Quality Assessment Opportunities

Claire Wyatt-Smith identifies 9 features to assist teachers in developing Quality Assessment Opportunities. These are:

1: Alignment - how is the assessment opportunity/task aligned with the formal curriculum and intended learning?

2: Intellectual challenge and engagement - what knowledges (from a field of knowledge/learning area or across fields/learning areas) will students be involved in accessing, using, and creating?

3: Assessment scope and demand - what is the level of demand of the task? Is the task designed in such a way as to enable a heterogeneous group of students to achieve success at different levels? Is the task to be designed to meet a minimum requirement for success?

4: Language used to communicate the task - is the task to be written/presented in ways that draw appropriately on the accepted terminology of the learning area/s?

5: Literate capabilities involved in doing and completing the task - what curriculum literacies are being assessed? (How can these be made explicit for students, and taught to them?)

6: Performance contexts - does the task have any connection to students’ outside school experiences? If so, are the conditions for doing the school task simulating the conditions that students experience outside of school in a similar or related activity?

7: Knowing what is expected both during and on completion of the task - what information is provided to students about how to progress through the task, checking for example, on use of resources and time?

8: Student self-assessment for improvement - how are basic expectations of dimensions of the learning to be demonstrated communicated to students?

9: Intended purposes of assessment information - what is the intended use of the assessment information generated by the task? i) primarily formative purposes (for improving student learning); ii) primarily summative purposes (for reporting student achievement); or is it possible that the information may serve both formative and summative purposes?