'The New Zealand Curriculum describes the Teaching as Inquiry cycle and the idea of purposeful assessment (page 39). Assessment is one of the tools that inquiring teachers use to improve their students’ learning and their own teaching.'
'Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration [BES] emphasises the importance of focusing on student outcomes and using both research evidence and assessment information to improve teaching and learning.'
While undertaking my initial scanning and evidence gathering, it has reinforced my strong belief in the extreme importance of having the correct assessment resources, tools and data. The current mainstream resources give us lots of information about what our students ''can not do or 'have not achieved'
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Our job as teachers is to gather evidence-based informative and summative information on our students. Then use this information to plan comprehensively and implement programmes to meet individual students needs.
'The learning inquiry takes place both during and after teaching as teachers monitor their students’ progress towards the identified outcomes and reflect on what this tells them. Teachers use this new information to decide what to do next to ensure continued improvement in student achievement and in their own practice.' http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz
I look forward to sharing some of these appropriate assessments for diverse learners with schools in our Manaiakalani community. I have decided to set up a separate page for assessment for learners with complex needs and another one for strategies for students who have specific needs.
