There are two types of assessment based on its goals or use. One is what I call assessment in the service of teaching. The second is what I call assessment in the service of learning. Assessment in the service of teaching refers to the use of assessment information to improve teaching while assessment in the service of learning refers to the use of assessment information in the form of feedback to keep the learners to the task of learning. This post is about assessment in the service of learning. Continue reading “Six ways to give feedback to students to keep them in the task of learning”
Tag: assessment for learning
Conference on Assessing Learning
The conference is open to high school mathematics and science teachers, department heads and coordinators, supervisors, tertiary and graduate students and lecturers, researchers, and curriculum developers in science and mathematics.
Plenary Topics and Speakers
1. The Relationship between Classroom Tasks, Students’ Engagement, and Assessing Learning by Dr. Peter Sullivan
2. Assessment for Learning: Practice, Pupils and Preservice Teachers by Dr. Beverly Cooper
3. The Heart of Mathematics Teaching and Learning: Assessment and Problem Solving by Dr. Allan White
4. Assessing the Unassessable: Students’ and Teachers’ Understanding of Nature of Science by Dr. Fouad Abd Khalic
5. Lesson Study in Japan: How it Develops Critical Thinking Skills by Prof Takuya Baba
6. Classroom Assessment Affective and Cognitive Domains by Dr. Masami Isoda
7. Assessment cum Curriculum Innovations by Dr. Ma. Victoria Carpio-Bernido
8. Strategies for teaching Mathematics to classes with Diverse Interests and Achievement – Having Problems with Problem Solving? by Dr. Peter Sullivan
9. Assessing Learners’ Understandings of Nature of Science – The New Zealand Science Hub by Dr. Beverly Cooper.
Aside from parallel paper presentations and workshops, there will also be parallel case presentations by science and mathematics teachers involve in Collaborative Lesson Research and Development (CLRD) Project of UP NISMED. CLRD is the Philippine version of Lesson Study.
Clickhere for conference and registration details.
Conference on Assessing Science and Mathematics Learning
2nd International Conference in Science and Mathematics Education via kwout
The University of the Philippines National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development (UP NISMED) will hold its second international conference in science and mathematics education on October 26-28, 2010.
The conference will feature plenary sessions, symposia, paper presentations, poster presentations, and workshops.
Click link for details or email me: erlines@ymail.com
Teach and assess for conceptual understanding
To teach for conceptual understanding requires assessing for conceptual understanding. The principles that guide teaching for understanding must be the same principles that should guide assessment. What are some of these?
- Open-ended, problem solving tasks
To teach for conceptual understanding, it is not enough that students engage in problem solving task. The tasks should be (1) open-ended which means that it can be solved in many ways using a range of concepts; (2) accessible, that is , not too easy or too difficult but just beyond the students ability; (3) can be extended by changing conditions in the problem so that it can be used for building concepts and for making synthesis and generalization; and, (4) the task should encourage creativity in the problem solver. These, together with right amount of scaffolding from the teacher and assessment tasks possessing the same characteristics is a perfect recipe for understanding mathematics conceptually. - Activities that promote mathematical communication
Mathematics is a language that enables us to communicate ideas with conciseness, clarity and precision both in oral or written form. Students learning experiences should always aim at developing this capacity. They should be given opportunities to talk about mathematics, to speak mathematics, and communicate mathematically through its written symbols. These are possible with the right mix of collaborative and individual work. Click this link for sample. This also implies that assessment should focus not only on the knowledge the students are acquiring but also on their skill on communicating this knowledge. - Tasks that build on students’ previous knowledge
Teaching should build on the knowledge that students already have. This does not mean simply putting something on top of what they know. Knowledge has to be connected with other knowledge from within and from without. The more connections there are, the more robust is the understanding. Conducting formative assessment can provide teacher with information on how to structure the lesson to help students make connections. Another strategy which I highly recommend is to teach via problem solving. Click here for sample lesson. - Discussions that respects reason
Mathematics is a way of thinking logically and methodically. As such, classroom culture that respects reason must be created both in the teaching and in assessing. Group or whole class discussion and assessment rubrics should give appropriate feedback to the students as to the way they reason and build on each others reasoning or on each others opinion.