Assessment & Reporting Perspectives

For students learn and achieve to their potential, all assessment and reporting should be developmental, not judgemental; this involves:

• the giving of constructive, ongoing and regular feedback to students and parents on strategies that will improve intended and agreed learning outcomes
• using multiple sources of feedback such as verbal and written comments
• regular reflection of our own professional practice, ensuring that we role model the willingness to engage in lifelong learning. 

Before we begin with our classes, it will benefit both our students and us to have a vision of what we want them to:

• act like
• look like
• sound like
• know and can do 

Because of our teaching and influence - action without a vision is aimless. 

Learning is enhanced more by developmental feedback than by our instruction. This does not mean test, test, test, but rather introducing to our students enabling learning strategies and thinking tools such as Habits of Mind, Six Thinking Hats, Thinker Keys, PMI, SWOT and so on.

To enable all students to demonstrate their learning, assessment must cater for individual:

• learning styles
• multiple intelligences 
• interests to how it relates to and connects with their world. 

The following approach to assessment has the capacity to paint a clear picture for parents and inspire a student owned learning perspective to assessment.

 From day one of introducing a topic: 

• do a class brainstorm on what they know already or a Think, Pair, Share
• when teaching the material ask students to frame their own questions from the perspectives of their
• personal experiences; everyone is different
• take anecdotal notes on individual students as we go
• ask each student to contribute a question on the material to compile a class quiz
• send the quiz home to parents and ask them to go through it with their children, comment on their child’s understanding and return it to us
• towards the end of the topic, ask each student to do a self assessment of their learning; the KWHL Grid is a very effective tool here; collect and record their assessments
• put students in groups of 3 or 4 and ask them to do a peer assessment of each other’s work using agreed criteria; rubrics work well here; collect and record their assessments
• set a variety of open ended learning and assessment tasks to discover more about student s’ :
  - Understanding and interests
  - new connections they may have created to the topic
  the effectiveness of our teaching and learning strategies
• encourage students to invent projects to extend and apply what they have learnt; they are very creative

The beauty of this multifaceted approach is that students are relating to the material from their own individual perspectives, thus enhancing relevance and meaning for them; they are engaged.

When used correctly, assessment is a vital cog in learning and teaching, enabling students to explore, discover and connect for themselves in a scaffolded environment.

“Correction does much, but encouragement does more.” Goethe