designing quality assessment tasks

The broader context× Education in Australia is currently constructed

through standards and accountability curriculum frameworks. This approach means the system provides a framework of knowledge and skills that students need and a set of accompanying standards. The system implements large-scale testing regimes (e.g., NAPLAN) to determine if the curriculum is being delivered consistently (properly?) across the state/country.

® The implications of this approach for teachers is greater emphasis on classroom-based assessment that captures evidence of deep knowledge and deep understanding whilst ensuring your accountability to students, parents, schools, communities and the system.

The broader context

× Recent research has provided much better understanding of how students learn. This has led to a shift in focus from how/what we teach to how students learn and assessment is integral to this.

Assessment represents a statement of claim about what learning is valued, it tells students what we think is important enough to assess. We can capitalise on this notion by using assessment to drive our curriculum planning and our teaching and ultimately student learning.

Authentic assessmentThe move towards more ‘authentic’ assessment tasks is not

just a response to shifts in the broader educational context.

This approach is also a reaction to the problems associated with more traditional assessment types, such as…

Testing is more about competing than learningThe lack of alignment between pedagogy and assessmentThe detrimental effects of ‘failing’ on student motivation Furthermore, the shift towards more authentic

assessment parallels the growth of knowledge around ‘assessment for learning’. i.e. how assessment can be used not only to improve student outcomes but also to develop students’ understanding of how they learn, or metacognitive skills.

See the Assessment Reform Group at http://www.assessment-reform-group.org/

Authentic assessment× Is connected to the curriculum and to students’

everyday lives and real world contexts needs to tap into students interests and be exciting/interesting for the teaching staff

× Promotes deep knowledge and deep understanding needs to be intellectually challenging

× Should involve teacher, student and community judgment may have an audience beyond the classroom

Authentic assessment

× Has flexibility to cater for and motivate different students must be ‘accessible’ to all students i.e. transparent criteria; media-savvy task sheets

× Encourages student performance of their learning in optimal conditions negotiable end-products and learning pathways

× Is transdisciplinary× even if it is implemented within a single KLA it

will still incorporate CLOs from other KLAs

Tools for designing/analysing assessment tasks

Design Decisions for Quality Assessment Tasks (aka “The Placemat”, see Matters, 2005, APPENDIX 5)

NSW Quality Teaching Framework (QTF)(similar language to SA TfEL framework but describing how pedagogical elements should ‘look’ in assessment tasks

Backward Mapping worksheet you will be using this template today to get you started on your curriculum plans. However you need to create the assessment task you consider any other aspects of teaching this unit/topic/theme.

Aligning curriculum with pedagogy

To ensure your summative assessment task aligns with the curriculum you need to construct the task and the marking rubric before you plan your teaching. Here’s where applying the model for backward mapping comes into play:

What do you value?What’s the big idea that you want students to have

a deep understanding of?Your answer to this question will help you to clarify the

learning ‘outcomes’ you want to assess and the criteria/features you will assess.

How do you want students to demonstrate their learning?

i.e. what assessment task will give you the evidence of the learning you desire?

Your answer to this question will help you determine the design parameters of the task

Clarifying the big ideas pinpointing what you really want students to learn and what you want to assess them on

Ways of obtaining evidence

Once you have clarified what learning you want to assess, you need to determine the most appropriate tool for getting evidence of that learning

Some Examples…

Rich tasks

Questions???

EXAMS

Concept maps

Cloze exercises

Multiple choice

True or false?

Interpretive testsEXTENDED WRITING

Interviewsperformance

checklistsportfolios

projectexhibitionsanecdotes

Assessing the quality of your questions

You need to ensure the questions/tasks you assign students AND the marking tool/rubric are demanding and discriminating enough so that the assessment instrument is fair, transparent, educative, valid and reliable. Designing assessment collaboratively will benefit but there are tools to enhance the cognitive demands of your tasks/questions, such as TAXONOMIES OF LEARNING e.g. Bloom’s

Using Bloom’s for designing assessment

Cognitive Process What learners are required to do

Verbs to use

Remember Retrieve knowledge Recall, recognise, list, define, match, describe, select, identify

Understand Construct meaning from information/stimuli and ideas

Summarise, paraphrase, classify, interpret, infer, deduce, discuss, explain, revise, compare.

Apply Apply a technique or procedure to a given situation (may include determining which technique or procedure)

Change, demonstrate, predict, relate, show how, solve, determine.

Using Bloom’s for designing assessment

Cognitive Process What learners are required to do

Verbs to use

Analyse Separate information into parts and determine how they relate to each other and the overall (bigger) context/picture

Analyse, compare and contrast, distinguish, examine, point out, relation, explain, differentiate, organise, attribute.

Evaluate Make judgements based on criteria and/or standards.

Evaluate, assess, justify, critique, interpret, discriminate, judge, comment on.

Create Put together elements to form a coherent whole or reorganise elements into a different arrangement or pattern.

Design, combine, plan, rearrange, generate, create, construct, reconstruct, produce

Knowledge taxonomies

This is another taxonomy based on the type of knowledge we are asking learner’s to work with

Factual: knowledge of terminology/metalanguage; specific details/facts

Conceptual: knowledge of classifications/categories; theories/ideas, models, structures

Procedural: knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms; techniques and methods; criteria used for determining particular techniques/methods

Metacognitive: strategic knowledge; knowledge about thinking/learning processes/tasks; knowledge about the self

Blending cognitive processes with the knowledge dimension

COGNITIVE PROCESS

KNOWLEDGE

REMEMBER UNDERSTAND

APPLY ANALYSE

EVALUATE CREATE

FACTUAL

CONCEPTUAL

PROCEDURAL

METACOGNITIVE

Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001 as cited in Killen, R. (2006). Programming and assessment for quality teaching and learning. Southbank, Vic.:Thomson

Designing your task

All of the information you have been provided plus the worksheets and tools for analysis are meant to prompt you to consider a broad range of factors before you create the task sheet and marking criteria. The more factors you take into account when designing quality assessment tasks, the more assurance you have that your task will enable students to demonstrate the degree/quality of their learning…essential to meet the requirements of standards-based assessment.