Assessment as a tool
Assessment plays a crucial role in supporting and measuring learning. Formal assessments are based on course aims and objectives. As such, effective teaching to the course requirements also ensures effective teaching to the summative assessment requirements.
Meanwhile, formative assessment methods developed by teachers include tasks, tools and processes that will help improve student learning. Here, constructive feedback is most effective as a two-way channel. Students learn how they are doing. Teachers learn what students understand or struggle with, and what they find engaging or not worthwhile. Formative feedback can also be provided more informally: for example, through individual and group feedback sessions, surveys, polls or brief – even spontaneous – reflections.
Examples
Examples of assessment include:
- assessments modelling the summative global politics assessments
- active use throughout the course of global politics assessment criteria, markbands, past papers and sample student answers
- student self-assessments, oral feedback from fellow students, and feedback to and from the teacher
- detailed feedback for individual students throughout the learning process, tracking the development of issues specific to each student
- identifying possible misunderstandings or gaps in learning and providing further support, such as: ◦ returning briefly to topics that were not understood, doing so through a different approach
- modelling answers
- debriefing with students after assessments and activities.