Module 3 – Week 9: Assessment in the Teaching & Learning Cycle

Flashcards cover key ideas from Week 9’s lecture on assessment: definition, purposes (FOR, AS, OF), stakeholders, benchmark testing, timing and types of assessment, recording tools and example tasks, and the role of assessment within the broader teaching and learning cycle.

What are the three repeating stages of the Teaching, Learning and Assessment cycle?

Plan → Teach → Assess.

According to the planning phase of the cycle, what are two key questions a teacher should ask before teaching?

1) What do I want the students to learn? 2) What do they already know? (Other considerations include resources, time and strategies.)

How does the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) define assessment?

An ongoing process of gathering, analysing and reflecting on evidence to make informed judgements about the achievement or capabilities of individuals and cohorts.

What two broad phases are implied in the QCAA definition of assessment?

1) Plan and deploy the task, gather data. 2) Decide what the data mean and what to do next.

How has thinking about assessment shifted in recent years?

Assessment has moved from being a one-off audit at the end of learning to being embedded in every lesson as a crucial part of supporting learning.

What is the main focus of Assessment FOR learning?

Teachers use evidence of student progress during a sequence to inform and adjust their teaching.

When does Assessment AS learning take place and what is its goal?

It occurs within the learning sequence when students reflect on and monitor their own progress to set future learning goals.

What distinguishes Assessment OF learning from the other two purposes?

It is conducted at the end of a learning sequence to judge student achievement against standards for reporting purposes.

Why must a teacher have a clear lesson goal before instruction begins?

Because assessment must determine whether the specific goal has been met and guide future planning.

In the probability lesson example, what two pieces of evidence would the teacher collect?

Anecdotal notes on students’ use of probability language and student work samples positioning events on a 0–1 probability scale.

State four primary reasons teachers assess student learning.

Monitoring progress, identifying needs, informing future teaching, and valuing/acknowledging student learning (others include reporting and accountability).

List four stakeholder groups who use assessment information.

Students, parents, teachers, principals (also community and government).

Which Australian benchmark assessment program was highlighted, and in which school years is it administered?

NAPLAN – administered in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

What two key benefits does NAPLAN provide teachers?

Data that complements class records and informs future teaching and learning programs, plus school-wide trend information over time.

Besides students, what aspects of their own practice do teachers assess?

Teaching strategies, delivery/pace, language appropriateness, questioning, resource use, classroom management, collaboration and relationships.

Why is ongoing assessment generally more effective than episodic assessment?

It provides continuous feedback, allowing timely adjustments to teaching and supporting learning throughout a unit, rather than only at the end.

Differentiate between diagnostic, formative and summative assessment.

Diagnostic: establishes prior knowledge at the start; Formative: gathered during learning to guide instruction; Summative: collected at the end to judge achievement of goals.

According to the lecture, what are described as the most useful assessment tools?

A teacher’s eyes and ears (i.e., observation and listening).

Give three examples of tools teachers might use to record assessment evidence.

Checklists, rating scales, rubrics (others include anecdotal notes, photos, work samples).

What is a rubric and how does it assist assessment?

A scoring guide listing criteria and performance levels; it clarifies expectations and helps teachers and students judge quality consistently.

Name five alternative assessment task formats mentioned in the lecture.

Posters, podcasts, concept maps, Venn diagrams, 3-D models (other examples: reports, cartoon strips, newspaper articles, mind maps, blog posts, etc.).

Summarise the central reason assessment is essential in classrooms.

It supports student learning while providing the evidence teachers need to inform instruction and report to stakeholders.

How should assessment outcomes influence a teacher’s future planning?

Results should feed back into the Plan → Teach → Assess cycle, guiding adjustments to goals, strategies and resources for subsequent lessons.