Good Example Of Essay On  principles Of Assessment For Learning

Principles of Assessment for Learning

Some of the notable characteristics of this assessment are immediate feedback, occurs during teaching and learning process, and is developed by the instructor often with students’ involvement. They are also not timed and scoring can involve both the teachers and the students.
This type of assessment is usually done on a national or state scale, usually once per year. As they are important in making decisions about the student’s future, for instance progress to higher educational levels, they are high stake. There scoring is external following specific scoring procedures. Unlike formative assessments, the feedback is not immediate.
Considering its importance and implications in an individual’s life, assessment of learning methods should be of high quality. This is to say, they should be of high reliability, validity, and also equity. Reliable assessment tools are those which provide consistent results in repeated measures. On the other hand, validity of assessment task is the extent to which the assessment tool accurately measure what it purports to measure.

Reporting

Reporting is the process of giving feedback to students on their achievement in assessment. It should be easy to be interpreted by the parents and the students. All reporting methods should demonstrate honesty, fairness and give detailed information on the outcome of learning process. Reporting takes a number of forms and can include graphic displays, standard deviations, means, percentiles, and stanines.

Informal assessments

Informal assessments are methods of gathering information about the students’ achievements without the use of standardized instruments (Charlton, 2005). They are usually employed by teachers in a classroom setting to regularly keep track of students’ learning process and consequently adjust instruction. Some of the methods include observation, anecdotal records, time sampling, event sampling, running records, rating scales, portfolio, checklists, and interviews and work samples.
These refer to standardized measures of students’ achievement and include aptitude, achievement, and ability tests (Sacks, 2001). They have high reliability and validity, and specific scoring processes. The scorers must also meet a certain minimum criteria and must receive adequate training before scoring. The assessments are usually conducted under strict guidelines to ensure fairness. Most of these assessments are usually from test development companies. The assessments are either criterion-referenced or norm- referenced.
In norm-referenced assessments, a learner’s performance is compared with that of the norm group (those of other students). In this type of assessment, performance can be described as worse than, better than, or equivalent to those of the group. A student’s knowledge, skills, and ability can also be said to be better or less than of the comparison group. On the other hand, criterion-referenced assessment involves comparison of a learner’s performance with a predetermined criterion. This criterion is set prior to students undertaking the exams and used as a basis for assessment which can be, for example, a minimum pass mark.

Diagnostic assessments

These are assessments used to identify what learner’s strengths and weaknesses (Caffrey, 2009). This will then enable the instructors to modify the instructional methods accordingly and sometimes used to place students in special schools and educational services.

Formative assessments

Is a type of assessment used to monitor the learning progress of a student and give feedback that can be used by the instructors to adapt their teaching to students learning needs (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & William, 2005). It is also essential to students in improving their learning. They include formal and informal methods used to obtain evidence needed to improve learning. Other benefits to students are in terms of motivation, identification of strengths and weaknesses, goal-setting, and also encourage learners to be focused.

Summative assessments

A type of assessment that gives evidence of performance used to judge student’s competence at the end of a course or a unit. The achievement can also be used to evaluate program’s or course’s effectiveness. They are used to determine acquisition the skills, attitude, behavior, and knowledge of the students versus the expected.

Importance of providing timely and appropriate feedback

Immediate feedback helps to motivate the leaner thus making the learner interested in discovering more about the learning contents. It is also important in enabling the learner to take corrective measure where appropriate and reduces anxiety. Moreover, with immediate learning, there is in-depth learning and thus more retention of the contents (Moore & Moore, 2004).

Using assessment results for evaluation and improvement of teaching programs

Moderation
In development of assessment and scoring process, quality assurance is vital. The process of ensuring high quality and standards in assessment is termed moderation (Gipps, 2011). Some of the ways of ensuring quality standards include use of teacher experts to develop assessments, training of teachers on how to ensure standards in development of assessments, consistent and appropriate awarding of grades, thorough scrutiny of marking schemes and items, and giving feedback to scorers on scoring standards of other markers. The three types of moderation processes include calibration, expert, and conferencing model (QCCA, 2015).

Moderation process

Syllabus development. Syllabuses development is done by QCAA in partnership with instructors, academics and curriculum specialists, and aided by writing groups of subject specialists. Schools play a role in development of new syllabuses via subject specialist on the committee wring syllabus (QCCA ,2015).
Approval of work program. Schools are required to write work programs with the use of syllabus and requirements of the work program. The program consists of assessment program, organization of the course, and intended student learning.
Monitoring of standards of assessment. In this process, review panels deliberate on a school’s implementation of a particular course and assessment choices made in the subjects.
Reviewing and Verification. In this process, review panels advice schools on achievements as compared to syllabus standards descriptors.
Comparability. This refers to the process by which panel experts identifies the evidence that judgments on student achievement are consistent across the states.
Confirmation. This refers to confirmation of school’s exit proposals.
Random sampling. This is a process intended to give information on the comparability of year 12 achievement decisions.

Criteria and standards based assessment

These are assessments that describe achievements of the students under different levels called performance standards depending on the scores attained in the course, unit, or program. A performance denotes a particular level of mastery in a specific content area and is based on cut scores representing proficiency levels. The three common standards are basic, proficient, and advanced. In this assessment grades are awarded to show levels of performance a learner has attained in relation to pre-set standards. Unlike norm-referenced assessments, grades are not compared to performance of the norm group.

On balance judgments

These refer to the use of task-specific standards that describe the intended outcomes of a course so as to make judgments about the student’s responses in an assessment.

Curriculum alignment

This refers to the process of ensuring that the curriculum, instruction, and assessment techniques are matching. Alignment can also imply the process of ensuring that teaching and learning processes are in line with states or national standards (QCCA, 2015).

Feedback

This is defined as the process of reporting assessment results to students, teachers, and parents. This enables them to know how the student performed in a particular assessment. The importance of feedback depends on the type of assessment. For instance, for formative assessments, feedback is also useful in informing instruction and monitoring learning process.

References

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. & William, D. (2005). Assessment for Learning. (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Education
Caffrey, E. D. (2011). Assessment in Elementary and Secondary Education: A Primer. Collingdale, PA:Diane publishing
Chappuis, S., Stiggins, R. J., Arter, J. & Chappauis, J. (2004). Assessment for Learning: An Action Guide for School Leaders. Portland, Oregon: Assessment training institute
Charlton, B. C. (2005). Informal Assessment Strategies: Asking Questions, Observing Students, and planning lessons that promotes successful interaction with the text. Markham, Ontario: Pembroke publishers
Gipps, C.V.(2011). Beyond Testing (Classic Edition): Towards a theory of educational assessment. New York, NY:Routledge publishers
Moore, R. & Moore, M. A. (2004). Active Teaching and Learning Strategies: Creating a Blueprint for Success. London, UK:Trafford publishing
QCCA (2015). P–12 assessment and moderation resources. Retrieved from https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/10409.html
Sacks, A. (2001). Special Education: A Reference Handbook. New York, NY: ABC-CLIO
Wilson, M. R. & Bertenthal, W. (Eds) (2005). Systems for State Science Assessment. Washington, DC: National academic press