constructions, uncertifiable, often multiple, and constantly problematic and changing. Obtained constructions are to be treated holistically and analytically to reveal and study the underlying values, beliefs, and attitudes. The evaluators and program stakeholders are placed at the

* Florentina Iofciu. Tel.: +4-072-129-2868 E-mail address: Florentina.Iofciu@gmail.com

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center of the inquiry process and act as the evaluation‟s “human instruments.” Their focal activities are collecting, analyzing, and evaluating constructions (Stufflebeam, 2008).

Teachers using constructivist strategies in their activity needs to change the practice of traditional evaluation finding alternatives as: portfolios collections, performance assessments, peer assessments, self evaluation.

Teachers who include authentic assessments in their repertoires are driven by a belief that curriculum assessment experiences should prepare students for the life of the real world (Rolheiser and Ross, 2003).

2. Constructivist evaluation strategies in science education

For efficient science instruction, the constructivist evaluation has a key role as an alternative assessment. Approaching collaborative strategies of learning, teachers would change their conceptions about evaluation, moving the interested point to strategies involving students to work with complex tasks (Baron, 1990; Shavelson, Baxter & Pine, 1992) or to face the real-life problems (Raizen & Kaser, 1989). According with some researches (Calfee and Perfumo, 1993; Bateson, 1994) there is enthusiasm for alternate assessment since teachers have the freedom to choose. Alternate conception of evaluation enhance demands on teachers, such is engaging students in setting evaluation criteria (Bellanca & Bermam, 1994; Garcia & Pearson, 1994). The literature (Briscoe, 1994) found that when beliefs about teaching and constructivist learning theory implicit in alternate conflicted conventional test practices returned. The conflict may be solved when teachers are redefining their metaphor of assessment from that of “fair judgment” to providing a “window into a student‟s mind”, thereby reconciling assessment with their new concept of teaching (Rolheiser & Ross, 2003).

Self evaluation is defined as students judging the quality of their work, based on evidence and explicit criteria for the purposed of doing better work in the future (Rolheiser & Ross, 2003). According to Self Evaluation Maintenance model (Tesser, 1986) people are motivated to evaluate themselves positively, so they will change their behavior or/and their beliefs so as to see themselves in a positive light. One‟s affective response is generally positive to favorable feedback tends to be self-enhancing. The affective response is generally positive to favorable feedback and negative to unfavorable feedback. Self evaluation may be defined as students „judging of the quality of their work based on evidence and explicit criteria, to do better work in the future (Rolheiser & Ross, 2003). Self evaluation is a potentially powerful technique because of its impact on student performance through enhanced self-efficacy and increased intrinsic motivation (Doyle, 2008).

2.1. Peer review in students evaluation

Teachers using cooperative learning or other constructivist strategies use more and more peer review evaluation for students „work. Peer review must be prepared in advance and carefully guided by the teacher (http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/node/424). Before semester starts teacher has to determine how peer review will fit in the course, than design peer review worksheets that students will complete during each peer review session. It is very important to point out that the role of the peer reviewer is not to be an evaluator, but to be a reader. Peer review worksheets should ask the reviewer to begin by offering a positive comment about the paper. The worksheets should give students specific tasks to complete when recording their responses to a paper (Nilson, 2003). The teacher should choose the kind of comments to be provide students when reviewing drafts and grade papers. For example, comments may be descriptive and specific (Bean, 2001). From the beginning teacher should decide whether and how will grade students‟ contributions to peer review sessions, or how to incorporate each peer-review score into the course grade or into the grade earned for each paper (http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/node/424).

During the semester and before the first peer review session there are some steps to be followed. Firstly a simulated peer review session is needed. The reviewers have to understand the that the points of their comments should be to describe their experience with specific language, not to praise or condemn their peers or tell the peer how they would solve the task (http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/node/424). The group of peer reviewers is recommended to have 3 members and to be maintained all the semester. Each student will be reviewing the papers of 2 peers during each peer-review session, but each group will discuss 3 papers

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(http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/node/424). Maintaining the groups throughout the semester will help your students build the trust that is necessary for peer review to be successful (Millis, 2002). In a designated day, each student has to brig two copies of his or hers papers.

