Assessment

Been a while since I have been writing here and also doing stuff on online learning and educational multimedia production. This post is all about an important component of good educational media and that is, Assessment. Assessment is the process of gathering and interpreting evidence to make judgements about student learning. It is the crucial link between learning outcomes, content and teaching and learning activities. Assessment is used by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are at in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to get there. The purpose of assessment is to improve learning, inform teaching, help students achieve the highest standards they can and provide meaningful reports on students’ achievement.

Assessment can be what is called a formative and/or a summative process. Formative assessment is used to provide feedback to students and teachers to promote further learning. Summative assessment contributes to the judgement of student learning for reporting and certification purposes. Formative assessment – is assessment for learning. It is used at the beginning of an instructional sequence and during the process of instruction as teachers check for student understanding. Diagnostic tools determine what students already know and where there are gaps and misconceptions. Formative assessment also includes assessment as learning, where students reflect on and monitor their own progress. Where as, Summative assessment is assessment of learning. It is used near the end of the instruction sequence. Summative assessment information provides educators with the information about how effective their teaching strategies have been, time needed for instruction and how to improve teaching for future students.

Then there is this thing called Recognition for Prior Learning or RPL. RPL is an assessment technique which is used to measure whether a candidate’s work, education and life experiences enable them to meet the levels of competence outlined in standards such as units of competence. It gives people the opportunity to gain formal recognition for their knowledge and skills without attending structured training classes. This competence may have been gained through life or work experiences, learning in informal settings or formal studies.