Week 8 - 9 Revision Flashcards
Why do we assess students?
- To fulfil school reporting requirements?
- For teachers to check what students have learned at the end of the teaching -
learning process? - To give students quality feedback at the end of the teaching process so they can
improve their performance next time? (feed – forward?) - For teachers to check what students are learning during the learning process
- To give students quality feedback during learning so they can improve their
performance?
How does assessing our students help us determine whether
we are having an impact?
1.determine what has been learned
Assessment for learning
(Implies assessing student learning along the way to improve student
outcomes) - help them help themselves…
Assessment of learning
(implies assessing student learning at the end to determine the effect of
learning)
Formal: What students know and prepare for
Written testing, worksheets, assignments, practical tests, examinations etc…
Informal: When students don’t know they are being assessed
Questions, judgements formed through observation, discussions, shared answers with
classmates – hint, as teachers, we do this all the time!
Formative assessment (assessment for learning)
Undertaken throughout instruction, and is largely process-based i.e. ongoing
smaller assessment activities
Summative assessment (assessment of learning)
Undertaken at the end of a series of lessons as a summary of the total effect i.e. exam
Diagnostic assessment – checking what students already know
This is usually done at the start of a scheme of work or topic, and can be done
formally (i.e. a worksheet) or informally (i.e. asking questions / brainstorm) – you will
need to do this on prac
Fine-grained assessment – checking for specifics
Breaking assessment down into smaller chunks which are targeted at specific
knowledge or skills, or small learning steps – can be quite quick and targeted
(remember Vygotsky and ZPD???)
Student self-assessment
Metacognition
“Who learned something today, and what have you learned?” (students telling you or
each other something they have learned)
Students assessing own learning
For example, students complete self-reflective journals
Essential choices
Will I run a formative assessment program? (lots of small formal assessments)
Will I run a summative assessment program? (larger assessments at the end of topics)
Will I run a mixture of both formative and summative
Criterion referenced
Students are assessed against a set measure (set of criteria), and are not
compared against each other (potentially all students could get an ‘A’.
Alternatively, all students could fail if the assessment criteria are not realistic)
Norm referenced
Students are measured in comparison with other students, as a ranking,
moderation or standardisation (only the top 10% can get an ‘A’ regardless of
their ‘raw score’ based upon their comparative ranking)
Reliability (in written testing)
Will the assessment generate the same answers from the same students
over time?
Simple tests are generally more reliable than essays because they are less
prone to interpretation
How to ensure reliability
- Pilot the assessment first (get someone else to read it through)
- Swap assessments with colleagues and make mutual adjustments (a
form of moderation) – you can do this with your EDU1010 assignments! - Make sure the assessment contains another question on the same topic
reworded as a cross-check
Reliability
© Edith Cowan University
Validity
Validity is concerned with whether a test measures what it is supposed to.
Thus, a music teacher setting students an essay on Beethoven may receive a
series of biographies, whereas the teacher really wanted information on his
music
Construct validity
Is the assessment type the teacher has selected the most appropriate for this
situation? i.e. An essay on Beethoven. Is this the best way of assessing what
students ‘know’ about Beethoven’s music?
Content validity
Ensuring the assessment task measures what it is intended to measure. Thus,
it can be whether the assessment is worded appropriately? This is where
having someone else read your assessment task can be valuableValidity
Assessment principle 1
Assessing should be an integral part of teaching & learning
“Assessment should arise naturally out of the teaching and intended learning…..to
enable judgments to be made about student progress in ways that contribute to
ongoing learning”
Assessment principle 2
Assessments should be educative
“assessments should provide feedback that assists students in learning and informs
teachers planning….and should be made explicit to students”
Assessment principle 3
Assessments should be fair
“Assessment needs to take into account of the diverse needs of students, to be
equitable with regard to gender, disability, background language and socio-economic
status, and not discriminate on grounds that are irrelevant”
Assessment principle 4
Assessments should be designed to meet their specific
purpose
“Information collected to establish where students are in their learning for summative
purposes (assessment of learning) and for formative purposes (assessment for
learning)…..to inform subsequent teaching. The principles of assessment apply to all
forms of assessment.”
Assessment principle 5
Assessments should lead to informative reporting
“Reporting happens at the end of a teaching cycle and should provide an accurate
summary of the formative and summative assessment information collected for each
student”
Assessment principle 6
Assessment should lead to school-wide evaluation
processes
“Teachers and schools….need to be explicit about targets for improvement, and be
explicit about how progress towards those targets will be monitored”.
Personal
Beliefs can be shaped from your personal perspective, are subjective and often
coloured by direct experience
Anachronistic
Sometimes, our beliefs can be unknowingly old fashioned, and potentially outdated
Implicit
Beliefs can be ‘assumed’ and hidden – they are often inherited from family and friends
Naïve
Beliefs can be framed from only one perspective. Do you necessarily have the full
story?
Durable
Beliefs can be powerful and difficult to change
Filtering
we accept some of what is new which
conforms to what we already know
Blocking
we block or disregard what we don’t want to hear
Observation
The act of taking in what has happened, taking a mental note - what
Reflection
The act of observing, but then analyzing what happened – how and why
Anticipatory reflection can be thought of as reflection for action.
It takes place before teaching, and includes such things as:
- lesson planning (systematic anticipatory thinking),
- organization and preparedness, and
- deciding on a course of action after deliberating about
possible alternatives
Critical reflection
Digging deep to uncover strengths, enabling conditions and benefits, as well as
shortcomings, barriers and disadvantages
Inner foci
- Attention turned inwardly at our own practice (What did I do?)
Outer foci
- Attention turned outward at the social conditions in which these practices are
situated (how did the students react?)
See (technical information)
- Describe what I did (just the facts - a couple of dot points is
generally sufficient)
Think (exploration of self and context)
- What do I think about how I taught? (what I did well and not so well) – inner foci
- How did the students react to my lesson? (what engaged them and what didn’t)
- outward foci
Wonder (moving forward)*
- What do I wonder about (change) for next time? (how might I improve?)
What is AITSL and how can it guide me?
AITSL is the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership
They are a public statement of what constitutes high-quality effective teaching, and
cover three teaching domains: professional knowledge (1 / 2), professional practice
(3 / 4 / 5) and professional engagement (6 / 7)
They aim to set out what a teacher should know and be able to do, and are written
at four levels of proficiency: graduate, proficient, highly accomplished and lead.
