This project is a collaboration among educators from Blackfeet Community College, Diné College, Arizona State University, and Michigan State University to meet a need for culturally relevant geoscience assessment that complements place-based curriculum and pedagogy. Cultural validation of geoscience assessment contributes to more equitable assessment of undergraduate geoscience students, provides educators with a relevant means for assessing their students' conceptual understanding, involves educators in designing assessment appropriate for diverse students, and contributes to the conversation about cultural validity of science assessment in the broader science-education community. This project enhances Earth Systems Science Literacy by developing place-based assessment for diverse student populations engaged in learning geoscience through leveraging of local knowledge. As part of this collaborative work, this project provides in-service training to Tribal College educators in assessment design (including proper question layout, language use, and importance of cultural and communication validity), establishes new relationships between Tribal College and university educators, and leverages existing scholarly networks to help facilitate access to research-based educational assessment in the geosciences.
The primary outcome of this project was development of pathways for collaborations between discipline based education researchers and tribal college faculty, staff, and students. Personnel from two research-intensive state universities, one private comprehensive college, and two tribal colleges collaborated to develop culturally-valid assessments for use in evaluation of learning in geoscience classrooms. Pathways for collabroation between researchers and tribal college personnel were established through the implementation of four workshops focused on 1) development of learning goals aligned with place-based and culturally-valid learning; 2) the theory of assessment design; 3) practical implentaion of assessment questions; and 4) collaborative revision of assessment to allow real-world application in different tribal contexts. This effort resulted in the development of a method for designing culturally-valid geoscience assessment items in collaboration with Native communities within the northern Rocky Mountains and desert southwest. Resulting assessment items will be contributed to the Geoscience Concept Inventory, a national database for conceptual geoscience questions. As part of this project, we have customized the online interface to allow for real-time testing of new questions with tribal college students. Dissemination of results has occurred through to peer-reviewed publications, one regional conference oral presentation, and two presentations (one poster, one oral) at national geoscience conferences.
