Do You REALLY Understand Assessment? The Assessment Checklist
In most schools, assessment is not that useful. If it is useful, things change and improve. What improves as a result of your assessments?
If the answer is ‘very little’, you’ll gain a lot from this post.
Here’s a checklist, in the form of a flowchart, to help you work out how to assess knowledge in years 7 - 11.
Even at KS4, you need knowledge tests. Practice papers are for Understanding, Application, Analysis and Evaluation.
The answer to each of the questions in the flowchart should be YES. When you hit a NO, you need to fix it.
Practical subjects – start with the knowledge needed at KS4 for the written elements of examination, such as foundational knowledge of key vocabulary, and any key concepts or information necessary to understand the exam papers or write the exam answers.
Then go back and add in any cultural capital - what students will definitely benefit from knowing in later life, in conversations with educated people or reading a broadsheet newspaper.
The Knowledge Assessment
Does testing knowledge make up 50% of the overall marks in the full assessment, with the remaining 50% devoted to understanding, application, evaluation/analysis (or creating and synthesis)?
Do your knowledge tests come solely from your knowledge organisers?
Do your questions sample at least 25% of the knowledge on the knowledge organiser for the most recent unit? (A sample of 25% is a best guess for how much you can trust that a test of the full knowledge organiser would reveal the same score in the test).
Do the questions on the current unit account for no more than 60% of the available marks?
Are 20% of the marks awarded for questions testing the knowledge taught between September 1st and the start of that unit?
Are 10% of the marks awarded for questions testing previous knowledge organisers (from the summer term)?
Are 10% of the marks awarded for questions testing previous knowledge organisers from last year and previous years?
Are these questions designed with Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve in mind, so that the knowledge is tested at the most appropriate intervals?
Does this spacing tie in with the knowledge retrieved in the spacings of Do Nows and homework?
Testing Understanding, Application, Analysis, Evaluation, Creation
Do questions testing understanding make up 20% of the overall assessment and are there enough questions to test this e.g. 3 questions?
Do questions testing application make up 15% of the overall assessment, e.g. 2 questions?
Do questions testing evaluation/analysis/creation make up 15% of the overall assessment? (Yes, Bloom’s Taxonomy was invented to help write assessments, not to improve teaching).
Does the assessment need to be two lessons rather than one, so that you can cover the range of questions adequately?
Do you have a mark scheme that is easy to use and is designed to ensure consistency?
Does the assessment enable you to report a % mark without a teacher having to adjust it?
As Subject Lead do you have an overview of individual student % scores?
Do you use these scores to evaluate which areas of the curriculum are working well, and which need to be changed for next year?
Do you use these scores to evaluate which teachers are doing better, and use them to train the rest of your team?