Integrating Science With Mathematics Literacy: New Visions for Learning and Assessment

"Hammerman and Musial offer great strategies for developing rubrics to determine how much real learning has occurred. I recommend this easily understood and helpful book to all teachers who want to make their assessment of learning more authentic."
―From the Foreword by Robert E. Yager

"Designing and using performance assessment tools can be very challenging for beginning teachers. The authors offer a fantastic starting point for all science educators to examine their current method of assessment and apply new and different types of authentic assessment strategies across the curriculum."
―Sheila Smith, Science Specialist/National Science Foundation Project Director
Jackson Public Schools, MS

Challenge and expand students′ abilities with multidimensional performance tasks!

In this invaluable resource, science educators Elizabeth Hammerman and Diann Musial define a new vision for integrating science, mathematics, and language arts with instruction and assessment and encourage teachers to develop reliable processes for assessing both their teaching practice and student learning.

This revised edition offers more than 20 performance assessments that promote student engagement. Each clearly articulated task correlates with current research and focuses on learning indicators linked to state and national standards. The assessments also model inquiry-based science in ways proven to increase student achievement, allowing learners to demonstrate their understanding of embedded concepts through exploration, inquiry, and application.

Teachers can follow detailed guidelines to develop customized assessments or use the assessments already included to evaluate learners′:

• Understanding of content and processes
• Development of complex thinking skills
• Aptitude for science
• Ability to make real-world connections

Featuring learning logs, portfolios, peer interview strategies, and sample teacher-student interviews, Integrating Science With Mathematics and Literacy, Second Edition, helps educators obtain accurate performance data while giving students opportunities to examine the world in exciting ways.

Elizabeth Hammerman is a dedicated science educator and consultant. Her professional background includes teaching science at the middle school and high school levels and over 20 years of experience teaching university science education courses and co-directing funded grant projects. She has done extensive professional development with teachers in the field, specializing in curriculum development and implementation, performance assessment, and effective teaching and learning. The need for high-quality professional development programs and materials in science education became apparent throughout the many projects and professional relationships with teachers who were eager to increase their knowledge base, skills, and confidence for teaching science more effectively.

Hammerman has co-authored a book on performance assessment in science and authored a database of science assessment tasks. She has published articles, presented programs at national conferences, consulted nationally, and developed curriculum and assessments for cutting-edge school districts and commercial products.

Since relocating to North Carolina in 1999, Hammerman has been a math/science consultant for a consortium of seven county school systems, has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher education and science education, served as director of education and professional development for Virtual Learning Systems, and worked as a consultant for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. She is actively involved in professional development and continues to work on a series of professional development books for science education for Corwin Press.