Assessment

1. Assessment Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

2. 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

3. 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

4. Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate • Quality assessments should be: • Valid • Reliable • Authentic • Fair • Comparable • Educative • Manageable

5. 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

6. Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate • Formative assessment often called assessment for learning • Summative assessment often called assessment of learning

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate Assessment “for” learning Driving force: • “…signals to students…what they should be learning and how they should be learning it” (Biggs, 2003) Context: • assessment component of teaching • contextual-qualitative Student’s Role: • likely to be participatory

10. 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 don’t tell the kid the answers until review, if it occurs!) • psychometric-quantitative (you need the numbers) Student’s role: • Put up  take the punishment / bask in the glory

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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 student’s learning activities • active learning, discovery learning • learning as and for conceptual change – challenging conceptions

14. 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

15. 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

16. Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate Student view on “learning” • What is the syllabus? Students aren’t experts on education – teachers are! (metalanguage of teaching) • The assessment determines what I learn more than the syllabus “If it’s not an assessment task I’m not doing it” “Is this assessable?” “Will this be in the exam?” • the assessment IS the syllabus  and why not?

17. Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate Teacher view on “learning” • Syllabus driven “Today we are covering dot point…….” “Today’s 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 “That’s in the assessment task so I’d 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”

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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?

22. 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

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. Assessment ‘for’ Learning • Identify where students are on the K-10 Science continuum and design learning activities that will move them along the continuum

26. 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

28. Assessment of learning Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate

29. 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 don’t tell the kid the answers until review, if it occurs!) • psychometric-quantitative (you need the numbers) Student’s role: • Put up  take the punishment / bask in the glory

30. Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum DirectorateAssessment ‘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 student’s performance against defined criteria, collected over time from a number of assessment for learning activities.

31. 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

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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

35. 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”.

36. Curriculum Leadership Workshop for Science Head TeachersScience Unit Curriculum Directorate The Course Performance Descriptors for the K-10 syllabuses: “have been developed from the Board’s 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

37. Understanding the Standards CPDs for Science

38. Understanding the Standards Accessing: • Advice on Programming and Assessment http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/pdf_doc/science_710_support.pdf • The Standards Packages • The ARC http://arc.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au//

39. The Assessment Resource Centre supports assessing and reporting student achievement relative to standards

40. 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.

41. 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.

42. 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

43. 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.

44. 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.

45. 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.

46. 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

47. 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.

48. 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

49. Common Grade Scale

50. 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.