2.2. Graphic Organizers used in students’ evaluation

There is a changing in students‟ evaluation from how well or bad is their performance to how much and in what way they need help for success. Averting Gauss curve evaluation relief students from outgrowing their classmates and allow them cooperate; let‟s say as future specialists in using optical instruments. Absolute evaluation naturally appears and resists when is running in the course of fully meaning context and when is connected to students‟ problems and genuine conditions they are facing every day. These aspects are highlighted in Figure 1 and Figure 2 where are exposed two evaluating conceptual maps: a lacunas conceptual map and a rebus conceptual map (Iofciu & Miron, 2010).

Figure 1 .Capture Lacunas Rebus Type Conceptual Map from Conceptual Map Optical Instruments

Figure 2. Interactive lacunas conceptual map designed for the study of Transport charge carrier phenomena

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2.3. Portfolios

A portfolio is a collection of the best examples of somebody‟s work. They can be used as an authentic assessment tool in the classroom, being very popular these days. They represent a profound shift in attitudes about the role of evaluation in education. A portfolio in the context of the classroom is a collection of student work that evidences mastery of a set of skills, applied knowledge, and attitudes. The individual works in a portfolio are often referred to as “artifacts” (http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/experimental-education/4530.html ). Process oriented portfolios reflect all the story of the growth of the learner: they contain a student‟s work from the beginning to the end of the leaning unit. Public exhibition is a final common element of both kinds of portfolios. Students are formally asked to present all or only a part of their portfolio in the presence of the teachers, parents any combination of peers or other members of community. Specific to relevant learning theories, portfolio-based learning could be viewed as occupying the highest form of knowledge and skill integration (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) in that students would be reflecting on the development of all of their professional skills in the process of creating their emergent professional identity. Student feedback from the portfolio development process indicates that the procedure itself made them more aware of their own learning processes and how they needed to take control of their learning activities to make them more meaningful for personal and professional growth (Asheiman & Lenhoff, 1994; Wilcox & Tomei, 1999). In parallel, as school members review portfolios they also begin to have a metacognition of the curricular process and reflect on the curriculum with an eye toward needed curricular changes (Ashelman & Lenhoff, 1994). These effects, linked to the social constructivist model of self-reflective activity (Alvarez & Moxley, 2004) are unique to a portfolio process; for students some of these experiences occur in workgroups.

3. Limits of constructivist evaluation

Constructivist evaluation is based on the activities of teacher and student together. There are different opinions about constructivist evaluation connected with the efficiency of applying them in science classes. From teacher‟s view there are some limits to refer to constructivist evaluation (Joiţa, 2007): the evaluation can be considered as “subjective” because of using mainly qualitative strategies instead of quantitative ones; there is a difficulty in explaining to each student why his work is not adequate; the teacher needs to know very well his students as to be able to justify final decision; metacognitive aspects are difficult to be evaluated; there is a risk that final products resulted by constructivist activities to be false or wrong answers; teacher needs a longer time to collect data for evaluate the quality or the efficiency of the results.

4. Conclusions

Constructivist evaluation is a complex activity involving both students and teachers. A preliminary preparation is needed. Teachers have to design the evaluation strategies as to be easy to integrate in lessons and in the meantime students have to get involved in their own evaluation. Constructivism encourage self-evaluations allowing student to reflect to their own skill acquisition and peer-review evaluation as a strategy to develop communication and social skills. According to Guba (Guba & Lincoln, 2001) there are two phases of constructivist evaluation: discovery and assimilation. The discovery phase of constructivist evaluation represents the evaluator‟s effort to describe “what‟s going on here“, the “here” being the evaluand and its context. The assimilation phase of constructivist evaluation represents the evaluator‟s effort to incorporate new discoveries into the existing construction or constructions.

Acknowledgements

Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Youth supported this work under Project FSE-POSDRU ID: 88/1.5/S/56668.

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Study Visit 10-SV-R1-38-B Cooperative Learning in Teaching, Teacher Training and Leadership. Karlsruhe Germany 11-15 October 2010.

Project LLP-LDV VETPRO 2010/RO/098 Empowering The Professionals In Science Education; Klagenfurt, Austria -31 January-5 February 2011.

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