Helps for assessing

1. WHAT IS ASSESSMENT
Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves making our expectations explicit and
public; setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality; systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to
determine how well performance matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and
improve performance.
Academic assessment seeks to answer the broad question, "What and how well do our students learn what we are attempting to teach them?"
Three Types of Assessment
Assessment for learning

2. Assessment for learning involves teachers using evidence about students' knowledge, understanding and skills to inform their teaching.
Sometimes referred to as ‘formative assessment', it usually occurs throughout the teaching and learning process to clarify student learning and
understanding.
Assessment for learning:
 reflects a view of learning in which assessment helps students learn better, rather than just achieve a better mark
 involves formal and informal assessment activities as part of learning and to inform the planning of future learning
 includes clear goals for the learning activity
 provides effective feedback that motivates the learner and can lead to improvement
 reflects a belief that all students can improve
 encourages self-assessment and peer assessment as part of the regular classroom routines
 involves teachers, students and parents reflecting on evidence
 is inclusive of all learners.
Assessment as learning occurs when students are their own assessors. Students monitor their own learning, ask questions and use a range of
strategies to decide what they know and can do, and how to use assessment for new learning.
Assessment for learning occurs throughout the learning process. It is designed to make each student’s understanding visible, so that teachers can
decide what they can do to help students progress. Students learn in individual and idiosyncratic ways, yet, at the same time, there are
predictable patterns of connections and preconceptions that some students may experience as they move along the continuum from emergent to
proficient. In assessment for learning, teachers use assessment as an investigative tool to find out as much as they can about what their students
know and can do, and what confusions, preconceptions, or gaps they might have.
Assessment for learning is all about:
 where learners are in terms of their learning (prior learning)
 where they are going (learning intentions)
 how best they can get there (success criteria)

3. Assessment as learning:
Assessment as learning focusses on students and emphasizes assessment as a process of metacognition (knowledge of one’s own thought
processes) for students. Assessment as learning emerges from the idea that learning is not just a matter of transferring ideas from someone who
is knowledgeable to someone who is not, but is an active process of cognitive restructuring that occurs when individuals interact with new ideas.
Within this view of learning, students are the critical connectors between assessment and learning. For students to be actively engaged in
creating their own understanding, they must learn to be critical assessors who make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and use it
for new learning. This is the regulatory process in metacognition; that is, students become adept at personally monitoring what they are learning,
and use what they discover from the monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations, and even major changes in their thinking.
 encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning
 requires students to ask questions about their learning
 involves teachers and students creating learning goals to encourage growth and development
 provides ways for students to use formal and informal feedback and self-assessment to help them understand the next steps in learning
 encourages peer assessment, self-assessment and reflection.
Assessment of learning
Assessment of learning assists teachers in using evidence of student learning to assess achievement against outcomes and standards. Sometimes
referred to as ‘summative assessment', it usually occurs at defined key points during a unit of work or at the end of a unit, term or semester, and
may be used to rank or grade students. The effectiveness of assessment of learning for grading or ranking depends on the validity and reliability
of activities. Its effectiveness as an opportunity for learning depends on the nature and quality of the feedback. Assessment of learning refers to
strategies designed to confirm what students know, demonstrate whether or not they have met curriculum outcomes or the goals of their
individualized programs, or to certify proficiency and make decisions about students’future programs or
placements. It is designed to provide evidence of achievement to parents, other educators, the students themselves, and sometimes to outside
groups (e.g., employers, other educational institutions).
Assessment of learning:

