stacey


 * ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING**

Some thoughts...

I believe assessment of student learning should: Assessment is an evolving process of assessing students either formally or informally to gauge their understanding and knowledge in order to plan/adapt teaching and learning experiences. Assessment should be no longer seen as separate from instruction and something that we do at the end of a unit or learning sequence. With new syllabus documents and the Quality Teaching Framework it is important for all teachers to understand as to the concept of assessment for and of learning that assessment is something we do everyday. The most influential concept on my own philosophy on assessment and reporting that I discovered last year has been ‘backward mapping’. In basic terms before you do anything you as the teacher critically think and reflect about the following question and then design your assessment task around this. **What are the enduring understandings, big concept/s, big picture stuff or product that I want the students to know, understand and or produce as a result of doing this task?** This is what my assessment of student learning revolves around. In my classes students receive an assessment sheet which has explicit instructions, outcomes being assessed, cross curriculum content being covered, due date, weighting, marks and so on included. Also included in all my assessment tasks are tools, checklists and scaffolds to support students such as lotus diagrams, planning sheets and research sheets. One of the most important aspects of an assessment task though is that marking criteria are established so that the expectations of the teacher are explicit. In the past I have constructed these and I have also constructed these collaboratively with the students. I am a strong believer in students assessing their own work, getting one of their peers to assess their work and finally myself offering feedback. I try to include self, peer and teacher feedback in each assessment task given. A teacher can never underestimate the importance of feedback to students and parents on learning. This feedback needs to be where possible positive with one or two areas that students could improve on next time. Further this feedback needs to be explicit and given to students in a timely fashion. What is the point in giving students a task to do in term 1 and not giving them any feedback until term 2?
 * be fair
 * be understandable by all students and parents:
 * be part of the learning process;
 * enable all students to achieve success;
 * be authentic;
 * be based on syllabus requirements.

Element 3 - Teachers plan, assess and report for effective learning 3.2.1 - Identify and articulate clear learning goals that reflect important conceptual understandings of the content/discipline(s) taught. What I **know** about element 3.21. || **W** What I **want** to know about element 3.21 || **L** What I **learnt** about element 3.2.1 ||
 * Professional Teaching Standards - KWL**
 * **K**


 * Quality Work Agreements**