Plan to assess student understanding

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

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