ASSESSMENT PORTFOLIO CLAUDIA BARTOLO S4559540

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT REFLECTION

Formative assessment involves new ways to enhance feedback between students and the
teacher, methods that require new modes of pedagogy and significant changes in
classroom practice. According to Black (2015, p.13), of the 5 stages of assessment, stage 4
requires more attention than it receives. Its role is to check for any missed knowledge or
understanding before the end of the unit. This way, any problems encountered are caught
and addressed before the summative assessment, and will not reflect in a student's final
grade.

Regarding numeracy education, formative assessment allows educators to gather an

understanding of where students are at, and provide prompt and conducive feedback.
Black (2015, p. 14) also states that this ‘gives students an opportunity to view how topics
inter-relate’. This gives teachers the chance to alter and differentiate learning as they
provide feedback and evaluate their students. As the units progress, formative assessment
provides students and teachers with a measurement of learning, growth and
understanding of the content taught.

Formative Assessment Outline:

Throughout the unit, the in-class activities and students’ tasks will be observed, and
students will be assessed on the following:

Activity 1:

- Students are given a group of rectangles and squares.

- They need to use their rulers to measure length and width.
- Transfer these measurements to grid paper.
- Find the area of said shapes.
- Compare the area of said shapes using cm squared (area), length, and width.
- Going outside to measure the basketball court and finding its area (m and m
squared)
 1

Activity 2:

- Using the 2 containers (rectangular/square).

- Weigh them when empty and record.
- Fill with centicubes and count the total.
- Record the capacity (how much can it hole? How much space is inside?) (squared
cm).
- Weigh once filled and record.
- Compare differences between weight/mass before/after.
- Compare the capacity of the different containers.

Activity 3:

- Give students three different size plastic containers.

- Asking them to fill each one with 200ml of water from the provided bottle.
- Asking which one has more water in it? Why?
- Which one has a bigger capacity (which one can hold more than the others)

Checklist Yes With Not

assistance evident
Can use centimetres to measure the length of squares and rectangles
Can use metres to measure the length of squares and rectangles
Can use length and width to measure the area of squares and rectangles
Can compare two different objects using length, width and area
Can measure the weight of objects
Can compare weights and explain why there is a difference and how do
they know this
Can measure and compare capacity using centicubes
Can explain what it means if something has a larger capacity than another
object
Can measure using mL and L using measuring jugs
 2

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT REFLECTION

Summative assessment occurs at the very end of the instructional unit and is used to
evaluate a students understanding of the teaching applied, and compare them to a
standard or benchmark of what is expected of students in their age bracket. Westwood
(2016, p. 74) writes that ‘accurate assessment of current competencies helps teachers
evaluate the effectiveness of their instruction, and must also indicate the need for any
necessary intervention.

Westwood (2016, p. 75) highlights the basic functions of assessment for numeracy as:

● checking on the overall efficacy of the teaching program

● determining any particular student’s stage of development
● gaining information about students’ specific strengths, weaknesses and special
instructional needs
● identifying any concepts or procedures which may need to be retaught, reviewed or
practised.

This form of assessment provides clear notions of where students are excelling or falling
behind, without the need to go over all the content a second time to ensure their
understanding.

When used alone, summative assessment can make learning stressful for students, and
may not give an accurate representation of a student's capability as their abilities may be
impeded by anxiety or pressure. Westwood (2016, p. 75) states that approaches to
assessment should include direct observation, student questioning, analysis of students’
written work, application of teacher-made or published tests, references to the curriculum,
and individual diagnostic testing.

Summative Assessment Outline

Students are to create a to demonstrate their understanding of shape transformation and

using cartesian planes.

Shape transformation:
 3

- Students can pick one simple (not a square/rectangle) and composite shape of their
choosing and complete the following (all transformations to be completed on grid
paper and pasted onto the poster):
- Reflect both shapes.
- Rotate both shapes.
- Translate both shapes.

For each transformation students can do one of the following:

- Write an explanation on their poster of how the shape has changed in either size,
shape, and/or orientation.

OR

- Present an oral explanation of how the shape has changed in either size, shape
and/or orientation.

Using both shapes, create a tessellation with a minimum repeat of five times.

Cartesian Plane:

- Using the Transum website

(https://www.transum.org/software/SW/Starter_of_the_day/Students/Transformatio
ns/Draw.asp?Level=1)

Students are to demonstrate their ability to reflect, rotate and translate simple and
composite shapes

- On their poster, they need to print, cut and paste one of each of the above.
- Add in their numbers along both the y and x-axis.
- Using coordinates, describe the change in the location of each shape. Also, state the
quadrant the shape started and ended in.

