All over Europe science teachers are taking up the opportunities that an inquiry based approach offers. Science teaching is no longer about memorizing facts, instead pupils are learning skills related to scientific practice, the ability to experiment, to research, to work in teams, to analyse and to find out for themselves how science works and plays a role in our everyday lives. Assessment remains a challenge however – how do teachers then assess the skills their students have learned in as objective a manner as possible? The 4 year SAILS project (link to http://www.sails-project.eu/) involved more than 2500 science teachers in 12 countries in exploring ways to carry out assessment and the results of their work are now available on the SAILS website developed by ATiT. Take a look at the classroom video recordings (link to http://www.sails-project.eu/sharing-practices.html) which really demonstrate how science teachers in different countries set up an effective assessment system to measure the inquiry skills of their students.
