Australian Professional Standards for Teachers
Graduate Standard 5.1
“Demonstrate understanding of assessment strategies, including informal and formal, diagnostic, formative and summative approaches to assess student learning” (AITSL, 2014).
In the words of Black (1993, p.1), “assessment lies at the heart of [education]. It can provide a framework in which educational objectives may be set, and pupils’ progress charted and expressed. It can yield a basis for planning the next educational steps in response to children’s needs.”
Assessment strategies include:
Formal assessment, which assess student learning against standardised, statistical, or other data.
Informal assessment, which focuses on the assessment of student learning, according to his/her task-specific performance, as opposed to standardised or statistical data.
Diagnostic assessment, which focuses on the assessment of students’ pre-existing knowledge or understanding, in order to inform the direction of subsequent teaching.
Formative assessment, which assesses students’ emerging knowledge and understanding of a concept, to provide meaningful feedback to teachers and students, and to inform the direction subsequent teaching.
Summative assessment, which assesses the level of student learning, by reference to specific grading criteria, for reporting back to teachers, students and parents/carers.
“Assessment practices are an integral part of teaching and learning” (DET, 2013). In order to enhance learning opportunities, we, as educators, must:
“Design assessment practices that reflect the full range of learning program objectives” (DET, 2013);
“Ensure that students receive frequent constructive feedback that supports further learning” (DET, 2013);
“Make assessment criteria explicit” (DET, 2013);
“Use assessment practices that encourage reflection and self-assessment” (DET, 2013); and
“Use evidence from assessment to inform planning and teaching” (DET, 2013).
During the course of my practical experience, I implemented a variety of formal, informal, diagnostic, formative and summative assessment practices, for the aforementioned reasons.
By way of example:
Situation:
Year 11 Legal Studies (Unit 2) 2016, at La Trobe P-12 College.
Task:
Over a series of consecutive lessons, I successfully implemented a variety of assessment strategies to:
reveal pre-existing student knowledge about the Victorian civil court hierarchy, and its purpose, in order to reveal students pre-existing knowledge and inform the direction of my subsequent teaching (diagnostic assessment);
assess emerging student knowledge about the Victorian civil court hierarchy, and its purpose, in order to provide constructive feedback to students and inform the direction of my teaching (formative assessment); and
at the conclusion of the unit, assess the students’ successful understanding of the Victorian civil court hierarchy and its purpose, for reporting to students and parents/carers (summative assessment).
Action:
Diagnostic assessment: Pre-existing knowledge was revealed through an interactive classroom discussion at the beginning of the lesson, whereby students discussed their understanding of the Victorian civil court hierarchy, and its purpose.
Formative assessment: Emerging knowledge was assessed by the students’ performance in handout activity, consisting of a series of question about the Victorian civil court hierarchy, and its purpose.
Summative assessment: The level of successful understanding achieved at the end of the unit was assessed by a SAC test, covering all key aspects of the unit’s substantive content, including the Victorian civil court hierarchy and its purpose.
Results:
The assessment strategies were successfully implemented and executed. Moreover, they achieved their intended outcome (as described above).
Evidence:
Powerpoint slide and lesson plan extracts.