Seriousness of Assessment

As a teacher, I often consider assessment to be rather a process i.e it is more than just an event. While there is a lot of research as to how the assessment influences instruction, there is relatively little attention paid to how students receive and react to assessment. It has in fact got different perspectives to it - social, emotional, or psychological.

1. Students need to learn how to use assessment feedback from an early age.
2. We need to better understand how students respond to assessment.
3. We need to learn how to promote positive classroom assessment climates.
4. We need to better understand how classrooms work and how assessment fits into effective classrooms.
5. We need to promote the students‘ voice in learning and assessment.
6. We need to understand how students work on assessments that are longer in duration and exist to a degree outside of the confines of the classroom.
7. We need to teach students how to monitor and self-regulate their independent learning efforts through better self-assessment.
8. We need to consider how students will react to major changes in curricular and assessment practice and policy. This should be a regular part of the consultation process. If we desire good outcomes from changes in policy and practice, we need to think those changes through from the perspective of the student.
9. We need to know how students experience tests‘ that are a regular part of classroom and school life such as, PATs and asTTle.
10. We need to better understand which types of assessment tasks students feel they are able to best demonstrate their level of understanding and skills.

In short, and in sum, the ten recommendations listed above can be boiled down to the simple phrase, ―Think of the students.

The Four aspects of Inquiry Learning

1. Relationships
• Know your students
• Students finding out about each other
• Students valued for who they are
• “Do you know me well enough to teach me?”
• Respectful connections: student/student, student/teacher
• Vital in order for students to take risks and colborate
• Becomes the fabric of an effectively functioning classroom
2. Student Voice & Choice
• Students involved in decision making around their learning
• Students co-constructing learning
• Different options are provided for learners and their learning
• Rich learning conversations with prompts for deeper thinking
• Listening/responding/conferring/prompting
• Inclusion of ‘passion’ type projects directly related to student curiosities
• Student voice/choice is deliberately planned for, regular and authentic
3. Learning what they are learning
• Visible student goal setting and action plans
• Clear learning intentions and success criteria
• Rich in the characteristics of the Key Competencies
• Looks like: participation, planned, focused, reflective, open minded, questioning,note making/taking, making connections to known/unknown
4. Provoking curiosity
• Using objects/resources that provoke curiosity and trigger further learning: fascinating images, compelling texts
• Deliberate questioning: What are you wondering about? What are you curious about?
• Making use of any opportunity to ask and answer questions
• Planned opportunities to model and record curiosities
• Planned opportunities to reinforce processes, follow-up actions and how to’s

The effects of standards based assessment

1. Tests can be used to help make promotion and retention decisions : Many factors enter into the important decision of moving a student into the next grade. Intuition is an important part of any decision but that intuition is enhanced when coupled with data. Standardized tests, and records of classroom performance on less formal tests are essential for supplying much of the data upon which these decisions are based.
2. Test results are important devices to share information with boards of education, parents, and the general public through the media: Classroom instruction depends upon a large support network. That network needs information if an adequate support level is to be maintained. Tests in various forms can supply that information. Informational needs vary among the support groups; specialized referrals for remediation and enrichment need test data for parental support and approval; effectiveness of educational planning is needed by boards of education: evidence which can be partially supplied by test data; financial support of existing programs by the general community needs evidence that can be supplied by test data.
3. Test results are useful tools for measuring the effectiveness of instruction and learning: Various types of tests can be employed when measuring how effectively teaching impacts student learning. Learning when viewed in the aggregate can be viewed within a district at three levels; district, building, and classroom. Standardized tests are particularly useful at all three levels. These tests can be used in norm, criterion and objective-referenced modes. Tests written within the district for large-scale use can also supply information focused specifically on unique, local aspects of educational programs.