What should we assess? What shouldn't we assess?

A teachers’ primary concern is whether their students are learning or not, which places assessment as a critical part of teaching.  What should I assess? How do I assess? Prof. Geoffrey Hinchliffe and Prof. Heinz Dieter-Meyer respond to these questions in the context of a classroom and with large-scale assessments respectively. 

Prof. Geoffrey Hinchliffe

University of East Anglia, UK

Schools should be “a space of reasons”, where everyone is expected to give reasons for judgments they make and actions they do.

When we assess, we should focus on the child’s ability to give reasons for what they think, and their ability to make judgments in particular situations.

Prof. heinz dieter-meyer

State University of New York, USA

Teaching is essentially contextual and it can only be understood in the particular communication between a teacher and group of students.

Multiple choice questions and large scale assessments do violence to the idea of teaching and learning. It reduces learning to coercive recitation and drill.​
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