EMA/ESC4204 Curriculum

Improvement
Facilitator:
Troy Brown, PhD
Week 13 – The Relation between Curriculum and Classroom Assessment
Objectives: By the end of this week,
participants would be able to:
• Explore the relationship between curriculum,
instruction, and assessment.
• Differentiate between assessment of learning and
assessment for learning.
Curriculum

•Is developed following a series of

steps that aim to address students’
learning needs, as well as the needs
of the community and the demands
of the subject or topic itself.
Curriculum

•Is a structured set of learning

outcomes or task that educators
usually call goals and objectives.
Instruction

•Is vital for education, as it

is the transfer of learning
from one person (MKO) to
another.
 Instruction/teaching
• Knowledge of the curriculum is for successful assessment,
evaluation, decision making, and instruction.
Significance of instruction
Brings the content to the degree to which it conveys the basic
ideas, concepts, principles, and generalizations to the
development of particular learning abilities,
skills, and attitudes.
Relationship between Curriculum, Instruction, and
Assessment (CIA).
•Curriculum is essentially a design, or
roadmap for learning, and as such
focuses on knowledge and skills that are
judged important to learn.
•Instruction is the means by which that
learning will be achieved.
Assessment

•Is the process of gathering,

analyzing, interpreting, and using
information about students’ progress
and achievement to improve
teaching and learning.
Assessment contd.
• Assessment for learning is best describes as a
process by which assessment information is used
by teachers to adjust their teaching strategies,
and by students to adjust their learning strategies.
• Assessment is a powerful process that can either
optimize or inhibit learning, depending on how it
is applied.
For Teachers
Assessment for learning helps teachers gather information to:
 plan and modify teaching and learning programmes for
individual students, groups of students, and the class as a
whole.
 pinpoint students’ strengths so that both teachers and
students can build on them.
Identify students’ learning needs in a clear and constructive
way so they can be addressed.
Involve parents and families in their children’s learning.
For Students

•Assessment for learning provides

students with information and guidance
so they can plan and manage the next
step(s) in the learning process.
•Assessment for learning uses information
to lead from what has been learned to
what needs to be learned next.
Instruction and Assessment
• Instruction refers to the various ways of
teaching, teaching styles, approaches,
techniques, and steps in delivering the
curriculum.
• It is a complex activity that requires teachers
to use a variety of actions to accomplish a
variety of functions.
Describing Assessment for Learning

• Assessment for learning should use a range

of approaches. These may include:
• Day-to-day activities (such as learning
conversations).
• A simple mental note taken by the teacher
during observation.
• Assessment tool.
Teachers’ Assessment tool

• Formative Assessment Tool (process): are

used to evaluate a student at the beginning
or middle of a class, semester, or subject.
• Placement test, interviews, and teacher
observation and feedback are examples of
formative assessment tools.
Teachers’ Assessment tool contd.
• Summative Assessment Tools (product): are used to gauge
the outcome of the learning process. This is referred to as
assessment of learning.
• They focus on the curriculum presented during the learning
unit and are used to find out whether or not a student was
effectively taught a particular subject.
• A graded test, final examination, quiz, thesis paper, and mid-
term examination are all examples of summative teachers’
assessment tool.
Teachers’ Assessment tool contd.

Summative assessment tools should be

designed to reflect the information given
in the course.

Only summative assessment tools

should be grades.
Objective Assessment
• Teacher’s assessment tool, whether formative of
summative can be further divided into two other
categories: objective and subjective.
• Objective assessment tools have a clearly defined right
and wrong answer. They are used to assess the
students’ knowledge of particular facts. Example of
objective assessment tools are – true/false, matching,
and multiple choice questions.
Objective Assessment contd.

• Mathematics problems are almost always

objective assessment tools, as they leave
little room for interpretation.
• Objective assessment tools are the easiest to
design and grade and, therefore are the more
common type of assessment tools.
 Subjective Assessment
• Subjective assessment tools require a little more creativity
and opinion on the part of the student.
• These questions rely on the presentation of arguable
material.
• Essay questions, research papers, and argumentative
speeches are examples of subjective assessment tools.
• They can often reveal more than an objective assessment
tool because they allow for more that just memorization on
the part of the student.