Assessment

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Assessment

• Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
  TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• What is Assessment?
• Schools are to undertake assessment to collect
  information about students learning. This will
  occur through both formal and informal
  activities
• Assessment is the process of identifying,
  gathering and interpreting information about
  students' learning.
• The central purpose of assessment is to provide
  information on student achievement and progress
  and set the direction for ongoing teaching and
  learning.

Policy Standards for Curriculum Planning and
Programming, Assessing and Reporting to Parents
K-12
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Who is to be assessed?

• Assessment of student learning will be undertaken
  for all learners, including students with
  disabilities
• enrolled in regular classes
• enrolled in special classes or in special
  schools
• accessing life skills outcomes and content in
  Years 7-10 or following life skills patterns of
  study in Years11-12.

Policy Standards for Curriculum Planning and
Programming, Assessing and Reporting to Parents
K-12
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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Quality assessments should be
• Valid
• Reliable
• Authentic
• Fair
• Comparable
• Educative
• Manageable

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Formative Summative
• Role of formative assessment
• indicates to student and teacher the progress in
  learning feedback
• Role of summative assessment
• how effective was the instruction?
• -ultimate summative assessment HSC

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Formative assessment often called assessment for
  learning
• Summative assessment often called assessment of
  learning

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Assessment for Learning
• acknowledges that assessment should occur as a
  regular part of teaching and learning and that
  the information gained from assessment activities
  can be used to shape the teaching and learning
  process.
• in the K-10 Curriculum Framework is designed to
  enhance teaching and improve learning. It gives
  students opportunities to produce the work that
  leads to development of their knowledge, skills
  and understanding.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Assessment for Learning
• Assessment for learning involves teachers in
  deciding how and when to assess student
  achievement, as they plan the work students will
  do, using a range of appropriate assessment
  strategies including self-assessment and peer
  assessment.
• Teachers of K-12 students will provide students
  with opportunities in the context of everyday
  classroom activities, as well as planned
  assessment events, to demonstrate their learning.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Assessment for learning
• Driving force
• signals to studentswhat they should be
  learning and how they should be learning it
  (Biggs, 2003)
• Context
• assessment component of teaching
• contextual-qualitative
• Students Role
• likely to be participatory

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Assessment of learning
• Driving force
• grading or ranking selecting reporting
• Context
• separate from teaching (you dont tell the kid
  the answers until review, if it occurs!)
• psychometric-quantitative (you need the numbers)
• Students role
• Put up ? take the punishment / bask in the glory

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Assessment for learning
• Britain Paul Black and Dylan William, conducted
  the major review of research on classroom
  assessment and its impact.
• Resulted in the pamphlet, Inside the black box.
  
• The review showed that effective, informal
  classroom assessment (teacher and peers) with
  constructive feedback to the student raised
  levels of attainment.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Improving learning through assessment
• Dependent on five key factors
• effective feedback to students
• active involvement of students in their own
  learning
• adjust teaching to take account of the results of
  assessment
• a recognition of the profound influence
  assessment has on the motivation and self-esteem
  of students
• the need for students to be able to self-assess
  and understand how to improve.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Why assessment for learning is critical
• Greater recognition of how people learn best
  constructivist approach people create meaning,
  using prior knowledge, from what they do
• knowledge is created by the students learning
  activities
• active learning, discovery learning
• learning as and for conceptual change
  challenging conceptions

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Why assessment for learning
• Recognition of the benefits of peer-and
  self-assessment
• brings students into the loop self-reflection
• more authentic
• need to create lifelong learners

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Why assessment for learning
• Greater recognition of
• how strongly assessment influences student
  behaviour
• assessment as the strongest determinant of what
  students learn

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Student view on learning
• What is the syllabus?
• Students arent experts on education teachers
  are! (metalanguage of teaching)
• The assessment determines what I learn more than
  the syllabus
• If its not an assessment task Im not doing it
• Is this assessable?
• Will this be in the exam?
• the assessment IS the syllabus
• ? and why not?

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Teacher view on learning
• Syllabus driven
• Today we are covering dot point.
• Todays lesson is aimed at outcome.
• This assessment task is assessing outcomes..
• External exam driven
• This was an exam question in 2002
• In the 2004 SC
• Assessment task driven
• Thats in the assessment task so Id better
  teach that well
• and make sure they know it
• Student responsibility
• I taught it, I know I did.
• You did that as an assignment
• That was covered in the homework
• Kids always get that wrong

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Qualities of the assessment for learning
  feedback
• Sufficient feedback is provided, often enough
  in enough detail
• The feedback is provided quickly enough to be
  useful to students
• Feedback focuses on learning rather than on marks
  or students
• Feedback is linked to the purpose of the
  assessment and to criteria
• Feedback is understandable to students

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• What students must do to advance their learning
• Feedback is received by students and attended to
  they do something with it
• Feedback is acted upon by students to improve
  their work or their learning

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• In practice, this means
• Clear evidence is gained about how to drive up
  individual attainment (for both teacher and
  student)
• Therefore
• Students know what they need to improve and how
  best they can do so
• A clear link between student learning and lesson
  planning occurs

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Assessment for Learning occurs when evidence and
  dialogue identify where kids are in their
  learning, where they need to go and how best for
  them to get there and this information is
  conveyed to the kid.
• Should programming indicate what that evidence
  could look like?

