This section considers how a range of purposes determines the focus and implementation of assessment and how you might plan to integrate assessment into learning sequences. The following activity will help you to consider your own experiences of, and ideas about, assessment.
Allow about 15 minutes
Note down what comes to mind when you think about assessment. The following questions will help to prompt your thinking:
Make lists of what you think assessment should achieve from the perspective of the:
Which do you think are the most important purposes of assessment and why?
You may have thought of timed, written tests that were intended to sum up whatever you had learned over a course, the results of which determined setting and further study paths. Associated with these memories there may be feelings of anxiety or elation. As a successful learner you will have learned to cope with such assessments. You may have found them motivational. For those who find learning more difficult, or who had an off-day, however, assessment may impact on their self-confidence and self-worth, as well as their attitude towards geography and towards school.
The purposes of assessment are discussed on the next page.
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