EIGHTH DAY 17 OCTOBER 2014

1ST SESSION 

TYPES OF ASSESSMENT AND HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS IN ASSESSMENT 

BY KATIE COURTNEY BENNET 

AN OVERVIEW BY AZIZAH MAT YASIN 

  We had a wonderful early session with Katie last Friday. The session discussed the ‘Types of Assessment and Higher Order Thinking Skills in Assessment. Initially, everyone in Oxford agreed that assessment was best associated with checking learners understanding on certain subject taught where they are given marks or grades. 

The fact is that, assessment is not always about marks and grades. Assessment helps teachers to plan their teaching and evaluate the learners’ needs and progress. 

Basically, there are two types of assessment namely the formative assessment and the summative assessment. 

The formative assessment is an ongoing assessment that continuously monitored over time and does not require any marks or grades. It is only meant to check learners understanding towards learning via observation, question-answer, performance (presentation) or learners’ portfolios (record of learners’ work).

 Unlike formative assessment, the summative assessment is only been carried out once after a specific periods of time (at the end of learning term) and learners’ competencies are graded. 

Thus, teaching and learning are better when appropriate assessments are taken into consideration. 

A REFLECTION BY NOR AZMA MANAN

In my personal opinion, I learnt something new today related to Formative Assessment. Back in school, I still remember there is a particular section named “Formative Assessment” in our workbook for every end of the chapter. So from there, I had the belief that formative assessment is graded for every topic that we have learnt. However, I just knew from Katie who taught us that formative assessment is not graded and it can be implemented through several ways including teacher observation, open and closed questions, progress charts, and portfolios. This is definitely new for me and it somehow change the way I think about formative assessment.

2ND SESSION

SCAFFOLDING CONTENT AND LANGUAGE LEARNING

BY CHRIS GLEESON

Scaffolding may be defined as:

The steps teachers take to support learners so that they can understand new content and develop new skills.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

The zone of proximal development, often abbreviated as ZPD, is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help. It is a concept introduced by Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934).

To successfully apply it in a classroom, it is important to know not only where a child is functioning now and where that child will be tomorrow, but also how best to assist that child in mastering more advanced skills and concepts. This is where scaffolding comes in. Although not used by Vygotsky himself, the concept of scaffolding helps us understand how aiming instruction within a child’s ZPD can promote the child’s learning and development.

8 scaffolding techniques for language learning

1. Creating interest - pictures, music, videos, imagination
2. Chunks - breaking down tasks into smaller steps
3.  Providing before, during and after task support
4. Using visuals and realia (real thing, objects ie instead of a picture of a cat, bring the cat to the class)
5. Demonstrating tasks
6. Word bank, glossaries, writing frames
7. Model texts for production of language
8. Providing constructive feedback

Pen off - Oxford