TI-AIE: Transforming teaching-learning process: leading assessment in your school

What this unit is about

Assessment has been largely associated with success or failure in examinations. Exam success is important and is associated with access to a good college, social status and success in later professional life. However, the focus on preparation for exams can adversely affect the learning experience. The NCF (NCERT, 2005, p. 71) recognised the depth of the problem when it stated that:

We are concerned about the ill effects that examinations have on efforts to make learning meaningful and joyous for children. Currently, the board examinations negatively influence all testing and assessment throughout the school years, beginning with pre-school.

In this unit you will explore assessment as an opportunity to monitor and guide student development when it is made integral to everyday classroom practice. Such continuous assessment provides regular feedback to teachers about students’ learning that can in turn be used to help the students in your school to become more effective learners. In order to use assessment to promote learning, your teachers will need to assess and monitor their students by collecting evidence, analysing information, modifying learning activities and providing feedback. Assessment used in this way will improve the learning outcomes of all your students.

Learning Diary

During your work on this unit you will be asked to make notes in your Learning Diary, a book or folder where you collect together your thoughts and plans in one place. Perhaps you have already started one.

You may be working through this unit alone, but you will learn much more if you are able to discuss your learning with another school leader. This could be a colleague with whom you already collaborate, or someone with whom you can build new relationship. It could be done in an organised way or on a more informal basis. The notes you make in your Learning Diary will be useful for these kinds of meetings, while also mapping your longer-term learning and development.

What school leaders can learn in this unit