Designing the Classroom Curriculum Designing the Classroom Curriculum | Page 93

Lynch, Smith, Howarth
Chapter 6: Assessment in the Classroom
Curriculum
Defining Assessment
The term assessment is commonly used in many forms of endeavour. Assessment occurs, for example, when
a doctor examines a patient seeking evidence of morbidity or when medical tests are ordered; when a chef
tastes a dish before it is sent to diners or when a film director watches daily rushes to decide what makes the
final cut. In all of these information is collected or sampled and professional judgments are made (Davis and
Dargusch, 2010, pp. 112-113).
In the classroom, teachers use assessment to ascertain the extent of student learning and to
provide information that can be used to mould a teaching program. Typically, teachers use tests, essays,
projects and assignments to assess teaching and schooling. We can describe assessment in a general sense as
the gathering of information about the performance of a given subject and from which judgments are made
(Davis and Dargusch, 2010). Building on these ideas, our view is that assessment has three functions:
First it is about the collection of achievement evidence and appraising it according to defined learning
outcomes. Second, and enmeshed in the first, the process of assessment feeds into the design and
performance of the classroom curriculum (a topic we discuss in a section which follows). The teacher’s
capacities are an element of its performance. A defined set of standards or benchmarks that are organised
through assessment criteria are used to inform assessment judgments (Brady and Kennedy, 2009). We
examine assessment criteria in Chapter Eight.
Third, assessment is used to provide feedback to students about their learning and according to Marzano
(2006, p.11) formative assessment, in particular --- assessment which occurs during teaching and which is
focused on providing learning feedback to the student (discussed in Chapter Four) --- is “one of the most
powerful tools a classroom teacher might use”.
Bringing these ideas together, assessment can be formally defined as “the process of gathering,
analysing and interpreting information and data about what students have learnt to enable informed
judgments to be made for reporting to stakeholders or to guide future teaching” (Davis and Dargusch, 2010,
p. 113). In specific terms, the assessment process helps the teachers to ascertain:
1.
2.
3.
What students have learned,
The extent to which students have learned and
How best to structure future teaching programs (Davis and Dargusch, 2010 p. 113).
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