Assessment

This video is a teacher's interpretation of a song relating to assessment. I thoroughly enjoyed it as it raises points that we, as teachers, need to think about. While this has always been relevant it is particularly interesting at the moment as we are introducting National Standards in our primary schools here in New Zealand and this video has a NZ flavour to it - however all the concepts are relevant to all teachers.



When assessing we need to be aware that all children have different strengths and abilities - we don't children thinking that they can't do something and just give up which is exactly what can happen if we are not careful.

Measuring skills for the 21st century

I have just been reading this pdf file from Elena Silva which is very interesting and has implications for all educators.


"Skills that really matter for the 21st century—the ability to think creatively and to evaluate and analyze information—can be measured accurately and in a common and comparable way. These emergent models also demonstrate the potential to measure these complex thinking skills at the same time that we measure a student's mastery of core content or basic skills and knowledge. There is, then, no need for more tests to measure advanced skills. Rather, there is a need for better tests that measure more of the skills students' need to succeed today. … "








It is interesting to note New Zealand's standing in this table.