Learning Outcome e)

Learning Outcome e) Report and reflect on assessment information.

Evidence One. 
Wednesday 13th March 2013. 
Topic: Assessment. 
Notes taken in class. 

The whole point of teaching is for children to be learning, not just keeping them busy, and therefore assessment is essential to ensure this learning is happening.

Therefore: Assessment is for learning, to establish what children do know and it is the responsibility of the teacher to figure out how the child is learning.

As teachers we need to be careful with assessment, because if we do this in the wrong way, we can actually damage children's love of learning and make them feel unmotivated if they feel like they aren't achieving. Some assessment measures such as tests can also be inaccurate, unreliable and not valid.

Assessment should be factual information based on evidence. However this can be informal at times such as looking and listening to students and their interactions. This involves using objective teacher judgement. Children can also be assessed using peer and self assessment. This made me think of my current practicum where the students are asked to assess their own learning by circling the best letter they have made during handwriting.

In order for something to be considered assessment, children need to know why and what they are learning. Therefore teachers need to be explicit with children about learning outcomes and what children should be taking out of lessons. This can help students assess their own learning and form the ability to monitor their progress and goals towards learning outcomes.

Assessment is important for teachers in order to improve their teaching as it enables us as teachers to know whether the way we are teaching is reaching students. It enables teachers to also create individualised programs for students that focuses on each child's learning needs.

Formal assessment tools, such as national standards are also used in schools to be used for reporting purposes to the ministry, parents and children. It can help with school-wide planning and professional development.

Overall, the main aim of this lecture was to highlight the point: Assessment should be done with students, not to them.

Evidence Two
Wednesday 23rd May 2013
Topic: Assessment in practice: Using evidence. 
Notes taken in class. 

We first started talking about national standards and how these are being used by primary schools in New Zealand. Helen reiterated how NS were bought in originally to combat the different assessment judgements teacher were making across schools. They were therefore meant to create a standardised judgement of children across all schools. However as they are often vague, different schools have interpreted them differently, creating furthur problems. Although they have been put in place, nothing has been put in place to cater for what comes out of them ie. what do teachers do with students who 'score' a 'well below'. For national standards to work, there needs to be future backup resources to make them actually useful and beneficial for both teachers, students and their families.

Leanne Hill, one of the deputy principals at George Street Normal School came to talk to our class about how teachers at George Street are expected to do for assessment of their children. They have a very well organised and precise plan for teachers that goes across each term and has key dates for when teachers have to enter assessment information on the schools computer program. They also have a list of assessment tests/resources that can be used by teachers to collect this information. They also have a layout guide for their reports that teachers use. Leanne talked about how the reports are based on the assessment information that is collected through the terms it relates to. This kind of structure would be very useful to have at a school as a beginning teacher and it gave me insight into the immense amount of assessment that will take place throughout the year.

From Leanne's presentation, I found it the most beneficial hearing about how she would record formative information in the everyday classroom. Leanne said she would have check sheets for each unit/topic that featured a class list down one side and the lessons or learning outcomes across the top of the page. She would then write notes in each box about how the child did with that particular task/learning outcome or make a tick reference (eg. 1 tick = not getting it, 3 ticks = understanding fully). For maths, leanne would just keep this information in the back of the groups modelling book and scrawl information on it between groups, or straight after a group had finished with her.

The lecture helped me to understand what I would do in the classroom next year both in terms of informal and formal, diagnostic, formative and summative assessment. I feel I would feel comfortable being able to create my own timetable/plan for assessment if none was provided by the school. I always know that my mentor or other teaching staff will be able to help me also.

Evidence Three
Reading Reflection
Reading: Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & William, B. (2004). Working Inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom. In Phi Delta Kappan, 86 (1), pp. 8-21.

This reading focused on how students assessment can be improved in the classroom to support their learning. In a previous article written by the authors it was found that improving formative assessment can raise students learning standards and it also showed that their is room in classrooms for this improvement. However it was unanswered as to how to improve formative assessment and this is addressed in this follow up article. Assessment should not be thought of as a 'competition' between students in the class. Assessment should be seen as a way to help everyone learn, which has been shown to benefit students success. The authors, through research found four ways to implement impoved formative assessment in the classroom; questioning, feedback, peer and self assessment and the formative use of summative tests.

Helping to improve formative assessment through questioning involves:

•  Teachers increasing wait time to allow students time to explore answers. 
• Having high expectations where all students should be expected to form an answer. 
• A supportive classroom environment where wrong answers are encouraged as a means for all the class to learn together from the answer. 
• Think-pair-share. 
• Beginning lessons with a 'big question' - an open question that can generate discssion. 
• Asking simple questions during discussion such as "Why do you think that?" or "How might you express that?"
• Questions should explore issues that develop understanding and follow up activities have to rich in supporting these understandings. 
• Teachers will then learn more about the students' prior knowledge and about any misconceptions they have with a topic - this links to the constructivist perspective of learning. 

Helping to imporove formative assessment through grading involves: 

• Not giving students scores or grades - this has been shown not to help students improve their work and causes them to disregard any comments written with them. 
• Give comments that highlight what has been done well, what can be improved on and how this could be achieved. 
• Teachers could implement a comment sheet at back of students book where teacher writes a comment about a given piece of work and then students references a page in their book where they have worked to improve on parts highlighted in the comment. 
• Teachers could give only comments to teachers but record scores for themselves for reporting purposes. 
• Students should have the opportunity to respond to comments. 

Helping to improve formative assessment through self and peer assessment involves: 

• This helps students reach and understand a goal through being able to assess what they need to do to reach it. 
• Studnets may accept criticisms from each other wheras they may not take teachers' comments seriously. 
• The peer assessment will be in language students understand. 
• Students will take pride in their work and try and work to a high standard for their peers. 
• Students may be more likely to interupt or question a peer when they don't understand or agree whereas they might not do this with a teacher. 
• Self assessment - traffic lights. Student shows light for where they are. eg. red light (not getting it), orange (sort  of get it), green (totally get it). 
• Allow students to write success criteria with you or form their own. 
• Can use studnets reflection about their or peers understanding to know where to direct teaching next. 
• Have explicit critera for students. 

This reading helped to show me practical ways for how formative assessment could take place in the classroom in a way that has been proven to be succesful for students. I agree that many of these ideas will help students to engage in thinking about their own thinking and work which will allow teachers to assess where students are at and where next to direct learning for students.