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).

Laura Clothier, Annamaria Fratini , Martina Mathew, and Angela Winder

Education is a fundamental aspect for student development. In turn, assessment is also vital for student’s academic improvement and the enhancement of their knowledge skills – but is occasionally overlooked or not implemented correctly to benefit the students. As teachers, it is imperative for them to be able to teach and assess their students from a neutral standpoint, providing fair and adequate feedback so their students can improve and excel academically.

            As academic expectations are constantly changing, reliable assessment practices must also be implemented correctly and relevantly.

 We believe that the important issues to consider for best practice in assessment are:

•    Ensuring reliable assessment – The assessment should be marked equally, and (pending on the type of assessment and year level) repeatedly by various markers, based on the same assessment rubric until a general consensus is reached by both parties.
•        Periodic assessment – Instead of leaving all the assessment to the last minute, a teacher should provide students with ample time and spacing between assignment tasks so they are provided with feedback and not faced with ‘Sudden Death Syndrome’ where unnecessary stress is placed on the students.
•        Fair assessment plans – Teachers should set multiple assessment tasks (in terms of assessment design ie. Posters, essays, orals etc.) to enable students to use their initiative and play to their strengths. This will allow students the opportunities to use their various skills to reach their full potential whilst still letting them be challenged by assessment guidelines which they might not be used to.
•        Promote deep learning – In addition to fair assessment plans, students should feel challenged at times with assessments and be able to go beyond the set task. From this, they should be able to use their knowledge they have gained from previous assessments to help them understand later assignments.

At times, teachers seem to forget that assessment plays a massive and influential part in a student’s academic process and normally assess with out-dated assessment practices. Through utilising these practices, teachers should be able to provide helpful feedback to their students – be it through general comments, positive affirmations or official reports at the end of the assessment or term.

Miriam Carter, Carla Mattiazzo, Amber Bailey, Sarah Addington, Kate Mcelligott, Caitlin Sampson, Holly Stevens

Our group considers the best practices to be that all assessments should be authentic and transparent for students to be able to get the most valuable outcomes. Authentic assessment allows all students to be treated fairly in their assessment, giving each student the opportunity to demonstrate their learning in a method in which they are able to excel. Students’ learning needs to be at the forefront of all assessment tasks making sure that there are a wide variety of assessments in order to cater for all students learning and thought processes.

            It is really important for formative assessments are used with constructive feedback so that students can understand what they did well and what they need to do improve.  Assessments should be fair, allowing students to be fully aware of what is being assessed and how they can best prepare. It can be quite unfair to spring a test on students, especially if the wording used for the assessment is test or exam, both of these options can put fear and doubt into a students mind. Assessments should be redeemable, so that if something goes wrong for a student during an assessment, they have the opportunity to make up for it and redeem themselves. Just because a student does not do well in attest should not mean that they fail the subject. A teacher’s duty needs to be focused on getting every student to pass the lesson, sometimes a teacher needs to go above and beyond in order for students to grasp the concept. The time taken going through group tasks as well as the individual time that a teacher spends with students is wasted if students are not prepared to learn themselves.

            Assessments should be non-threatening and teacher has to prepare the classroom so that it is a classroom with a focus of learning. 

Deb, Georgina, Jess, Katie

In our group’s opinion the best practice for assessment are the following:

-Learning outcomes need to be linked to the assessment to make them authentic and transparent.

-Outcomes need to be clear so that we are giving the students reasonable goals to work towards.

-Assessments need to be collaborative between students and teacher, so that students can achieve the goals to the best of their abilities.

-Differentiation is needed in assessments so that individuals are assessed equitably and therefore the assessment is authentic.

-Make sure that assessment outcomes are clear and precise and that assessments are only testing knowledge that is in the outcomes.

-Assessments should be formative so that students are motivated to demonstrate their learning and better themselves in the future.

Kirsty,Cristy and Jaimie

We believe assessment should be ongoing, this allows both students and teachers the ability to ensure the learning for each module is completed within the specified time frames with a maximum result for each student.

Assessment should be encouraging for students, to enable them to see their strengths and also to see where they need to improve, with teacher encouragement to be the best they can be.

A variety of assessment methods should be used to ensure that students of different learning styles are catered for.

We should be measuring students personal achievements rather then comparing students who have different beginning knowledge.

This is also why a this point we feel that diagnostic assessment is essential for effective planning for the lessons.

Having outcomes linked to assessment, makes students feel that everything they have done is worth while and relevant. 

Suzanne Reynolds, Vannessa Jarmyn, Hannah Moore, Alexander Pay, Josh Earle, Jasmine Rehl, Christina Wojnar

Assessment is not about reaching a standard, but about developing the individual. They are for the students’ benefit so that they can continue to grow. Assessments should occur as soon as possible so a teacher has an understanding of the level of knowledge and understanding a student has. Therefore, the teacher has a foundation to build upon in their lessons, so students learning are complimenting that which they already know. Assessments should also be real to the students, in that they are relevant to developing specific skills and knowledge required for the subject. An assessment should also be transparent so a student has an understanding of what needs to be included in their assessments. If they do not know or understand the requirements, the individual results are not reflective of their knowledge and understanding. A student should also know when they are being assessed because if a student does not know, it breaks the bond of trust between student and teacher, while also possibly not reflecting a student’s knowledge and understanding. Teachers must also be prepared to analyse their own teaching methods, so the teacher is maintaining effective teaching for a range of individual students. Ultimately, assessments should be a guide, showing students as well as teachers what they are doing right, what they can improve on and most importantly how they can improve.

Jenna Warren, Chey Drew, Lisa Tenikoff and Ellie Maple

We believe four of the most important aspects of assessment should include; reliability, fairness, motivation to learn and provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate excellence. It is important for assessment to be reliable so that a clear indication of students abilities can be discovered. This then enables the curriculum to focus on students' strengths and weaknesses and cater for each child's individual needs. It is also vital for assessment to be fair. When assessment is fair it gives students the equal opportunity to demonstrate their skills as it caters for diverse abilities. When assessment is not fair, it disadvantages some students as their specific needs and abilities may not be met. For example, if a child is assessed on their ability to do something with their right hand when they are left handed it puts them at a disadvantage. During assessment tasks students should be able to demonstrate their full abilities and understanding of the topic being taught. By providing assessment that enables students to demonstrate their excellence the curriculum is allowing students to perform at their best. In this the students are then aware of their limits and can also work on furthering their abilities. When assessment motivates the students to learn the students are then further engaged in their education. This motivation can lead to a more thorough understanding of the subjects or topics as the child is actively participating in their own learning and education. If a child is not motivated they will become distracted and lack interest in their own learning.

Values in Assessment

We have been looking at devising learning outcomes and assessments for teaching units.  i.e. What do we want to students to be able to do? and how will we know if they can do it?

After reflecting upon what makes 'good' learning outcomes and assessments, each group produced a summary of what they believe are the important issues to consider for “best practice” in assessment.  The following posts are their results: