Plan to assess student understanding

Why is planning assessments necessary?

Assessments can take place in many forms. The reasons for the critical existence of assessment tasks in lesson plans are:

• for students to demonstrate and practice the knowledge and skills articulated in the learning objectives
• for students to evaluate and reflect on their own learning
• for teachers to find out whether students are learning and to offer targeted feedback that can guide further learning

What to consider when planning assessments?

When designing assessment tasks, teachers need to consider:

• what learning objectives are targeted
• what type of assessments will best enable students to demonstrate the targeted learning objectives
• how many assessments should be used for a thorough evaluation of the achievement of learning objectives
• what criteria (rubrics) will be used to make judgements
• what roles students and teachers will take in the assessment process
• how feedback will be given