5.1 Assess student learning
Demonstrate understanding of assessment strategies, including informal and formal, diagnostic, formative and summative approaches to assess student learning.
Purpose of assessment
I believe assessment is essential for the planning and delivering of the curriculum in my classroom, and allows differentiation of instructions, content and curriculum based on my students' needs and learning goals. Assessment is continuous, and informs the sequence of learning I design and the feedback I provide to students on their progress. Every written task my students complete is treated as a piece of meaningful assessment, and I teach students to respect themselves by looking after their work as records of their achievement. I prefer students to deliver smaller amounts of higher quality written work and choose not to give my students 'busy work' or tasks simply for practice. This ensures my students know I care about their work and their progress. It also limits the amount of marking books, and I find it easier to be confident in my grading of student achievement with well designed but minimal tasks.
Mapping student progress with assessment - Mathematics Hierarchy of needs pyramid* (left) for mapping differentiation by readiness to inform adjustments based on pre- and formative assessment. Student initials are used to indicate the level they are currently placed in – this changes as the term progresses, indicated by the highlighted circles where levels have already been modified from pre-assessment levels within two weeks. Levels are labelled by number and a short description is provided. The pyramid then informed tiered tasks throughout the topic allowing students to work on mutually respectful tasks at their appropriate level of challenge. The pyramid became a reference chart for students requiring additional support or extension, and when compared to the same diagram based on post-assessment became a useful map of student growth. This model was presented at multiple peer learning meetings by request throughout my placement. I would like to improve this in the future by developing consistently accurate methods of placing students within the hierarchy. *Modified to remove identifying information. |
Example: Summative Assessment in English
The persuasive writing rubric (above) was designed alongside the final assessment task and learning sequence for the unit. The comments for each band were informative for students, and were used when writing student reports to give a clear indication of why the students received the grades they were awarded and how they could improve their writing. This rubric, and all the persuasive writing assessment tasks I created, were presented to a moderation panel and were judged to be reliable, fair and valid.
Example: Formative assessment in Maths
The 'must/should/could' questions (right) represent three different 'exit levels' for students dependent on their levels of readiness. Student could also negotiate to have a different 'entry level' - for example: skip the lowest level of questions to complete the next two levels. The levels completed indicate the stage the student is at, where they are challenged and where they seek to be challenged. Generally once completing the 'must' set of questions, students can complete the tasks in any order as long as answers are labelled. Students quickly learnt this system and enjoyed the element of choice. It fostered a growth mindset by encouraging students to see challenge as a positive experience necessary to move forwards. I found the three levels of challenge aided with differentiation - it provided an extra level of challenge for all students who desired it, and eliminated the need for advanced students to complete more work rather than more challenging work. The three levels matched the three middle levels of the pyramid - those working at grade level, or just above or below. Gifted students were provided with different tasks and assessments, as they were working two levels above their normal grade. Students significantly below grade level were also working on different tasks more suited to their current ability and learning goals. As formative assessment, I gained a lot of valuable information (and evidence) for mapping student progress and ongoing lesson planning. |
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Professional Portfolio by Emma Caldwell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.