Introduction;
Assessment is viewed as a critical part of teaching and learning to ensure that the required outcomes and criteria for the qualification are achieved by both the tutor and the student.
Assessment is the means of obtaining information, which allows teachers, pupils and parents to make judgements about pupil progress. The starting point for this is the curriculum and the processes of learning and teaching. Assessment is a tool for reflection on programme construction and teaching. It measures the success of learning, teaching and achievement and guides the next steps to be achieved. Assessment is a reflective tool designed to check understanding and development within any subject area.
As a teacher it has become very evident to me that assessment is a critical component of education and as such it is essential that I continuously monitor a learner’s progress to help me to identify where they are and if my teaching methods are moving individual students on. Teaching and learning are reciprocal processes that depend on and affect one another. The main purposes of assessment are • To assist the learner’s learning • To identify learner’s strengths and weaknesses • To assess the effectiveness of a particular teaching strategy or method • To assess and improve the effectiveness of a curriculum program
• To assess and improve teaching effectiveness
• To provide data that assist in decision making
• To communicate with and involve the learner in his or her learning. It was thought that assessments were purely to test what had been learnt, it is now recognised that assessments should be used to assist, aid and support learning mainly by the research of Black and William,
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