Example Student Indicators

Student Language Development Goal

Indicators: (observable student speech and/or behaviors)

Students speak respectfully during classroom discourse

• Students use sentence stems to respectfully disagree.
• Students take turns and do not talk over one another.
• Students look at the speaker as she shares.

Equity of voice in discourse

• All students share at least one idea during the course of the conversation.
• Students wait until everyone else has shared before sharing their second idea.
• There is equity between the number of boy and girl speakers.
• Students in different racial or ethnic groups speak for the same length of time.

Student Learning Goal

Student Learning Goal: Science and Engineering Practices

Indicators: (observable student speech and/or behaviors)

Ask questions that arise from careful observation of phenomena, models, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information. (SEP 1: Asking Questions and Defining Problems)

• Students generate a wide range of questions that support explanations of science phenomena.
• Students ask testable questions that can be investigated within the scope of the activity.
• Students draw on their observations as the draft their questions.

Students analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena. (SEP 4: Analyzing and Interpreting Data)

• Students refer to their data while discussing their understanding of phenomena.
• Students analyze data in multiple ways as they describe phenomena.
• Students discuss whether data are relevant to the phenomenon.
• Students discuss whether data are sufficient to explain the phenomenon.

Students respectfully provide and receive critiques about one’s explanations, procedures, models and questions by citing relevant evidence and posing and responding to questions that elicit pertinent elaboration and detail. (SEP 7: Arguing form Evidence)

• Students cite evidence in their criticism of others' arguments.
• Students use provided sentence stems to critique other's arguments.
• Students use sentence stems to respond positively to criticism.
• Students respond to criticism by modifying or expanding their argument.

Student Learning Goal: Disciplinary Core Ideas

Indicators: (observable student speech and/or behaviors)

PS1.A Each pure substance has characteristic physical and chemical properties (for any bulk quantity under given conditions) that can be used to identify it. (MS-PS1-3) [Assessment boundary specifies density as a key physical property.]

• Students describe mass, volume, and density accurately.
• Students explain the differences among mass, volume, and density.
• Students explain the relationships between mass, volume, and density.

ESS1.C The geologic time scale interpreted from rock strata provides a way to organize Earth’s history. Analyses of rock strata and the fossil record provide only relative dates, not an absolute scale. (MS-ESS1-4)

• Students can correctly identify the order in which different layers of sedimentary rock were deposited.
• Students explain the relative age of fossils based on their relative location in the strata.
• Students explain the difference between absolute and relative dating.

LS1.A In multicellular organisms, the body is a system of multiple interacting subsystems. These subsystems are groups of cells that work together to form tissues and organs that are specialized for particular body functions. (MS-LS1-3)

• Students can explain that each tissue is made of cells.
• Students can explain that each organ is made of tissues.
• Students can explain that the ability of an organ to perform its function is determined by the types of cells that compose it.