Many teachers in Scotland are giving a lot of thought to assessment at the minute. Stephanie Disbury is one of these teachers. She is a Maths Teacher in Thurso who is not only thinking about the nature of assessments she uses with her pupils, she is also sharing her thinking online on her blog.

In her most recent post, she shares her idea of an S1 Assessment Week which I felt was worth sharing here:

S1 Assessment Week

Like most of my colleagues, I have been thinking a lot about how assessment should be approached for CfE.

I am clear in my own mind about the difference between formative and summative assessment and how I should use both in classes to progress learning. The next logical step for me was to consider how to change the end of year test into a format that would allow pupils to show progression in the 4 capacities and still be manageable, tangible and valuable. It quickly became clear that no traditional style exam where pupils answered questions in writing and in silence was going to be enough. At the same time, this is a valid form of assessing skills and abilities and we shouldn’t forget that this method suits some pupils to a tee. So we need assessment that encompasses many different learning styles and should be more reflective of how we work and, indeed, learn in real life.

And so there became a prezi! Before you open it, please accept my apologies for the truly unnecessary movement – I got a bit carried away. Also, please understand that I see this as part of the assessment of a pupil over the course of the year, simply another tool in the box if you like and not as a new final exam.

Your comments, as always, would be more than welcome.

I’m sure you’ll agree that Stephanie has some fantastic ideas which are clearly underpinned by a lot of thinking.