School of Mathematics Teaching

Assessment

Principles of assessment.

Assessment

Assessment can be done for two principal purposes, although they may be combined in various proportions. 

  • Assessment is formative if its main purpose is to provide information to the learner and the teacher on progress. Low or zero-stakes assessment from the feedback on which the learner will be able to perform better on later summative assessment is a good pattern.
  • Assessment is summative if its principal purpose is to contribute to determining the learner's final grade for the course. 

Ideas

There are many ideas and suggestions on the website above. Here are just a few ideas to promote discussion:

  • Allow a process of refinement in a hand-in: students hand in, get feedback, revise and then hand in a "final" version.
  • Involve students in marking each other’s work (and perhaps providing feedback), with or without a model solution or marking criteria.
  • Exemplars: have students mark some piece of real (but anonymised) student work and then compare with how it had been marked by "real" tutors. This could work well as part of a group meeting theme, and could also include advice on how to actually interpret and use feedback.
  • Debrief after an assignment, either at class level or at an individual level: how were marks lost and how can you avoid it in future?
  • Get student feedback on the assignment itself. (This may improve future assignments but also engages students with thinking about the purpose.)
  • We already have a well-established system of peer observation of lecturing, perhaps a system of peer observation of marking would work well in the large course teams of the pre-honours courses.