Three Dimensional vs. Traditional Assessments

The biggest difference between traditional assessments and three-dimensional assessments is that traditional assessments are designed to evaluate students on their content knowledge alone. If we were going to put this into NGSS terms, these tests would focus primarily on the disciplinary core ideas.  In addition to testing content knowledge, three-dimensional assessments are written to also test the student’s ability to use the science and engineering practices and connect to the crosscutting concepts.