When I began thinking about designing a formative assessment for use in my classroom, I thought of the issues that my students are beginning to encounter. One such challenge for the students is chronological order. Often students have little to no exposure to concepts of negative numbers or a numbering system like that of BCE. Classes that I have taught in previous years have had a difficult time grasping the concept of using the BCE and CE standards. I have decided to create a formative assessment to determine my students understanding of the formation of a timeline, and how to calculate time between different events. Using this tool will help determine if my students are understanding the key concepts, as well as distinguish student’s ability to transfer the skill to unfamiliar timelines and dates. The assessment will help the students meet the following criteria set for Michigan social studies grade 7 level standards.
H1.1.1 Explain why and how historians use eras and periods as constructs to organize and explain human activities over time.
H1.1.2 Compare and contrast several different calendar systems used in the past and present and their cultural significance (e.g., Sun Dial, Gregorian calendar – B.C./A.D.; contemporary secular – B.C.E./C.E.; Chinese, Hebrew, and Islamic/Hijri calendars).
I will use my formative assessment to help the students before a unit test to check their progress as well as give them a chance to think critically about the information presented. A working title for this assessment is Alternate Timelines. The assessment will use a program called SmartDraw which has a good selection of timeline templates for the students to choose from. I will allow the students to work in pairs so that they can collaborate with peers. Their first step will be to correctly place years on the timeline. Then to engage the students more, I will have them think of three questions about the timeline, i.e. how many years separate 230 BCE and 1920 BCE? Or what is the difference between BC and BCE? This will help make them critically think about how chronological order works and calendar systems. The students must first solve their own questions then they will trade timelines with an assigned pair. When given the new timeline they will check to see if the timeline is correct, then answer the questions. For the assessment, I will give students the directions below.
- Find a partner in the class.
- Each group will take a paper with 15 random years that are BCE or CE.
- Take one MacBook
- Open SmartDraw application
- Under New document select Timeline
- Select a template to use for your timeline.
- Use the add text feature, type both partners’ names in the top left corner of the page.
- Correctly place all 15 years from your list of assigned years into the timeline.
- Once all the years are on the timeline click the add text button to add three questions about your timeline. For example: How many years separate 340 BCE and 1190 CE? Or what is the importance of the calendar year?
- On a separate sheet of paper write the answers to your questions, put both partners’ names at the top.
- Double check your work, and then print.
- Check the projector to see which team to trade timelines with.
- Now that you have a new timeline look it over. Are the years in chronological order?
- If yes, proceed to step 14
- If not, using a pencil, draw where the years should be located.
- Look at the questions listed on the timeline and respond to them.
- Write both partners names on the bottom right corner.
- Turn into the third-hour box along with your timeline answers.
Sources
Driscoll, K. (2017, October 17). Artoba Tours. Artoba Tours. Retrieved from https://www.artobatours.com/articles/archaeology/bp-bc-bce-ad-ce-cal-mean/
(n.d.). Grade Level Content Expectations 7th grade Social Studies. Retrieved from https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/7thgradeSSGLCE_229672_7.pdf
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