4.  is used to plan future learning goals and pathways for students
 provides evidence of achievement to the wider community, including parents, educators, the students themselves and outside groups
 provides a transparent interpretation across all audiences.
OVERVIEW OF PLANNING ASSESSMENT
Assessment for Learning Assessment as Learning Assessment of Learning
Why Assess? To enable teachers to determine
next steps in advancing student
learning.
To guide and provide opportunities
for each student to monitor and
critically reflect on his or her
learning and identify next steps.
To certify or inform parents or
others of student’s proficiency in
relation to curriculum learning
outcomes.
Assess What? Each student’s progress and
learning needs in relation to the
curricular outcomes.
Each student’s thinking about his
or her learning, what strategies he
or she uses to support or challenge
that learning, and the mechanisms
he or she uses to adjust and
advance his or her learning.
The extent to which students can
apply the key concepts,
knowledge, skills, and attitudes
related to the curriculum outcomes.
What Methods? A range of methods in different
modes that make students’ skills
and understanding visible.
A range of methods in different
modes that elicit students’ learning
and metacognitive processes.
A range of methods in different
modes that assess both products
and process.
Assessment for Learning is an important tool for increasing the level of learning in mathematics classrooms. It involves the effective use of the
following strategies:
1. Sharing the learning Intentions
2. Sharing and stating the success criteria
3. Provision of Descriptive Feedback
4. Effective use of Questioning
5. Self and Peer Assessments

5. Learning Intention
A learning intention for a lesson is a brief statement, created by the teacher, which describes clearly what the teacher wants the students to know,
understand, and be able to do as a result of teaching and learning activities.
Example: Students should be able to round 2-digit numbers to the nearest ten.
 Identify the number on the number line.
 Identify the multiples of ten on either side of the number (this is because you are rounding the number to the nearest ten)
 Count the number steps to the multiple of ten before.
 Count the number steps to the multiple of ten after.
 Round the number to whichever is nearest.
 If the digit is 5, round the number up to the next multiple of ten.
OR
 Underline the digit occupying the place value of ten
 If the digit in the place value of units is 5 or more, add 1 to the underlined digit and write 0 in the place value of units.
 If the digit in the place value of units is less than 5, leave the underlined digit as is and write 0 in the place value of units.
The Success Criteria
Success criteria describe, in specific, brief terms and in language meaningful to students, what successful attainment of the learning intentions
looks like. Criteria help students understand what to look for during the learning. In other words success criteria summaries the key steps the
student needs in order to fulfill the learning intention – i.e. the main things to do or focus on. In order to develop success criteria, learning
intention should be clearly specified.
Importance of success criteria in Mathematics
 The learning becomes more explicit.

6.  Students can see what quality looks like.
 Encourage independent learning
 Enable accurate feedback
 Success criteria enable students’ to comment on others' work through which they can come to a better understanding of the criteria.
Example:
Students should be able to round 2-digit numbers to the nearest ten.
 Identify the number on the number line.
 Identify the multiples of ten on either side of the number (this is because you are rounding the number to the nearest ten)
 Count the number steps to the multiple of ten before.
 Count the number steps to the multiple of ten after.
 Round the number to whichever is nearest.
 If the digit is 5, round the number up to the next multiple of ten.
OR
 Underline the digit occupying the place value of ten
 If the digit in the place value of units is 5 or more, add 1 to the underlined digit and write 0 in the place value of units.
If the digit in the place value of units is less than 5, leave the underlined digit as is and write 0 in the place value of units
Provision of Descriptive Feedback
 Feedback helps the student to improve by suggesting actions that can be taken by the student which they then act upon – helps students to
act upon their weaknesses timously.
 Helps teachers and students to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses
 Helps students to

7. Effective Questioning
Questioning underpins all classroom assessment methods. Teachers regularly ask students questions about their work to find out where they are
in terms of their knowledge and understanding. They also use questions to guide students in their learning. On the other hand students also use
questions to help them learn by asking their teachers and peers questions.
Examples of effective questions that can be used in mathematics to elicit students’ understanding of mathematics are:
 How did you get that?
 Why is that?
 Why this method?
 How about …..
 What if …. etc
Importance of Peer and Self Assessment
Peer and self assessment are an important set of approaches for a teacher. They help develop the children’s abilities to know what is required in a
piece of work and to develop the discernment to self-assess – an important life skill.
Importance of Peer and Self Assessment in Mathematics:
 They encourage students to listen to one another.
 they provide students with different ways of solving a problem - multiple ways of solving a problem
 Students become more conscious of what they are trying to achieve when they have to explain to each other-resulting in deep
understanding of mathematical concepts.
 Students become more involved in and responsible for their own learning.