Prep to Year 10 Assessment – Assessment Professional Learning Modules

Advice to facilitators

For each module the downloadable Facilitator Notes provide support and ideas for working through the activities. Each set of Facilitator Notes includes information about what you, as the Facilitator, need to be alert to. In organising each module, using the triangle symbol below. It is strongly recommended that groups begin with the first core module. This module includes the Self Assessment Tool as a starting point which will help you in identifying which aspects are appropriate for each group of teachers.

 

	At the heart of each module are the outcomes.		First Alert: Small teams of teachers who share the common purpose of improving their students' learning will explore these modules together (perhaps professional learning teams).
The Facilitator Notes for each module include advice about:
and extension suggestions that will further broaden and deepen teachers' knowledge.

 

Go directly to Facilitator Notes for each module

 

Essential Preparatory Reading for the Facilitator:

• Assessment Advice
• "Scottish Assessment is for Learning triangle” (http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/assess/aiflschool)
• Two overview readings prepared for Victorian teachers:
  • Current Perspectives on Assessment and Synopsis of key research papers on assessment (PDF - 157Kb)
• Assessment for Learning: 10 principles. Research-Based Principles to Guide Classroom Practice. download from either the Assessment Reform Group or from the Association for Achievement and Improvement through Assessment

The Black Box series of papers:

• Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998) is the classic paper from which much assessment reform has sprung.
• "Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box" by the Assessment Reform Group can be downloaded from the Assessment Reform Group or from the Association for Achievement and Improvement through Assessment
• "Working Inside the Black Box" by Paul Black, Christine Harrison, Clare Lee, Bethan Marshall & Dylan Wiliam (2004) is available as a journal article in Phi Delta Kappan, Volume 86, No. 1, pages 9-21.

Advice to Facilitators on completing the Self Assessment Tool  

• Completing the Self Assessment Tool (either interactively on the web or by highlighting a printed copy of the pdf file) will assist you and your colleagues in identifying what is working well and what their highest priority needs are. This will indicate which activities and modules could be usefully completed. Sometimes all activities in a module may be recommended as helpful - at other times only the bold - or core activities - will be recommended, or only a select sample. The facilitator should include whichever activities he/she considers to be appropriate for  the particular group of teachers.
• Small groups of teachers who will collaboratively explore the modules could complete the Self Assessment Tool together, jointly judging their levels of expertise , or alternatively, you may prefer to have the teachers complete it individually, print off their results  and collate these for an overview. As a third alternative, the facilitator may select a representative sample of teachers, perhaps including members of the leadership team, to complete the Self Assessment Tool and judge where they consider their colleagues to be, on balance.
• Re-doing the Self Assessment Tool at various times (end of semester, end of year 1, year 2) may help to provide staff with a sense of progress in their assessment practices.

Organising the series of five modules