Building teachers' assessment capability

“Assessment is the bridge between teaching and learning….It is only through assessment of some kind that you know what’s been taught has been learned” Dylan Wiliam, Formative Assessment

Watch the video above as Dylan Wiliam reviews the nature of formative assessment and how teachers can use it to gain better insights into student learning and achievement.

What assessment understandings, skills and dispositions are important for teachers in our context?

Aim

The aim of this module is to examine the assessment approaches that consistently have a positive impact on student learning.

Intended outcomes

By the end of this module, participants will have:

• A deeper understanding of assessment capabilities
• Identified an aspect of assessment capability for improvement in practice
• Core document: Horizons of Hope Strategy Foundation Statement: Assessment in a Catholic School

Learning experience 1: Self audit

Using the AITSL Professional Standards for Teachers Standard 5, identify the ways in which you (or your staff) are currently assessment capable and where you wish to strengthen your (or your teachers') capacity. Share with a partner. Reflect on team community. Identify strengths and connections amongst your team. The connections that are made here might highlight possible mentors and learning partners within the team.

Learning experience 2: Research

Examine the learning provocation from the list below that might best strengthen your capacity in the AITSL standard you identified. Use the Note making Template to record your thinking.

• Standard 5.1: Assess student learning
  • Masters, G: Assessment: Getting to the essence OR Towards a growth mindset in assessment

A lifetime of working in the field has convinced Geoff Masters that assessment in education has become over-conceptualised and over-complicated. The fundamental purpose of assessment in education he believes, is to establish and understand where learners are in an aspect of their learning at the time of assessment. There is no other purpose.

• Standard 5.2: Provide feedback to students on their learning
  • Wiliam, D.: Feedback on learning - Video

In this clip, Dylan Wiliam reviews the importance of giving learners effective feedback as an integral component of formative assessment.

• Standard 5.3: Make consistent and comparable judgements
  • NZ assessment portal - Moderation

Moderation is the process of teachers sharing their expectations and understanding of standards with each other in order to improve the consistency of their decisions about student learning. In these pages you can find information on the theory of moderation, and practical advice on the ways schools might go about setting up moderation processes.

• Standard 5.4: Interpret student data
  • Hattie, J: What is the nature of evidence that makes a difference to learning?

The major argument of this presentation is to move the discussion away from data towards interpretations, from student outcomes to teaching successes and improvements, and from accountability models located about schools to located first in the classroom to support such evidence-based teaching and learning.

• Standard 5.5: Report on student achievement
  • School stories - Consider evidence of learning

Staff at Our Lady of the Southern Cross, Wyndham Vale discuss how they use Google forms to capture and track student learning and how this supports report writing

Learning experience 3: Sharing connections

In groups of two or three, share the connections you made between your readings and your current thinking. Consider who, in your team, you could partner with or have as a mentor.

Learning experience 4: Taking action

From your group’s dialogue, identify an aspect of assessment for improvement in practice. Design a simple plan to achieve the improvement that you have identified.

Resources and further reading

• Resources on CEVN: Curriculum and Student Support, AusVELS in Catholic Schools, Holistic Planning
  • Teachers as designers
  • Schema
• DET - Assessment professional learning
• Grattan Institute “Targeted Teaching” quotes
• NZ assessment portal -
  • Assessment Literacy
  • Assessment for learning in practice
  • Exploring assessment for learning
• Wiliam, D: Embedded formative assessment, chapter 2 - The case for formative assessment
• Stanley, G. (forward, p.iii-v) of Masters, G: Reforming Educational Assessment - Imperatives, principles and challenges