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Using evidence for learning
Frequently Asked Questions about Assessment: Darr, Charles. Set 2, 2006
The assessment team at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research is regularly asked for advice by teachers and school principals on issues they have about some aspect of assessment. While many of these questions are specific to a particular school, or even class, a number of more general ones keep cropping up. Here are some of these frequently asked questions and their responses.
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Too much assessment? Finding the signal amongst the noise: Darr, Charles and Ferral, Hilary. Set 2, 2007
Charles Darr and Hilary Ferral discuss the effect of measurement error and its implications for the planning of assessment.
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Formative and Summative Interpretations of Assessment Information: Hattie, J. 2003
In this article, John Hattie argues against the notion of formative and summative assessment as different concepts.
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"Summative" and “Formative": Confused by the Assessment Terms? Usher and Earl, New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, Volume 7, Issue 1, pp. 53-63, 2010
By being well-informed about both purpose and assessment activity, teachers will have greater clarity in understanding, communication and practice regarding these important and useful concepts.
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No schools left behind
The Educational Leaders website poses some interesting questions based on an Educational Leadership article available at the ASCD site. In this article, Victoria Bernhardt discusses different types of data (demographic data, student learning data, and "perceptions data", gathered through questionnaires, interviews, and other observations) and ways of combining these to investigate more fully what is happening with learning in the classroom. Educational Leaders suggests that schools consider the ways in which they could better use "perceptions data", such as that gathered as part of e-asTTle, to create a more in-depth picture of learning.
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Looking behind the data at Queen Charlotte College
This article from Educational Leaders' website describes the way data was used to greatly improve educational outcomes at Picton’s Queen Charlotte College. The leadership team agree that identifying opportunities for gathering data, “unbundling” it, and analysing trends to inform decisions made a big difference to the school’s success, and that presenting this data to the community has been of huge benefit.
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Pam Fleck sabbatical report, 2011
In this sabbatical report from Educational Leaders' website, Pam Fleck, principal of Riverton School, investigated how evidence gathered from collecting data can be used to make more fully informed judgments about teaching practice and learning achievement.
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Beating the summer effect
This article from the Education Gazette, October 13, 2014, tells the story of how Rata Street School in Lower Hutt, Wellington, has made positive changes to their teaching and assessment of writing that have negated much of the learning dip over the summer months. The school success story is backed up by data collected over more than five years, and includes practical strategies to help others achieve similar success.