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Effective assessment for learning
• is embedded in the teaching and learning as an
  essential component
• involves sharing learning goals with kids
• aims to help kids know and recognise the
  standards they are aiming for

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Effective assessment

• involves pupils in self-assessment
• provides feedback that empowers students to
  recognise their next steps and then to take them
• is underpinned by a confidence that every
  student can improve
• has both teacher and student reviewing and
  reflecting on assessment data.

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Assessment for learning

• Consider the key questions
• What do the students need to learn?
• Why does that learning matter?
• What do the students need to do to and
  demonstrate to show they have done that learning?
• How well do they have to do it?
• Where is it taking them?
• Plan the teaching learning program and
  assessment to answer these questions.

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Assessment for Learning

• Identify where students are on the K-10 Science
  continuum and design learning activities that
  will move them along the continuum

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Collaborative planning and quality assessment
  processes
• In Science teaching we recognise that assessment
  is a two-way mode of communication.
• As well as gathering information about students
  learning, we know that it is through assessment
  that we communicate to students what it is that
  we value in Science.
• Assessment is anchored on a standard

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Assessment of learning

• Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
  TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Assessment of learning
• Driving force
• grading or ranking selecting reporting
• Context
• separate from teaching (you dont tell the kid
  the answers until review, if it occurs!)
• psychometric-quantitative (you need the numbers)
• Students role
• Put up ? take the punishment / bask in the glory

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate
Assessment of Learning

• Assessment for learning informs assessment of
  learning
• Enables teachers to report on the status of
  student learning at various points in the
  teaching and learning program.
• Involves teachers making holistic professional
  judgements of student achievement, based on
  evidence collected from both formal and informal
  measures of each students performance against
  defined criteria, collected over time from a
  number of assessment for learning activities.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Quality assessment
• Assessment promotes learning/ diagnostic
• Assessed tasks capture sufficient student time
  and effort
• Assessment tasks distribute student effort evenly
  across topics weeks
• Assessment tasks engage students in productive
  learning activity
• Assessment communicates clear and high
  expectations to students
• Assessment is planned as part of programming and
  feeds into progam revision - ESSA

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Collaborative planning and quality assessment
processes

• What kind of assessment can I use to provide
  students with the opportunity to
• show what they have learnt
• address significant scientific content
• provide quality feedback to the student on their
  learning?
• Assessment must be valid and reliable.

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Collaborative planning and quality assessment
processes

• In practice, effective science assessment is
  characterised by tasks which
• connect to prior learning
• engage students, are relevant and are valued by
  them
• allow students to demonstrate their science
  skills in context
• allow students to show what they know and can do.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• It is imperative that we build understanding of
  the standards to be able to appropriately award
  grades
• This understanding can be built by
• Reflecting on the syllabus stage statements
• Reflecting on the Course Performance Descriptors
  (CPDs)
• Accessing the Board of Studies assessment advice,
  Assessment Resource Centre (ARC) and the
  Standards Packages
• Professional dialogue - Reflecting on past
  student performances

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Understanding the Standards
• The Stage Statements in the K-10 syllabuses
• summarise the knowledge, understanding, skills,
  values and attitudes gained by achieving the
  outcomes for a stage of learning.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• The Course Performance Descriptors for the
  K-10 syllabuses
• have been developed from the Boards general
  performance descriptors, and provide a more
  complete description of typical performance in
  this course at each grade level (A-E) .

http//arc.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/cpds/stage-5/
science.doc
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Understanding the Standards CPDs for Science
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Understanding the Standards

• Accessing
• Advice on Programming
• and Assessment
• http//www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/p
  df_doc/science_710_support.pdf
• The Standards Packages
• The ARC
• http//arc.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au//

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The Assessment Resource Centre supports
assessing and reporting student achievement
relative to standards
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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Through using the ARC website materials you can
  become familiar with the A to E standards by
  reading
• the descriptions for each grade
• the tasks and activities
• the work samples, and
• the grade commentaries.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Through use of the ARC website materials you can,
  while reading the student work samples provided,
  think of your experiences with students you have
  taught who have produced work of a similar
  standard.
• This will give you a mental picture of the
  knowledge, skills and understanding represented
  by a student that would have been awarded that
  grade.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Discussions with your colleagues is critical. It
  may be especially helpful for
• New teachers
• Or
• Where a teacher is not experienced with that
  stage

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Using work samples aligned to grades assists
  teachers to have a clear understanding of the
  standards at each grade level.
• For each subject area in each stage, the samples
  of student work, together, show the standard of
  work typically produced by students performing at
  that grade level.
• Teachers can use this information to assist them
  to consistently apply the Common Grade Scale to
  award grades to students at key reporting points.

