Important Principles of Good Classroom Assessment

Reflection means if when you are teaching and you notice something wrong you change it straight away, or for the next time. Practitioners should always be self critical of past lessons and picking out on not only the good parts, but also parts of a lesson that didn’t go so well. For example in order for the practitioners to improve in their practice they could prepare a reflective journal, this would help them by reflecting back on what they did in the perivious lesson and if an activity didn’t go so well the practitioner could think of different strategies of improving the activity or planning a different activity, but on the similar topic and also providing different recourses in order to improve the activity. Also practitioners and staff members should not assume that their work place will automatically inform them about new developments, changes and updates which affect their work, practitioners must be prepared to be active in maintaining their own knowledge base and to ensure that their practice is in line with current thinking and new theories. Practitioners could this by incorporating an awareness of the needs to update their knowledge constantly into all of their work and activities by using resources such as the internet, journals, and libraries or other professional development, e.g. training, and to check their awareness of new developments in their work and to work with other professionals e.g. there

Assessing is a crucial component of education that informs teachers on individual development and understanding (Booker, Bond, Sparrow

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).

Describe and explain the ways in which assessment practice has the potential to impact students’ learning:

Ch. 1 – What are my classroom assessment responsibilities as a teacher and how can I fulfill them in ways that maximize the success of my students? This chapter speaks to the nature of what sound assessment is, and the importance of really involving students in this process. Assessment is, of course, FOR the students. The idea that assessment is used by the students, and that teachers should “demystify” assessment and the meaning of success in their classroom is a very simple one, but one that is often forgotten in the context of high-stakes test-ridden classrooms, and schools that view letter grades as the only evidence of learning.

Assessment is the process of establishing the nature and quality of our students’ learning and measuring whether learning has actually taken place. Assessment is a key part of the teaching cycle because it enables us to measure achievement against set standards in order to ascertain if our trainees have acquired the skills and knowledge needed at a given stage of training, to diagnose learning needs and to select for further training. It is also the means by which we measure learning at the end of a course and certificate achievements.

In my opinion, implementing reflective practice approach to professional development in order to expand our knowledge is a challenge. This challenge involves teacher’s ability to “reflect on

This paper will evaluate current existing education professional skills within a secondary educational setting. Reflective practice is described as crucial to enhancing employability. Therefore, reflecting on current skills as part of skill and performance development is paramount. Reflective practice will provide evidence of current practice. This evidence identifies further skills for development and training needs. Reflective practice includes a reflection of teaching and learning, upon learners within the setting. Brookfield, (1995) states that becoming a reflective teacher is about deciding which lens to use, by observing from differing viewpoints, whether from the reflective teachers’ perspective, colleagues or

Reflective practice might be understood differently by individual practitioners. There are many different perspectives on ‘Reflection’, what reflective practice involves and how the quality of teaching and learning is impacted by reflective practice (Bengtsson, 1995).

The idea of reflective practice in an academic context however is new to me, and I did feel lost at first. Now I can see how reflecting on my own learning and experiences has helped me to see where I have improved week on week and I think that as a result, my confidence has improved and I am able to contribute more in class, I have more confidence in my ability to teach and I feel that as a result I am learning more. The process or reflection, evaluation and adaptation is truly a cyclic one.

There is a usual but important cliché for a teacher´s career: a teacher has to be a life-long learner to be an effective teacher. Research on effective teaching over the past two decades has proved that effective practice is related to questioning, reflection and continuous professional development. Reflective practice can be a satisfying experience for a teacher evolution. It covers self-analysis, questioning one owns methods, assumptions about learning, theories as well as one´s attitudes and behaviour as a facilitator and communicator, in short making a deep analysis of the actions. Reflecting on teaching includes the teacher´s thoughts on the successfulness of the lesson planning and the implementation used to teach. Within the time progression the teacher´s reflection should be more precise and he or she could

There has been a rapid increase in the ides of critical reflective practice over the last few decades, (Gould, 2004). Before we look at the value and purpose of reflective practice, it is important to take in account ‘reflective practice’ carries multiple meanings from the idea of professionals engaging in self-analysis to that of engaging in critical dialogue with others. For example, with reference to teacher education, Larrivee, (2000) argues that reflective practice is fusing together personal beliefs and values into a professional identity whereby critical reflection can take place without staying trapped in unexamined assumptions and expectations of our professional practice. Therefore, from this, it can be concluded that as a teaching professional, it is important to develop reflections on ones’ professional and pedagogic knowledge to set aspirational goals for a continuing personal and professional development, in other words, it is a way of life.

Assessments are integral parts of instruction, they determine whether classroom goals have been achieved, and help teachers know what areas they should focus on and maybe reteach. They are great tools for developing lesson plans and answer questions such as; “do my students possess full understanding of the material?” There are many ways of assessing students’ learning, one of which I have personal experience with are on-the-spot assessments.

Assessment enables educators to provide feedback to their learners, this in turn promotes self-evaluation by the learner, as they use the assessment feedback to scrutinise and make judgements about the quality of their work (Spiller, 2009:6 & 7).

Informal assessment allows students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways which can benefit all students. It can include group or individual projects, presentations, essays, experiments, or demonstrations. Each of these can allow for “knowledge that transfers from one situation to another [which] is based on students’ abilities to understand central principles, see connections and make distinctions, and be strategic in attacking problems and analyzing information” (Darling-Hammond, p. 285). A variety of assessment methods allow for this to happen and for students to use their personal strengths to demonstrate understanding of the information. “Research into students’ preferences for alternative assessments shows that the assessments that have been positively evaluated by students were more authentic and thus made learning more realistic and powerful” (as cited in Brown, Irving, Peterson, and Hirschfeld, 2009, p. 99). Students should be able to think creatively and take hold of their own education and learning because they must ideally be prepared for a rapidly changing society where they must be able to adapt and formulate their own solutions. Teachers are able to provide feedback to the children so they know what was done effectively and what needs to be modified. Rather than teachers pressuring students to show understanding through a single examination, they will have opportunities to confidently demonstrate knowledge with less