Electricity

Diagnostic assessment

Formative assessment

Summative assessment

Conceptual development progress map

Quiz

Formative assessment marking key

Summative assessment marking key

Diagnostic assessment

In the Questions to think about at the beginning of the module and in Station 6: Understanding electricity, there are questions that ask students to explain a number of scenarios regarding electricity and circuits. Students could discuss these questions in pairs and then report back to a whole-class discussion, enabling you to become aware of their existing understandings and misconceptions.

The research literature indicates that some of the most common misconceptions students have about electricity are that:

• batteries are a store of electricity or electric current
• electrical appliances are something that electricity flows to rather than flowing through, for example electricity flows to a light globe where it is consumed
• within circuits
  • current flows from the top of the battery to a globe, where the current is consumed and therefore there is no current in the return wire that connects with the bottom of the battery
  • current flows from both the top and bottom of the battery through the wires to the globe, where it is consumed
  • current flows from the top of the battery to the globe where some of it is consumed and the remainder flows back through the other wire to the base of the battery
• as some current is consumed by globes, if several globes are connected in series then subsequent globes will be dimmer than ones nearer the source of current
• power is synonymous with electricity or current.

There will be opportunities within the module to challenge these misconceptions. Many students, for example, believe that 'electric current flows from the battery through one wire to the globe where some current is consumed and the remainder flows through the other wire back to the battery'. To address this misconception, students will have opportunities to compare the amount of current in both wires using an ammeter, and to participate in a role play activity which shows that it is the electrical energy that is 'consumed'; or transformed into light energy in the globe rather than current.

Formative assessment

In each part of the Electricity module there is a closing discussion in which students, with teacher guidance, develop answers to focus questions that capture the main concepts developed within the part. These discussions will allow you to monitor students' conceptual development. Students' summaries of these discussions and other work samples may be used to compile a portfolio of selected work samples that can provide useful formative information about their developing understandings. This information will help you select activities at the appropriate level to challenge your students and, where appropriate, differentiate instruction within the class.

Items from the Electricity module quiz can be used individually at appropriate points through the Electricity module for formative assessment purposes. A formative assessment marking key is provided that links students' responses to the conceptual development progress map. This will give you information about students' levels of conceptual development (one to three stars) and help you select activities to challenge your students.

Summative assessment

The Electricity module quiz can be used as a traditional test for grading and reporting. A summative assessment marking key is provided for this purpose. The marking key can also be used to identify the level at which students understand the concepts (high, medium or low) in terms of the stages of the conceptual development progress map or can be used for marking or grading. You may choose to modify the quiz to suit local curriculum outcomes.

Conceptual development progress map

Student understandings

Challenge rating	Description	Examples
	Students explain electricity phenomena in terms of observable objects, events or relationships between them.	Students recognise a working circuit by correctly joined components that form a 'circle'. Students correctly classify conductors and insulators.
	Students explain electricity phenomena using simple notions of circuit and electrons, voltage current, resistance and power.	Students understand: that current flows through a complete circuit that current is a flow of electrons that more batteries give greater voltage that power is a rating of an electrical appliance.
	Students explain the relationships between voltage, resistance, current, power and energy.	Students understand: that current is increased by increasing voltage and decreasing resistance that electrical appliances consume electrical energy carried by electrons that the rate at which an appliance consumes electrical energy is its power.