Assess It

Assessment Tools

There are many ways to assess the mastery of techniques and concepts covered in these laboratory activities.

• Observation of your students as they observe and discuss worm behavior.
• Observation of your students as they perform the various techniques required: using the dissecting microscope, picking worms, washing worms, preparing a plate with the experimental substance, pipetting worms onto plates, cleaning up after the lab and preparing worms for storage or disposal.
• Analysis of their lab reports according to the rubric below.
• Administering the Evaluative Test included in this lab.

What is a sufficient level of performance?

Students should be able to infer that alcohol has an observable effect on the motor behavior of the C. elegans because it diffuses through the worm's cuticle and directly affects the neurons and therefore the signals to the muscle cells. They should be able to expand upon this to infer a like effect on human neurons and muscle cells. These understandings should result from their own analysis of their observations and should appear in the Conclusions portion of their lab reports. These understandings may be more or less detailed depending upon the depth of knowledge of neuron and muscle cell function.

Every student should complete a laboratory report according to the instructions on the Student Laboratory Sheet.

Students should be able to successfully complete the Evaluative Test with a minimum of 70% correct answers.