Mr X would always worry about his students’ results in assessments. The results were inconsistent and unpredictable. Some of his best performing students would be unable to perform on standardised tests; some of the low performing students would ace such tests. Many students failed to demonstrate real-life application of concepts. Upon reflection, Mr X realised that he needed to raise his assessment standards. He studied them in detail and altered the way he planned and conducted assessments and the way he used assessment information to inform teaching and learning.
He raised the bar and changed the end result. Let’s learn what he learnt about Assessment Standards to make the most of assessments.
Quality assessments enable learners to demonstrate the transfer of knowledge to new situations by attempting situation-based or contextual questions or problems.
Quality assessments include real-life tasks that enable learners to demonstrate their critical abilities like communication, collaboration, creativity, research and use of technology directly.
Quality assessments are created based on the benchmarks set by the countries leading in education.
Quality assessments do not measure the learners’ test-taking ability but allow them to gain further insight into the taught concepts.
Quality assessments are based on the four principles of assessment– reliability, validity, fairness and flexibility.
Mr X learnt these standards and raised the bar for his assessments. He created assessment activities that allowed his learners to demonstrate their learning in the best possible way.
It would be a good idea to understand these standards and apply them when creating assessments.
If you want to dive deeper into this area of teaching and learning, please feel free to check out our course on Assessment and Evaluation Techniques.
Technology is a very powerful tool that enables effective teaching and learning. If not used safely, it can prove to be highly destructive.
We hear all the time, be accountable towards your learners, ‘go the extra mile’, ‘bend over backwards’ for them, ‘go above and beyond’. Accountability towards learners may sometimes seem like going the extra mile, but it is not.
Think about everything you need to be, do and know as a teacher. If you are committed to being, doing and knowing the things that you should, you are an accountable teacher.