TM4T Techniques 6.1.1.1 - Assessmsent: Analysis
Your analysis needs to allow you to:
Understand school policy and practice regarding assessment. These may differ - don't simply rely on what you read in the prospectus, or the pep-talk from the ambitious deputy head. Find someone grounded to talk to, or just observe what other teachers do. Make sure you know how much discretion you have in practice ie to what extent you can choose how you assess. This is Step 1a.
Understand your role or roles in assessment. Moderating A Level coursework is an entirely different assessment discipline to gauging progress at KS3. Make sure you know what information - what numbers - you are expected to provide and how often. This is Step 1b.
This step - knowing your role - and the following step - knowing what is available - will enable you to understand how much work you have to do. At the risk of stating the obvious, your assessment workload will comprise two main elements:
- the preparation of assessments - designing and producing tests which don't exist yet. For some schools/subjects this workload may be zero.
- carrying out and marking assessments - supervising tests (or some substitute for tests) and marking them.
Know which practical assessment techniques are available to you. Many teachers tend to be surprisingly conservative when it comes to assessment. Not exactly one-trick-ponies, but tied to a narrow range of assessment techniques. You should take a little time to consider the suitability of the following methods (this is Step 1c):
Published (free) assessments
For many subjects there exists a range of freely-published, validated assessment methods - frequently either short answer or multiple-choice quizzes, used to assess knowledge and some understanding. These sometimes exist to support older courses (that's why they're free) but can be modified relatively easily.
The intention here is ensure that you never re-invent a wheel. Ask, ask, ask what is available out there that might save you time and effort.
Electronic assessment
Now I am going to waffle a bit at this point - forgive me. Earlier on this page we said: "You need to know which practical techniques are available". Many teachers simply don't seem to grasp what TM4T means by this word 'practical'. When we say 'practical' assesment techniques, we mean techniques that you can put into practice immediately. This means that you don't type 'electronic assessment methods' into Google and read 20-page articles about its pedagogic relevance, benefits and drawbacks. It doesn't mean that you discuss and debate in the staffroom about the role and future of face-to-face teaching. It means that you ask colleagues (via TES or similar online forums) which free websites or tools they use in assessment. Then you write them down, and - if you can spare the time - spend a little while playing with these sites or tools. This is not an advertisement, just an illustration of what we are talking about:
http://yacapaca.com/teacher/assignment/new/
Observational assessment
Assessment is not just about knowledge; and a lot of aspects (enjoyment, focus, effort, behaviour, relationship-building, co-operation, teamworking...) can and in-some-cases-should be assessed simply by observing and noting what is going on in class.
Self-marking assessment
A self-marking assessment is different to self-evaluation. Self-marking implies that you give the student the answers and they mark themselves eg 8/10. Self evaluation can be a reflective practice (“I found it difficult to get started, but when I re-read the question....”) or it can have a quantitative aspect. In this scenario, learners might score themselves out of five in how well they understand a topic.
Self-marking can itself lighten the teacher's load, as long as students are reasonably reliable. An observant teacher can also develop insight into the honesty and ethics of his students. Techniques like 'learning contracts' may be valuable too.
Peer assessment
Peer assessment can have many forms. It can be an extension of self-marking (“Swap books; but not with the person sitting next to you...”). It can be more creative - getting Year 11 students to mark Year 7 maths homework as a mental maths test was a favourite of mine; or getting Year 7 students to enthusiastically correct the answers given by A Level students in a quiz.
Group assessment
There are a range of group assessment methods available. These might involve a teacher marking pieces of group-work (this might mean you mark eight pieces of work instead of thirty); and the group themselves vote on how to allocate the marks within their team.
Project presentations
These have the obvious benefit that you can mark them as you watch them, and can be blended with group or peer assessments.
Focused marking
Focused marking is the preferred TM4T approach to marking non summative, non-critical written work. It is typically combined with Elf techniques (the use of co-operative students to carry out the adminstration of learning). Elf techniques are described here.
Focused marking itself involves two-stages. The first is tick-and-flick, but also identifies a separate, smaller group of students for detailed marking. The second group will include only specific students who meet pre-decided criteria: this might be students with learning difficulties, gifted and talented students, C-D grade boundary students, surnames A-F, or books-which-haven't-been-marked- recently. The key point is that not every book gets fully marked every time. This approach has pedagogic benefits - the teacher can focus clearly on one specific set of students and issues, and can design assessments with one specific aim; but is also scaleable - a teacher can reduce the frequency of 'proper marking' depending on how much time is availalble.
If you are an NQT or trainee teacher, you may sense some resistance from more senior teachers if you enquire about the availability of low-effort, low-stress forms of assessment. You may detect, perhaps, a hint of criticism, that they suspect you of being lazy or unprofessional. You need to be clear what we are doing here. You are making sure that if things get really really busy, that if you are under real time pressure, then you can still fulfill your obligations, and that none of your students will suffer. You are giving yourself options from which you can choose depending on circumstances. You are making sure that you are prepared to respond to issues, and not to react to them. However, your suspicions - that older teachers disapprove - may well be correct. There is an astonishing tendency in some schools to regard lack of preparation as a virtue; these teachers will only start to look at quicker, easier methods when they are already frantically busy. This approach is an invitation to stress. Remember: prudent preparation is not an admission of defeat.