WOMAN: What are you going to do down here?
-We have to do pictures like... -Some more pictures? That's right.
So you've got a goat on the board and a goose and some grapes.
WOMAN 2: When graduate teachers first come out of uni,
they have a theoretical understanding of assessment,
and they will have been presented 7 with a variety of forms of assessment,
and they may have seen some used in their teaching blocks,
but when they get their own class, it's a whole different story.
Well done. I think you have.
'Cause I can see here that you've done it in one full rotation.
WOMAN 2: They can think that everything needs to be formal
and forget or need to be reminded
that a lot of the assessment happens all day, every day.
So, what are some other ways that you assess children's learning
just normally in your classroom all the time?
In my class, I take a lot of anecdotal notes,
especially, like, with morning talks, so I can observe them
and see what we need to work on.
Yep. And how do you record those notes?
Do you write them down on a sticky note, stick them in a book,
or do you make a comment somewhere?
-No, I have something like this. -Yep. So you have a grid.
Yeah, I have a grid, and I take notes on that.
-So that just builds up over time? -Yes.
Do you date those records as you put them on?
-Yep. -Excellent.
'Cause it's really handy when you go to use that for reporting
or even to discuss a child's progress with anyone else,
if you've actually dated your notes that you've taken,
then you'll have a record that builds up over time
of how quickly they're progressing,
so it just makes your records more useful
than if you didn't have a date.
It's a great thing for a graduate teacher
to be able to sit with some other graduate teachers
and somebody more experienced
and just talk through that stuff
without worrying that you're being judged for what you don't know.
In PE, I like to use video,
so I can video the kids when they're playing and look back on it
and see how their tactics are and their skills are during the game.
That's how you're recording it, but how are you actually assessing it?
You're just watching, you're observing?
-And you're making a judgement as...? -Judging the skill as they do it.
We try to talk a lot about being a good observer when you're teaching,
because that's the thing that you can do all of the time.
So let's try to split some of these things that we've come up with
into formative, summative and diagnostic.
Is everyone clear, 'cause those words
are a bit hard to get your head around sometimes.
'Formative' is what you're doing along the way
and it's guiding your teaching.
'Summative' is at the end of something.
WOMAN 1: So is that like the PAT test?
Yes. PAT test is a big summative one.
But it's also your stuff like your...
..you know, when you've done an inquiry unit
and you're at the end of the inquiry unit,
and you all do something for that, don't you,
where you assess how far they've learnt.
WOMAN 3: Just with the maths PAT test,
I quite liked how we could, with the grid sheet it had on there,
to mark how they did in each question,
and there, they've got a shape showing if it's a number question,
a measurement question or a space question.
And my kids didn't do so well on space questions, so...
..we might have to go back and look at 3-D shapes and things like that
a little bit more, 'cause that's sort of where they didn't do as well
as I thought.
And it's also worth checking out whether
it was the fact that they couldn't read the question
and couldn't understand what to do
or whether they really don't have that maths concept,
so just, you know, some more talking with your kids, just...
It can be informal, just to work out whether
they did actually know what those shapes were
but just couldn't figure out that that's what this question was about.
I was told that one of my students had been showing great leadership,
which I thought's pretty awesome, for a teacher to come to me and say,
you know, "This is what I observed,"
and she was really amazed that, you know,
she's a brand-new student, she's only been here a term
and already she's instructing her classmates
in, you know, how to stand at the gym, waiting for a teacher.
WOMAN 2: The world of education changes frequently,
and we can never assume that we know it all.
We all have to be learning constantly.
Teachers need to understand that as well
and just to treat it as a learning journey that you're on together.