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Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head
TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

• Aligning a work sample to a particular grade
  indicates that the work sample is of a standard
  that would typically be produced by a student
  whose overall performance, on balance, best
  matches that grade description.
• The samples of work for a subject area for a
  particular grade, when taken collectively, enable
  teachers to clearly see the quality of work
  typically produced by students who will be
  awarded each grade at the end of the stage.

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Allocating GradesAwarding the right grade

• Reporting with grades requires teachers to use
  their on-balance judgement in relation to
  standards
• An on-balance judgement does not focus on a
  single piece of work.
• This is a key professional skill.

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Below and above standard

• Professional dialogue to determine how far below
  or above standard.
• Assign an A-E grade (or equivalent)
• C at standard
• The allocation of a grade is based on a body of
  work

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Awarding the right grade

• Teachers weigh up the assessment information
  collected for a student up to that point in time.
  
• This information will come from both formal
  assessment activities and informal observations
  and will be built up over time and in different
  situations.

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Consistent teacher judgements

• The consistency of judgements about grades within
  and between schools comes from
• following teaching programs based on common
  syllabuses
• using the common grade scale
• considering shared samples of student work
• discussions with colleagues

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Common Grade Scale
Grade Grade Descriptions
A The student has an extensive knowledge and understanding of the content and can readily apply this knowledge. In addition, the student has achieved a very high level of competence in the processes and skills and can apply these skills to new situations.
B The student has a thorough knowledge and understanding of the content and a high level of competence in the processes and skills. In addition, the student is able to apply this knowledge and these skills to most situations.
C The student has a sound knowledge and understanding of the main areas of content and has achieved an adequate level of competence in the processes and skills.
D The student has a basic knowledge and understanding of the content and has achieved a limited level of competence in the processes and skills.
E The student has an elementary knowledge and understanding in few areas of the content and has achieved very limited competence in some of the processes and skills.
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A-E Grades

• At the beginning of a reporting period, teachers
  will consider what students are expected to
  learn. That is, the knowledge, skills and
  understanding that is typically spelt out in the
  syllabuses and the teaching/learning programs
  developed by schools.

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A-E Grades

• During the assessment period students should be
  told how they are performing against the standard
  and guided on how they can improve. This is done
  through the development of tasks designed and
  marked around explicit criteria and the provision
  of meaningful explicit feedback.

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A-E Grades

• At the end of the reporting period, teachers will
  consider how well students have achieved. This is
  addressed by using the common A-E grade scale
  which summarises the degree to which students
  have demonstrated their achievement of the
  knowledge, skills and understanding they have had
  the opportunity to learn. How well takes into
  account the breadth and depth of their learning.

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Allocating GradesAssessment of Learning

• The Assessment Program
• Establish an assessment program that consists of
  a number of assessment activities
• Ensure the assessment activities cover a range of
  outcomes and are established with explicit
  assessment criteria
• Provide opportunities for students to display
  their achievements in different ways and to work
  in a range of situations
• Decide on the relative importance of each
  assessment activity
• Collect performance information on each student
  from assessment activities

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Course Performance Descriptors (CPDs)

• Course performance descriptors have been
  developed by the OBOS for each course. They
  describe the main features of a typical student's
  performance at each grade measured against the
  syllabus objectives and outcomes for the course.
• You will make the final judgement of the most
  appropriate grade on the basis of available
  assessment information and with reference to the
  course performance descriptors.
• The grades awarded should reflect the relative
  emphasis placed on the assessable objectives of
  school programs and the syllabus. For example,
  where a school has placed considerable emphasis
  on the development of research skills, that
  emphasis should be reflected in the assessment
  program.

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CPDs for Science

• Download a copy of the Stage 5 Course Performance
  Descriptors for Science from the NSW Board of
  Studies website at http//www.boardofstudies.nsw.e
  du.au/syllabus_sc/index.htmlscience

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CPDs for Science

• CPDs are
• standards achieved by Year 10 students at the end
  of Stage 5
• not intended to be a checklist or a comprehensive
  description of student performance

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Using AE Grades and CPDs

Year 7 Semester 1 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only.
Year 7 Semester 2 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only.
Year 8 Semester 1 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only.
Year 8 Semester 2 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only.
Year 9 Semester 1 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only.
Year 9 Semester 2 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only.
Year 10 Semester 1 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only. BOS CPDs used to make judgement
Year 10 Semester 2 A-E reporting scale makes judgements on student achievement related to the syllabus outcomes and content taught during that semester only. BOS CPDs used to make judgement
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Helping New Scheme Teachers

• It is important for all teachers and particularly
  for new scheme teachers to
• share interpretations of syllabus expectations
  and understandings with colleagues or teacher
  networks
• use student work samples collaboratively to make
  judgements
• have a shared understanding of student
  achievement at a particular point