Richard Heath, Shannon Minks, Rebecca Albu, Amelia Burfield, Steve Moores, Liana Tripodi

An authentic approach to assessment is imperative for creating a just and
fair environment.  This attitude needs to be reflected throughout each
stage of assessment.  For example, an assessment that is incremental and
with a challenging but accountable outcome could be viewed as fair.  This
gives the student an opportunity to build on an assessment through each
stage of its body, and accountabiltiy can be used throughout, to give a
final assessment result.  A student will learn to build and grow throughout
an assessment process

Shannalee Fast, Shaneel Du Toit and Laura Ozols

As a group we believe that one of the most important issues to consider for successful assessment is to focus on the students desires and needs. This may include a system where students to understand their development and their strengths & weaknesses, so they can be motivated to improve and recognise gaps in their own learning. Secondly, it is important for teachers to be aware of the students' holistic being when preparing lessons and corresponding assessment, in order that they may  experience meaningful education and have equal opportunity to succeed and compete within the classroom. Manageable timing and sequence of assessments across all subject areas is also a important issue for "best practice"  in assessment. This requires communication between subject teachers so students have a balanced workload.

Rodney Hrvatin, Kat Pedroja, Shenay Weyers

  Assessment should be engaging and fair. The core outcome of the assessment should very clear yet flexible to accommodate students of varying levels within the classroom. The task needs to be achievable to all members of the class whilst still challenging the students and showing that they have understood the areas that are being assessed.

 Assessment should encourage students to learn the required material as well offering them the chance for self-assessment as well as building on prior learning.

 Assessment should provide an accurate record of the progress of each student and should highlight for the teacher any areas of learning that need to be addressed either individually or with the entire class.

 Assessment should also be relevant (and related) to the topic so it reflects what has been learnt during the course of the lessons. This means carefully ensuring that your desired outcomes are accurately assessed in the most effective means possible.

 Lastly, assessment needs to be varied to ensure that all aspects of the outcomes can be covered. This can include assessment asks such as test, essays, practical assessments, group activities, oral presentations and research assignments. By varying the assessment tasks, it allows students to show their assessment strengths and will provide a more equal playing field.

Felicity Leighton;Janine Henderson; Hanli Bothma; Rebecca Symons; Lauren Ritzou and Rhianna Otto

Our group discussed the differences and purposes of Formative , Diagnostic and Summative Assessments.Each play an important task for teacher and student; Diagnostic tests help in ascertaining the known learning and Formative assessments help to inform teachers how the current lessons are being understood. Summative assessments will summarise learning at the end of a topic. We decided that any assessment needs to be transparent to ensure the best possible learning outcomes for students , that it needs to be a fair and relevant process , keeping to the topic taught. Staying on track and not being sidelined by distraction or learning from other areas is also important when assessing students knowledge on a set topic of learning. Keeping communications clear and specific  helps students to prepare and will help the teacher stay focused on the  learning outcomes as planned. We all agreed that promoting learning is key and methods that are wholistic ,valid; encourage deep learning and are practically sustainable for the student and teacher should be employed.

we also discussed that assessment need not always be in the form of 'tests' , and may be as simple as a few well worded questions , or a brief discussion giving students an opportunity to share learning.

Scott Davies

One of the most important tips in my opinion relates to making assessment a motivator for students. It must motivate students to not only work hard in the last few weeks before a task is due, but throughout the entire process. A good form of assessment encourages students to be self motivated and check their progress routinely, encouraging real, student-directed and progressive learning. This follows on to the tip relating to assessment being incremental. In order to encourage student motivation and to ensure students know where they are at, assessment should be incremental and regular, as well as the standard overall mark at the end of a unit or assessment task. 

Ben Chudleigh, Jessica Lang, Sarah Burrow, Ellice Nicdao, Linda Heng, Shana Heading, Thomas Boehm and Daniel Anderson.

What are important issues to consider for “best practice” in assessment?

Below are the main points from our group discussion on assessment. We believe that a well designed assessment should first and foremost be designed to aid student learning. We felt the following three values were of key importance:

Transparency: Students should know what the learning outcomes are and what is required to pass the assessment. There should be no surprises when it comes to assessment.  Being transparent helps students develop a trusting relationship with the teacher. Transparency will minimize the levels of anxiety students feel when it comes to assessments.

Authenticity: Assessments need to assess the individual student’s capabilities and knowledge so that the teacher can accurately gauge how the student is progressing in their learning. An authentic assessment should provide the teacher with quality data; with the students who have understood and grasped key concepts achieving high marks, while students who need more help in the topic graded lower grades. Assessments need to be relevant to the topic and have a real world perspective or practical application. When assessments are authentic students will be able to discern their strengths and weaknesses. Authentic assessments will empower students in their learning.

Formative: Students should receive positive and constructive feedback on their work throughout the unit. Formative assessment should be well timed and feedback given in a prompt manner, so that students have the opportunity to consolidate their knowledge prior to summative assessment tasks. Teachers need to incorporate formative assessments into the unit plan so that they can gauge students learning throughout the unit.

Guy Sander, Samantha Fetherstonhaugh, Sean Tomlin

Our group believes the issues to consider for best practice in assessment would include emphasis on the following.

The assessment needs to be valid otherwise the assessment won’t support the intended learning outcome. The issue is that the assessor will gain false information and draw incorrect conclusions about the skills, knowledge and attitudes of the student. The teacher will not get truthful feedback about whether their teaching practice is working and remain ignorant. The consequence for the student is that they may become disillusioned as they struggle with higher learning levels that are based on learning and understanding from the first level. This doesn’t show fairness to the student.

The assessment needs to be equitable and should provide a range of different assessment tasks to provide each student with the opportunity to perform at their best. This issue would be that the student is assessed poorly because they perform poorly in written tests where their English is poor but perform better in a debate.

It should also be incremental because the teacher can see the competency of the student at various stages as the students learning is scaffolded.

Assessment should also be summative and formative for best practice. Formative enables the student and teacher to receive feedback. The student receives feedback on their learning (or where they are) and for the teacher as to whether their teaching strategies and level of engagement are working. Summative assessment also informs how well the student has learnt. As the teacher you want the student to learn from the assessment. It’s a wasted time if they don’t learn during the actual assessment procedure.  Hence, summative assessment can also be used for further learning if the teacher gives feedback on the assessment (formative). This can help motivating students to learn and cause less stress for the student and teacher. Example: After every weekly topic, the teacher assesses student learning by spot tests that aren’t graded but feedback is given (formative). Following 5 weeks of feedback given from practice tests (formative) covering 5 topics there is a final assessment (summative). The teacher provides feedback on the final assessment (formative).