Core module: The purpose of assessment

How does the purpose of assessment inform your practice?

"Assessment is an integral component of curriculum design, whereby the unique dignity of each learner is respected through assessment opportunities that are relevant, timely and rigorous, aligned to the curriculum, and responsive to evidence of student achievement and growth" (Curriculum renewal in a Catholic School, Design Elements).

Watch the video above and think about your response to this question:

What is your own view about the purpose of assessment?

Aim

The aim of this module is to develop an understanding of Assessment in a Catholic School and how this could be enacted in your school context.

Intended Outcomes

By the end of this module, participants will have:

• Considered implications of assessment (purposes, data collection, analysis and use) to develop a shared understanding
• Developed a statement outlining the school’s beliefs about assessment

Core document: Horizons of Hope Strategy Foundation Statement: Assessment in a Catholic School

Learning experience 1 - Assessment Principles

Think, pair, share: Individually, consider, then share (with another, then the team) your view about the purpose of assessment.

As a team, come to a consensus about the purpose of assessment.

Write your 5 “top” principles for assessment.

Make the principles into a word cloud www.wordclouds.com

Compare your word cloud to the key enactment elements (Focused on growth, Relational, Ongoing and continuous) of the Horizons Of Hope assessment strategy. Where is there strong alignment to your word cloud? Where are the gaps?

As a leader how do you see these reflected in your school?

Learning experience 2 - Assessment Research

Team members read one of these two articles (ensure both are read by different members of the team):

Assessment is for teaching - Patrick Griffin

Or

Towards a Growth Mindset in Assessment - Geoff Masters

Using the article that you have chosen, individually document the key elements on separate post-it notes.

As a team, bundle the key elements into common themes.

Name each key element and discuss your findings.

Share your findings online -

• What does this tell you about your thinking?
• Now that you have read the two articles, what is the main message that has been revealed to you?
• As a leader, how is this enacted in your school? What architecture would enable this to be enacted in your school?

“It is common to hear assessment described as for learning, of learning or as learning. Our stance is that assessment is for teaching.” Assessment is for teaching paper by Griffin and Care

Read the Horizons of Hope assessment strategy - where is the alignment? What are the gaps?

Learning experience 3 - Assessment Statement

Using these questions, as a team, begin to develop a statement of belief, which reflects your position on assessment:

• How will we ensure that our assessment -
  • Is valid and reliable?
  • Supports student-centred, evidence-based decision making?
• How will we use evidence of learning to define and address whole-school priorities for learning and teaching?
• If you have completed the curriculum module, how does this link back to your stance?

Learning experience 4 - Shifted thinking

Make your statement of belief into a word cloud - compare this to the word cloud from Learning provocation 1 and discuss the differences you can identify.

Reflection

Now that you have completed the module, how does the purpose of assessment inform your practice?

How has this learning impacted on your own area of research/inquiry?