Checklist Yes With Not

assistance evident
Demonstrate the ability to rotate a simple shape without technology
 4

Demonstrate the ability to reflect a simple shape without technology

Demonstrate the ability to translate a simple shape without technology
Demonstrate the ability to rotate a composite shape without technology
Demonstrate the ability to reflect a composite shape without technology
Demonstrate the ability to translate a composite shape with technology
Demonstrate the ability to rotate a simple shape with technology
Demonstrate the ability to reflect a simple shape with technology
Demonstrate the ability to translate a simple shape with technology
Demonstrate the ability to rotate a composite shape with technology
Demonstrate the ability to reflect a composite shape with technology
Demonstrate the ability to translate a composite shape with technology
Can create a tessellation of a simple shape
Can create a tessellation of a composite shape
Can label the quadrants on a cartesian plane
Can add in values onto the x and y-axis on a cartesian plane
Can describe location using coordinates on a cartesian plane

Discussion points during the creation of the artefact:

- Assessment intention
- To determine students’ abilities and understanding of content and LI throughout the
unit.
- Ability to meet achievement standards for the unit of study.

Target learners

- Most are bi-lingual or EAL.

- Majority of their strengths are physical and verbal.
- Modern architecture (allows for flexible learning, group work, etc).
- Level 6

What the assessment is:

- Formal summative assessment.

- Ability of VCAA.
- Skills, observations
 5

How the assessment data will be collected:

- Checklist

DIALOGUE AND FEEDBACK REFLECTION

Diagnostic assessment gauges the level of students’ understanding of the teaching, and
gives teachers the ability to tailor learning for each child’s unique needs. Callingham (2008,
p. 18) states that ‘successful teaching and learning is about dialogue and feedback’. The
example highlights the differing student success level when students received feedback
specific to their thought processes. Students provided their understanding of how they
‘visualised different perspectives’ (Callingham 2008, p. 19) and produced varying levels of
comprehension when presenting their work to the teacher. My experience with this
demonstrates how student learning differs for each individual, which ensures that the
approach to providing feedback will also differ based on the different levels of their
understanding. Callingham (2008, p.19) also identifies the importance of adjusting feedback
for students but ensuring that it provides them with an affirmation of their current skills,
and what they can do next to improve their understanding. The exposure I have had to this
kind of feedback, proved that it is a skill that is only improved upon over time and is
priceless for students. Hereby the students are able to build their confidence and also use
the advice to further their level of understanding.

Student:

Female - Medium Socio-economic Status - Pakistani - Bilingual - Starting to play the piano

Together draft a 100-word report comment with the parent/guardian/s and student
as the audience in mind.

Student 12 has excellent visual perception and is very good at understanding these types of
questions. She excels at visually displaying her mental processes on paper when finding
solutions.

The largest area for improvement is her division skills and worded problems. Her division
facts can be practised daily for a few minutes and to help her improve and for her worded
problem-solving skills, she can practise transition questions (visual, both, worded).
 6

Moving forward, we can work on pairing her home learning with the skills she needs to
improve on, to gain a better understanding of the concepts learned in class.
 7

Annotate the comment explaining the thinking that has led to significant
statements.

Our student comes from a bilingual background, so we made sure to use appropriate
language so that parents/guardians and students were able to take as much away from the
report as possible (to avoid confusion). We wanted the feedback to follow Callingham’s
(2006, p. 19) idea that teachers “must provide students with two essential pieces of
information; affirmation of what they can currently do and what they need to do next to
improve their understanding”.

From this, we created a compliment sandwich. We explained to them what she is currently
capable of and what she can successfully demonstrate. We then stated her areas for
improvement and provided examples/strategies of how we can work together to make this
happen.

We ended the report by letting them know, as her teacher we are here to support her
through all her learning, at school and home.

References:

Black, P 2015, 'Formative assessment – an optimistic but incomplete vision', Assessment in

Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 161–177.

Callingham, R 2008, ‘Dialogue and feedback: assessment in the primary mathematics

classroom’, Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, vol. 13, no. 3, Australian
Association of Mathematics Teachers Inc., pp. 18–21.

Westwood, PS 2016, ‘Assessment’, Numeracy and learning difficulties: approaches to

teaching and assessment, 2nd ed, ACER Press, pp. 74–84.