RESUMO
Embedded assessments, tasks within the context of instruction, can serve as important tools for improving teaching and learning. In this article, we report on the assessment design principles and a nine-step development model that guided the construction of innovative embedded assessments. Using multiple sources of data-expert reviews, a conceptual test blueprint, student interviews, focus group interviews, and student responses to assessments-we were able to analyze the extent to which our assessments align with research-based design principles. Specifically, our results demonstrate that the assessments: (a) align with learning and instructional goals; (b) are cognitively challenging; (c) support student learning; and (d) have reduced potential bias. These assessments were developed in the context of an introductory biochemistry course for nonbiochemistry majors with learning goals in areas of: scientific content, socio-scientific issues, and evidence-based decision making skills. The assessment design principles and development model are generalizable to other science disciplines. We discuss how the application of these design principles can generate valid and reliable embedded assessments that can be integrated into a modern classroom.
Assuntos
Biotecnologia/educação , Educação de Pós-Graduação/métodos , Avaliação Educacional , Ciência/educação , HumanosRESUMO
Presented here is the complete genome sequence of Thiomicrospira crunogena XCL-2, representative of ubiquitous chemolithoautotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria isolated from deep-sea hydrothermal vents. This gammaproteobacterium has a single chromosome (2,427,734 base pairs), and its genome illustrates many of the adaptations that have enabled it to thrive at vents globally. It has 14 methyl-accepting chemotaxis protein genes, including four that may assist in positioning it in the redoxcline. A relative abundance of coding sequences (CDSs) encoding regulatory proteins likely control the expression of genes encoding carboxysomes, multiple dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphate transporters, as well as a phosphonate operon, which provide this species with a variety of options for acquiring these substrates from the environment. Thiom. crunogena XCL-2 is unusual among obligate sulfur-oxidizing bacteria in relying on the Sox system for the oxidation of reduced sulfur compounds. The genome has characteristics consistent with an obligately chemolithoautotrophic lifestyle, including few transporters predicted to have organic allocrits, and Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle CDSs scattered throughout the genome.
