Assessment Literacy Course Analysis

Assessment plays a significant role in the learning experience of students. It determines their progression through their programmes and enables them to demonstrate that they have achieved the intended learning outcomes. It is assessment that provides the main basis for public recognition of achievement, through the awarding of qualifications and/or credit.

Haydn (2009 cited in Capel et al 2009 page 329) defines assessment as "all those activities which are undertaken by teachers, and others, to measure the effectiveness of teaching and learning".

1. Name two signs you would look for to let you know Vara is ready to end counselling.

Assessments should contribute to a student’s education and learning by including students in the learning process educators are able to assist and extend students learning (SCSA, 2014).

The reliability of an assessment in a perfect situation should produce the same results if marked by another tutor or if that examiner unknowingly receives the same paper again. If different marks are given the assessment is consequently unreliable and proves that this assessment is subjective.

Blaze mother is currently working at the school where Blaze goes to and is in a Preschool classroom for special education students. At the end of the year they have a magician come in and she comes to a realization about what normal is. “Where is there a line between normal and abnormal” This stands out to me because everyone is different and unique in their own way. Who determines what normal is. We were discussing in my Advanced Literacy Practice class on who determines what makes this passage a 2nd grade level. My question is, why are people making generalizations on where a kindergartener of 3rd grader should be at. In science we all physically grow at different rates based off of our genes, shouldn’t this is be used as the same reason

I believe assessment is important and is the basis of planning for instruction, whether it is diagnostic prior to learning, formative during units or lessons, or summative to evaluate student learning. Rowan’s quote in Every Teacher’s Guide to Assessment, "After all, in the end, the problem is less the idea of testing itself, but how we design them, apply, them, and make use of their data." definitely has an impact on my assessment practices. I feel it is necessary to make sure the student acquires all aspects of the learning. Assessment should be used to bring a value for students. Within my instruction, I implement daily formative assessments which may include turn and share, quick writes, graphic organizers, online discussion responses, KahootIt, and other forms. Designing the appropriate formative assessment to match the lesson is important to assess how the learning is taught and whether the students are showing progress. In addition, I have worked on building blocks of formative assessments in checklist style leading up to the point of reviewing for a summative test. Each of these are checked off as completed and instant feedback is given. Feedback from an assessment is essential to student learning and how a teacher will ensure the content is being acquired.

Assessment, both formative and summative, plays a significant part in the learning experience as it determines progression and enables learners to demonstrate that they have achieved their desired learning outcomes.

In my point of view assessment is a testing tool by which a teacher or assessor can use to detect the outcomes of teaching, learning or assessment process with the learners by

Assessment is carried out to ensure that learning has taken place. This is used to measures the learner’s knowledge and skills in their chosen area of learning. Assessment can be used to encourage learners to ask questions on anything they have not understood, learners at some point will have to know that they will have to prove their knowledge and understanding to the standards of the awarding body.

Improved Assessment Literacy: Unlike the current education system that treats assessment more separated from teaching, the core teaching standards recognize that teachers need to have greater knowledge and skill on how to develop a number of assessments, how to balance use of formative and summative assessment as

The National Assessment Program- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is designed to test the knowledge and abilities of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It is undertaken nationwide, every year, in the second full week in May, by over 1 million students (ACARA, n.d.). Also, NAPLAN comprises of four domains, including; reading, writing, language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy (NAP, 2016a). The NAPLAN numeracy assessment evaluates students’ mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding. It also assesses the students proficiency, understanding, fluency, problem-solving and reasoning across the three content strands of mathematics: number and algebra; measurement and geometry; and statistics and probability (NAP, 2016b).

Assessment is the process by which individual learning is assessed. Testing monitors the student progress and can also be used as a measure of terminal or summative effectiveness of the teaching/learning process.

Assessments provide learners opportunities to develop mastery of their ideas, skills and competencies, whilst educators use assessment tasks as both teaching and learning tools (Spiller, 2009:6 & 7).

Although assessment of writing is regarded as a kind of performance assessment, and performance assessment focuses on the evaluation of learners in the process of performing the assigned tasks, writing assessment procedures in academic contexts have a long way off from the pure form of performance assessment. In language testing and assessment, there has been a shift from a psychometric, reductionist language testing paradigm to an edumetric, anti-reductionist language assessment paradigm. Wolf, Bixby, Glenn and Gardner (1991) remark that testing culture is related to employing tests/exams merely to determine achievements/grades while an assessment culture is related to using assessments to improve instruction and promote student learning. To Shepard (2013), a worldwide focus on the use of innovative assessment, such as performance-based and criterion-referenced assessments, has established questionable motives for teachers.