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Relevance of Assessment to:
A.	Students and Teachers

Assessment is a critical piece of the learning process. This lesson gives an overview of assessment, why it benefits both students and teachers.Exams and essays along with speeches and projects are forms of assessment. Assessment is a critical step in the learning process. It determines whether or not the course's learning objectives have been met. A learning objective is what students should know or be able to do by the time a lesson is completed. Assessment affects many facets of education, including student grades, placement, and advancement as well as curriculum, instructional needs, and school funding.

Student Learning

Assessment is a key component of learning because it helps students learn. When students are able to see how they are doing in a class, they are able to determine whether or not they understand course material. Assessment can also help motivate students. If students know they are doing poorly, they may begin to work harder.

Imagine this situation:

Johnny is a chemistry student. He just took his first exam in his class. He earned a 56%; he needs a 79% to pass the class. The low exam score lets Johnny know that he missed something important he should have learned. Perhaps, he did not understand the material, or maybe he did not study long enough. Whatever the case, the assessment results let Johnny know that he did not successfully learn the material and that he must try something new in order to earn a better score.

Teaching

Just as assessment helps students, assessment helps teachers. Frequent assessment allows teachers to see if their teaching has been effective. Assessment also allows teachers to ensure students learn what they need to know in order to meet the course's learning objectives.

Imagine this situation:

Mrs. Brown is a 12th grade biology teacher. After finishing the unit on cell division, she gives a 50-point multiple-choice test. Upon grading the exam, Mrs. Brown realized the average class grade was a 68%, far below the cutoff line for passing. Mrs. Brown can easily see that her students didn't fully learn cell division. This tells her that she needs to re-visit the unit on cell division and determine why students failed the exam. Perhaps she may need to try a different teaching strategy, or perhaps she did not spend enough time on difficult material.

 B. Administrators 

Administration and program staff also plays a role in assessment. Assessment is the process where in we gather or collect information about student’s learning.

Assessment tools are the guide of administrators and public staff. Assessment doesn’t end with teachers alone. Administrators and staff are also concern to the results of the assessment.

Through this they can be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the program. Hence, they can create more effective styles that could improve the teaching quality of the teachers.

Quality education can be achieved through evaluation conducted in a particular school.

C.Program Coordinators

The roles and responsibilities of assessment coordinators can vary significantly based on the needs of the schools in which they’re employed. The educational requirements needed to obtain the position can also be very different, resulting in a broad range of salaries. At one end of the spectrum, the job may consist mostly of clerical duties. At the other end, it can be a much more specialized position involving program evaluation, statistical analysis and faculty and student development. If an assessment coordinator is assigned clerical duties, some of the responsibilities could include day-to-day administrative tasks, such as entering records into a database, collecting documents, processing paperwork and organizing and scheduling meetings. Although these tasks are typically assigned to administrative assistants or clerks rather than assessment coordinators, budget cuts can sometimes result in the need for employees to double-up duties. The more common role of today’s assessment coordinators plays right into the job title itself: assessing programs. Coordinators may often be tasked with developing and implementing assessment plans that are viable and focus on the most important learning outcomes of the program. They may evaluate and improve goals, prepare a plan to gauge whether objectives are being met and demonstrate that assessment outcomes are being used for program improvement, especially in regards to student learning.

Assessment coordinators may often engage in much of the following activity as they work toward evaluating and improving school programs and student performance:

o	Reviewing educational directives with faculty, staff and parents

o	Determining program effectiveness and instituting any necessary changes

o	Ensuring programs comply with local, state and federal regulations

o	Establishing educational standards and developing policies that ensure they are met

o	Monitoring student progress and resolving issues that may arise along the way

o	Directing teaching methods and content of programs

o	Determining the allocation of funds needed to operate effectively and efficiently

o	Writing instructional pieces describing the program

o	Soliciting program funding from external sources, including businesses, local government and the community

To perform these functions, an assessment coordinator must be organized and possess a keen attention to detail. Analytical aptitude and the ability to interpret data typically are a must, as is a talent for meeting deadlines and managing multiple tasks simultaneously. Along with strong communication skills, assessment coordinators generally need to be comfortable working independently or within a team environment.

