LCB400 Classroom Assessment Practices: Assessment 2
The task of assessing students learning can be a complex and difficult job. There are many definitions that identify the purpose of assessment. Some key beliefs include: to facilitate and support improvement in learning, inform and guide teaching, monitor students learning progress, and report on achievement (QCAA, 2013; Prants, 2009).
For the Year 2 class being assessed in the Mathematics strand measurement, specifically ‘Time’, the assessment has been linked to “real-world tasks” (Brady & Kennedy, 2012, p. 18) by relating some of the questions to the up-coming excursion of Year 2 to Australia Zoo. According to Brady and Kennedy (2012), this will create a scenario that is relevant, engaging and meaningful to the students. When assessment tasks are challenging, valid and fair, they are considered authentic (Brady & Kennedy, 2012).
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) determines what Australian students are taught in each specific learning area of the curriculum. The three components of curriculum content are Disciplinary learning, General capabilities and Cross-curriculum priorities. (ACARA, 2010). Within Mathematics there are three strands, Number and Algebra, Statistics and Probability and Geometry and Measurement, of
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Multiple choice questions, for example, can measure high volumes of facts and the results are based on what the student can recall, but rarely give an opportunity to for students to demonstrate ‘higher order’ thinking skills, such as understanding and application (MacMillan, 2008). To compensate for this negative, the assessment has allowed for a degree of higher order thinking by the addition of short answer questions alongside the multiple choice task. While still allowing lower level students to achieve, it creates an avenue for higher thinking students to demonstrate their