ASSESSMENT STANDARDS

    USING ASSESSMENT TO ENHANCE LEARNING

    Quality assessments are imbedded in instruction, providing experiences and insights that enhance student learning and improve teaching.

    Quality assessments are an integral part of classroom instruction, not an interruption. Assessments enhance learning when they cause students to think and act on their knowledge and capabilities. They provide students with experiences and insights and teachers with information to improve and better focus instruction.

    Quality assessment enhances learning by:

    • utilizing learning tasks that enable students to construct meaning,
    • being an ongoing and integral part of instruction,
    • providing ongoing feed forward to students and teachers,
    • providing information that is used to improve instruction,
    • involving students in thinking and reflecting on their learning,
    • recognizing the powerful impact assessments have on students' beliefs in their own ability to learn and improve.

    Quality assessment tasks enable students to apply prior knowledge and learning to new situations. In constructing lesson plans and in making instructional decisions, effective teachers identify and plan opportunities for assessments that will benefit students and teachers. Insights gained from assessments provide valuable information that can be used to make decisions about teaching and improve learning.

    Quality assessments provide students with an opportunity to reflect on their work and progress, to understand what they know and are able to do, to have confidence in their ability to learn, and to determine what they have yet to learn. As a result of assessments, students make decisions about whether they can learn, whether they should continue to try, and what they are capable of learning. Students often make significant decisions about their future based on assessment information. The power of assessment to affect students' beliefs in their ability to learn must be recognized. Quality assessment, based on a variety of tools, provides students with accurate self-portraits enabling them to confidently and accurately look at their futures.