Different Assessment Techniques
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In their book "Minds on Music - Composition for Creative and Critical Thinking," Kaschub and Smith utline the purposes and the nature of different approaches to composition. They feel that what has been masked over time is what the purpose of assessment actually is. They point out that the word assessment is derived from the Latin 'assidere,' which translates as 'to sit beside.' They comment that the purposes of assessment are to "improve learning," and "determine progress." This is different to evaluation which is much more geared towards summarising achievement to date. With this in mind, we need to consider why we look at assessment as often providing a mark or a grade based on a final solution. Kaschub and Smith point towards four different approaches to assessment which can be employed in composition activities:
Self Assessment
Peer Feedback
Group/Teacher Feedback
Rubric/Grade Related Criteria.
Not in the book, but worth mentioning at this juncture is 'consensual assessment,' in a Scottish context this could be considered as assessment approaches undertaken through a moderation exercise.
Although the book chapter outlines how each of these approaches looks in practice, there are a great deal of assumptions made. For example, in self assessment, what are the learners using to assess against? Is it open ended and flexible for the individual, or are a set of steps provided that they need to follow?
There are two important points that are raised in this book chapter.
Firstly, the authors highlight the importance of teachers who wish to grade their composition classes having a very clear picture in the first instance of what they want the learners to know. This could be mis-appropriated however as a teacher may first look at the assessment outcomes and build the grading system from their as opposed to considering the learning process.
A second point which I think is very important is the more individualised the composition activities, the less necessary it becomes to provide a summative grade. As a consequence, ongoing assessment and guidance/feedback become the key assessment tool.
Further to this, in their article, "Assessment of composing in the lower secondary school in the English National Curriculum," Fautley and Savage look at a range of assessment practices for composition. One aspect they pick up on is the lack of understanding surrounding formative and summative assessment practices. The article suggests that many teacher do not understand what formative assessment is, but instead use summative assessment to provide feedback to learners. Next steps should be identified on an on-going basis.
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