Learning Intentions and Introduction

Session Elements

• discuss with a colleague
• practical exercise
• independent planning

Learning Intentions for this session

You will learn that:

• Effective assessment is critical to teaching because it provides teachers with information about pupils’ understanding and needs.

You will learn how to:

Avoid common assessment pitfalls, by:

• Planning formative assessment tasks linked to lesson objectives and thinking ahead about what would indicate understanding (e.g. by using hinge questions to pinpoint knowledge gaps).
• Drawing conclusions about what pupils have learned by looking at patterns of performance over a number of assessments (e.g. appreciating that assessments draw inferences about learning from performance).

Introduction

In this self-study session, you will extend your knowledge of the fundamental principles of assessment. You will speak to a colleague about the different ways that they use assessment in their practice. You will then consider the learning objectives for a forthcoming lesson and select three different age-appropriate assessment strategies, evaluating their effectiveness. This activity will be supported further during your subsequent mentor meeting.

In your ECT mentor meeting this week, you will discuss and complete the Module 4 self-assessment audit to identify what you already know about effective teaching (learn that) and the skills you are developing as a teacher (learn how to). You and your mentor will use the outcome of the audit to inform your use of materials in this module. You will return to the audit as you work through Module 4, using it to chart your progress.