NGSS – Task Annotation Project in Science
Three-dimensional science standards based on A Framework for K-12 Science Education raise several questions about how to monitor student progress toward those learning goals. The Task Annotation Project in Science (TAPS) was launched to provide an answer to the questions “what does it look like to ask students to demonstrate progress toward three-dimensional standards?” and “what are the most important features of high-quality science tasks?” By asking a diverse set of experts to identify concrete features of three-dimensional assessment tasks across multiple domains of science across the K-12 spectrum, this project was designed to 1) collaboratively provide concrete, annotated examples of different kinds of three-dimensional assessments, highlighting features of high-quality science assessments and opportunities for improvement, and 2) surface lessons learned from looking across grades, domains, and task purposes.
This suite of resources includes annotated examples of assessment tasks for elementary, middle, and high school as well as a series of short resources that highlight the major takeaways across the whole project.