Assessment
What Assessment Looks Like in Grade 8
The Ministry of Education Assessment and Reporting Order has changed the way we report to parents. We will now be communicating with parents rather than reporting to parents.
Student learning will be assessed on a four level mastery system. When we assess your student's learning, we decide:
Is the student demonstrating knowledge at an entry level for grade 8? (that's Emerging)
Is the student demonstrating knowledge at a basic level for grade 8? (that's Developing)
Is the student demonstrating knowledge at a competent level for grade 8? (that's Proficient)
Is the student demonstrating knowledge at a level beyond grade 8? (that's Extending)
The goal in DBL 8 is that students demonstrate progressive improvement in all skills during the course of the school year.
Emerging in the acquisition of knowledge, skills, strategies and processes: The student demonstrates an initial understanding of the concepts and competencies.
Developing the ability to apply knowledge, skills, strategies and processes: The student demonstrates a partial understanding of the concepts and competencies.
Proficient in knowledge, skills, strategies and processes: The student demonstrates a complete understanding of the concepts and competencies.
Extending knowledge, skills, strategies and processes creatively and strategically: The student demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the concepts and competencies.
Feedback
At the heart of our Assessment for Learning strategy is the practice of providing students with formative feedback to allow them to learn from mistakes and improve on their learning. This can come in the form of comments, rubrics, quizzes, discussions, coaching and rewrites.
The following are the "Six Big Strategies that Matter" in Assessment for Learning (Dylan Wiliam):
Provide learners with clarity about and understanding of the learning intentions of the work being done - this means that learners should be able to tell someone else in their own words what the learning intentions are and how they connect to life beyond school.
Provide to and co-develop with learners the criteria for success. This means that learners have clear criteria for quality and know what part they are aiming to get better at.
Provide regular, thoughtful feedback that moves learning forward for the individual learner. This means that, over time, learners get used to knowing how to improve.
Design and use thoughtful classroom questions to lead discussions that generate evidence of learning. this means that learners practice being ready to think and know that "no hands up" and individual responsibility for thinking about the question are regular parts of learning life. It also means that teachers work together ahead of time to develop really strong questions to use part way through a learning sequence.
Put learners to work as learning/teaching resources for each other. This means that learners know strategies and have internalized quality criteria so that they can be productive with their same age and older and younger learner colleagues.
Do everything you can think of to make sure that learners are the owners of their own learning. This means that learners are genuinely engaged in learning and confident that they can learn and think about their own learning.
Core Competencies
Students will be accessing the Core Competencies in all their curricular areas. They may be self-assessing the Core Competencies on their Ongoing Communications. Summative reports at the end of the course will report that the student has engaged in this self-assessment.