Summative Year 9 English Task, Summative Stage 1 Geography Task, Formative Geo-Journal Task, Formative Year 7 English Task.
Assessment that improves student learning and deepens understanding requires varied assessment practices. We often refer to these practices in distinctive purposes: assessment for learning, assessment as learning, assessment of learning. I usually take a balanced approach to both informal and formal procedures when assessing student learning. I provide informal feedback by talking to students in each lesson, frequently correspond via email and at times, meet with students during free mutual periods. Formal feedback consists of documenting and noting written input in the schools LMS system, create spreadsheets and liaising with my mentor. When making inferences about student progress, I develop and implement several formative and summative approaches. In Geography, students kept a ‘Geo-Journal’ to reflect on their knowledge on biomes and food security monitor their progress that would inform future investigation on the Murray-Darling Basin. The journal also provided me with the vital information on the level of skills students possess when collecting, analyzing, interpreting and evaluation different geographical concepts and ideas. This effectively helped me amend and improve learning programs to best suit the capabilities and needs of students during the learning process. Further, I redesigned and created my assessment tasks for Year 9 Advanced English, Year 7 English, Year 10 Geography and Stage 1 Geography. I carefully studied both SACE and ACARA curriculum achievement standards to deliver well-considered and insightful opportunities for students to demonstrate their evidence of learning. I strongly believe in the power of bringing real-world context into the classroom. For this reason, many of the tasks reflect authentic assessment. I provided flexibility and different kinds of literacy abilities in contexts that resemble relevant situations to promote student engagement when undertaking assessment tasks.
Feedback on Summative Task, Draft Feedback via Email Debate Feedback and Mentor Comments
Feedback is an essential part of effective learning. It has a fundamental impact on learning and is often recognised as the most powerful single moderator related to student achievement than other teaching strategies. My mentors commemorated my feedback as both expedient and timely. In doing so, I could provide a clear indication of the areas of improvement and celebrate what they had done well. My approach to feedback focuses on student’s confidence, enhancing content knowledge, refining and support the development of new skills and sparking enthusiasm for learning. Providing students engage with feedback, and I believe it can support student retention. For this reason, I provided insightful and detailed responses in all areas of student learning. I am mindful for writing feedback in both formative, summative and diagnostic measures. Some examples of useful feedback include drafts, emails, conversations and assessment notes. I also allow students to choose the type of feedback form they’d prefer. For example, understanding how students learn best, I offer students the ability to be given written, verbal, recorded or in-personal feedback upon their choice. This ensures that I am delivering well-considered feedback to help students plan and develop an understanding for ways they might wish to consider moving into the future.
WASSN Moderation Day, Assessment Markbook.
My feedback and marking is consistent and aligned with achievements standards. Teachers’ professional judgement in determining what and how well students are progressing in their learning journey should be respected and valued. I believe this is further strengthened when teachers work together and engage in professional discussions about student progress to enrich expert knowledge and understanding of the curriculum. I have attended a collaborative WASSN moderation day where district teachers shared understandings about the curriculum, including the achievement standards. This event leads to greater confidence in my professional judgement about progress and achievement and about the quality of that achievement. During my practicum, I moderated all summative assessments in collaboration with my mentors to report student achievements. To keep the progress of my marking, I used a mark book of evaluation to display my original mark against the moderated grade given by my mentor. I am working together with other educations to converse in professional discussions around assessment. However, I recognise this is an area that is subject to change. I will continue to be vigilant to assess and design learning against curriculum and performance standards.
PAT Data, PAT Data 2 NAPLAN Data, Mentor Email Correspondence
I acknowledge that teacher understandings of how to collect, analyse, interpret, and use systemic, and classroom data support and improve students' learning. I believe my knowledge and skill in this area will also assist with information and generating improved student outcomes. At the same time, the acquisition of these skills has empowered me in working towards becoming inquiry-minded and data-literary in my practice. During my placement, I reviewed literacy PAT data and literacy NAPLAN data from 2018 and 2019 to gain a deeper understanding of student capabilities in Year 9 English. The data revealed students in the cohort demonstrated ranged from applied to highly-able skills. To cater to the diversifying abilities, I differentiated for several students to support learning within their zone of proximal development. In addition to this, I frequently communicated with mentors and student support officers of my interpretations from lesson observations. An example involved a Year 10 Geography class who failed to achieve above satisfactory achievement in an oral presentation task. Acknowledging this, I modified the class learning program to support their difficulties and simultaneously allowed them to thrive in their strengths so all students could flourish in subsequent assessments. As an early career teacher, I firmly believe analysing student data helps in modifying teaching strategies, resources and practices. I recognise the need to improve data-literacy and inquiry-minded professional development to achieve this as an effective professional practice.
Progress Check Sheet, Scholaris LMS Data Input
Reporting on student progress and achievement is a fundamental role for educators. During my practicum, I used a wide range of strategies to report on student progress and provide parents/carers with clear, individualised information about progress against the achievement standards. I did this by uploading all assessment marks and achievement standard rubrics on Scholaris for both students and parents to access. I pride myself on reporting on student assessment promptly to identify the areas of strengths and areas for improvement. LMS systems are a great platform to document student achievement and progress. I also use scholaris and email correspondence to communicate with parents/carers to acknowledge challenging behaviour, failure of work submission, prolonged absence or at-risk of failing students. This documentation is reliable, accurate and transparent communications to parents, students and all other subject area teachers for the individual subject. I also conducted progress checks for assessment tasks in my Year 11 Geography class. The students struggled to meet all previous deadlines and were unmotivated in times of assessment. To overcome this, I set targets for all students to achieve to avoid academic detention or at-risk of failing the subject. This proved to be successful and reported student progress in a positive way to navigate them in completing work within deadline dates. Reporting on student achievement is an area that will differ between working environments and one that I am committed to conducting report holistically and transparently.