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Assessment Principles and Practice / Overview of Research / Year 1
CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT OutLINE
Assessment Principles AND practice OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH
YEAR 1 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH
Science snapshot:
Plants or animals?
Assessment Principle 1: Assessment should be an integral part of Teaching and Learning
The teacher in this Assessment Snapshot designed a task to check her students could classify
plants and animals correctly. The activity allowed her to gain insights into her students’ thinking and
the misconceptions that they held about plants and animals.
Effective teachers recognise that learning is most likely to occur when a student is presented
with challenges just beyond their current level of attainment, in what Vygotsky (1978)
referred to as the ‘zone of proximal development.’ This is the region of ‘just manageable
difficulties’, where students can succeed with support. ... Effective teachers understand,
therefore, the importance of first determining students’ current levels of attainment. Effective
teachers administer assessments that reveal how students think rather than what they
know, the quantity of work, or the presentation. They are interested in eliciting students’ preexisting, sometimes incomplete understandings, and their misconceptions in order to identify
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starting pointsesources
for personalised teaching and learning (Forster, 2009, pp. 5–6).
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Teachers need to be aware of what each and every student is thinking and knowing, to
construct meaning and meaningful experiences in light of this knowledge, and have proficient
knowledge and understanding of their content to provide meaningful and appropriate
feedback such that each student moves progressively through the curriculum levels (Hattie,
2009, p. 238).
In 2006, Professor David Andrich recommended to the Curriculum Council (now the School
Curriculum and Standards Authority) that fine-grained assessment take precedence over
broad classifications of student performance. Curriculum documents, like the Australian
Curriculum, and standards frameworks, like the Achievement Standards, inherently provide
broad classifications of student performance. The teacher in this snapshot devised an
assessment strategy which allowed her to examine her students’ understandings at a more
fine-grained level than is specified in the curriculum. By doing this the teacher has been able
to identify misconceptions which, if left unchecked, would impede further learning.
Reflection questions
•
What assessment strategies do you use to gain insights into how your students think?
•
How do you incorporate planning for assessment into your lesson plans?
•
How do you refine your lessons based on the information you collect?
© School Curriculum and Standards Authority 2013
page 1 of 2
Assessment Principles and Practice / Overview of Research / Year 1
CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT OutLINE
Assessment Principles AND practice OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH
YEAR 1 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH
Science snapshot:
Plants or animals?
References
Andrich, D. (2006). A report to the Curriculum Council of Western Australia regarding assessment
for tertiary selection. Retrieved http://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/internet/Publications/Reports/General_
Reports
Forster, M. (2009). Informative Assessment: Understanding and guiding learning. Papers
presented at the 2009 Australian Council for Educational Research Conference on Assessment
and Student Learning: Collecting, interpreting and using data to inform teaching. Retrieved http://
research.acer.edu.au/research_conference/RC2009/17august/11/
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning. A Synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement.
Oxon, England: Routledge.
Reporting policyR
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© School Curriculum and Standards Authority 2013
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