D.Parents

Regardless of the age of the child, you have two major responsibilities in the area of assessment. The first is to actively participate in making decisions about which types of information are needed. The second is to assist the assessment professional in obtaining the most comprehensive information about your child, the visual condition, and the changes that you have seen over the years in your child's functioning. It is extremely helpful to provide the assessment professional with specific questions or concerns that you may have about your child. For example, do you feel that the development of daily living skills are not progressing as rapidly as you had hoped? Are you pleased about the way your child interacts with adults, but concerned about social interactions with peers? Do you see a sign of increasing social withdrawal as your child becomes older? Specific questions can assist in planning the assessment not only in terms of types of evaluations requested, but also in the selection of a specific test to be used. Parents have always had a critical role to play in the assessment process. With the implementation of the new IDEA, the law requires that parents play a greater role in this critical aspect of program planning. All of the decisions your team makes about your child's program rest on the quality of the assessment that is done.

E.Policyholders

Are you one of the many instructors who loathe makeup exam requests? Makeup exams often create more work and can put us in the awkward position of judging the truthfulness of our students’ excuses. Although we can’t avoid makeup requests entirely, we can better prepare ourselves and our students by having a transparent and fair makeup exam policy. When designing your policy, always ask yourself: Does the policy allow students to learn what you want them to learn in your course?

Here are three guidelines for an effective makeup exam policy and two possible workarounds.

1.	Alignment

Align your policy with the exam and course goals. Makeup policies are likely to differ depending on the type of assessment (quizzes, exams), their frequency in the course, and the weighting for students’ grades. For example, dropping the lowest grade won’t work for courses with only one or two tests. If an early exam is an essential foundation for later concepts or is a primary source of learning feedback, students shouldn’t be denied the opportunity for a makeup.

2.	Transparency

Share your policy with your students in advance, preferably in your syllabus. You can invite students to read and offer feedback on your makeup policy to ensure that it is clear. The policy should include necessary details for students to understand the policy. This may include how and when students should notify you, the period of time in which the makeup must be completed, acceptable excuses, and impact on grades. Your policy should also include a brief rationale to help students understand your thinking about how the policy benefits (rather than punishes) them as learners.

3.	Fairness

Students’ complaints about makeup policies are often due to perceptions of unfairness regarding how the policy is enacted for different students and situations. Thus, your policy should ensure that all students are treated fairly and “must be equitable, providing students equal chances to earn a good grade by demonstrating equal knowledge”. Your makeup tests should not be more difficult, or assess learning in a different way, than the original test. .

For these policies to work well, students need to know their overall grade in the course and potential outcomes given your policy (e.g., their final course grade if they choose not to take the final exam). You can set up your Learning Management System to automatically drop or substitute exam grades, or provide students with a spreadsheet that helps them to compute possible outcomes. When developing your policy, consider your course and students. Policies might be long or short, firm or flexible. In all cases, they should be transparent, fair, and justified with a focus on their value for student learning. Most importantly, your policy should ensure that students do not miss an essential learning opportunity in your course.

F. Industry and other Stakeholders

Industry input has been a major aspect of the identification of the competency standards and the development of the nationally endorsed Training Packages for the Vocational Training System in Australia. The development of the Training Packages includes Assessment Guidelines for each of the industry qualifications against which you assess your learners. The Assessment Guidelines are reviewed and revised as necessary over a five year cycle.

Other Stakeholders

Trainers and Assessors need to be aware that sometimes a State/Territory or National body also has a role in issuing units of competence or full qualifications relating to a specific industry area. For example in NSW there are vocational qualifications issued as part of the Higher School Certificate and also the Department of Fair Trading must endorse any course accreditation for the registration of Real Estate Agents. Employer representative groups and Trade Union groups are also key stakeholders in the Australian Vocational Training system.

Industry Currency

Partnerships can be formed for the purpose of assessment. The ‘partnerships’ may take different forms. Some industry areas are very ‘dynamic’ and underpinning knowledge as well as skill requirements change rapidly. Access to the technical knowledge and skill development within a ‘changing’ industry sector may mean RTOs form assessment partnerships with an enterprise or industry sector.

References