{"id":13986,"date":"2018-03-21T14:33:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T08:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/?p=13986"},"modified":"2026-03-13T22:03:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:03:35","slug":"everyday-science-assessing-for-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/everyday-science-assessing-for-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday Science: Assessing for Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
A group photo taken at the end of the session. Twenty-one actually registered for the workshops but over the course of the seven sessions, I lost almost half of them! Unfortunate because I think there were others who wanted to join but couldn’t for lack of space!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since January 12, 2018 I have been running the US Embassy’s Book Bus teacher empowerment program<\/a> Everyday Science: Learn, To Teach; Teach, To Learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I promised the participants that I would share, online, most of what I shared with them in the workshops, that I would share them in the form of blog posts. This is the seventh and final one. (Click here<\/a> for the blog post Everyday Science: Learn, To Teach; Teach, To Learn<\/em> where you can find links to all the blog posts about the workshops.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first part of this session, we analyzed test papers. I had the participants identify the kind of skill being assessed for by each question in the grade 9 test paper as well by the questions in a test paper I used to assess a group of my students at The International School of Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find the details in this PDF version<\/a> of the PowerPoint presentation, though I didn’t have them do everything exactly the way I had planned! Click here<\/a> for a copy of my test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point of the exercise had been to show how science tests and exams in Nepal assess only the most basic skills — recall and understanding — but how they can and should assess mastery of higher level thinking skills — applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second part, my plans had been to revisit Curriculum Design<\/a> to actually brainstorm specific ideas for teaching specific topics and concepts etc. Except, a discussion ensued on how much of what I have talked about and what we went over during the course of the workshops are difficult to implement because of the many hurdles teachers in Nepal face. There was also a general consensus on how badly teachers are viewed and treated by everyone — from students to administrators to parents — and how trying to do things differently would be viewed with suspicion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I ended up first sharing more of what I had done with my students. And second giving them a pep talk on how, regardless of how others view or treat you, because you are just a teacher, we cannot and should not lose respect for ourselves and for the work we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sense is that there are a lot of teachers in this country — genuine teachers who love teaching, want to improve their teaching and want do a really good job of teaching children how to think — who feel really really disenfranchised and demoralized by our education system, by our culture, and by how they are viewed and treated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that the workshops have come to an end, click here<\/a> for a PDF document of my lesson plans for the seven sessions. The slight difference between a few of them was deliberate; I wanted to show how there isn’t just one format for lesson plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, I had them submit anonymous reflections. One of the first questions in the sheet asks them to rate the session and provide a reason(s) for the rating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how the participants rated the session and their reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are the details from the last of the seven-session US Embassy’s Book Bus (Science) Teacher Empowerment Program, Everyday Science: Learn, to Teach; Teach, To Learn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":13992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Everyday Science: Assessing for Success #Nepal #TeacherTraining","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[340],"tags":[516,518,483,210,330,515],"class_list":["post-13986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teacher-education","tag-bookbus-nepal","tag-satori-center-for-the-arts","tag-teacher-training-in-nepal","tag-teaching","tag-teaching-in-nepal","tag-the-us-embassys-book-bus"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/TISA-EOY-exam-cover-page-feat-image.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Jbro-3DA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29768,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions\/29768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}