Assessment shall be used primarily as a quality assurance tool to track student progress in the attainment of standards, promote self-reflection and personal accountability for one's learning, and provide a basis for the profiling of student performance.
Features
The assessment process is holistic, with emphasis on the formative or developmental purpose of quality assuring student learning. It is also standards-based as it seeks to ensure that teachers will teach to the standards and students will aim to meet or even exceed the standards. The students' attainment of standards in terms of content and performance is, therefore, a critical evidence of learning.
1. Being holistic, assessment performs triple functions, namely:
a. Diagnostic (assessment for learning)- At the start of the quarter, before a new lesson is introduced, teachers should pre-assess the knowledge and skills that students are bringing with them in order to identify learning needs and address these accordingly. It could be that students do not possess the prerequisite knowledge and skills or there might be misunderstandings that could get in the way of new understandings. The results of pre-assessment are, therefore, used to inform teaching and improve learning. Thus, diagnostic or pre-assessment fulfils the function of "assessment for learning".
b. Formative/Developmental (assessment for and assessment as learning)- During instruction, the teacher should regularly check whether students are attaining the objectives of instruction, i.e., the teaching strategies are being effective as evidenced by student demonstration of desired or expected learning behaviors. The daily quizzes that the teacher gives to check for learning or understanding fulfil this formative or developmental function of assessment. The results are recorded, but are not used for grading purposes. The teacher uses the results for improving learning by changing or modifying strategies or learning activities that have not been effective (this is why developmental or formative assessment is also called assessment for learning).2. Being standards-based, assessment seeks to quality assure and evaluate attainment of learning standards in the following areas:
Students, for their part, should draw lessons and insights from the results of assessment. This is why formative or developmental assessment is also called "assessment as learning." Thus, students should be given the opportunity to assess themselves, reflect on the results, analyze what they did well, why they did well, and what went wrong and the reasons for it. This is what is meant by self-knowledge. Students, by revealing their self-knowledge, share responsibility for their learning as well as accountability for the results they get. As participants in the teaching-learning process, students should be encouraged to provide feedback to the teacher in terms of what they enjoy learning, or how their learning or understanding can be facilitated more effectively.
c. Summative/Evaluative (assessment of learning/assessment as learning)- At the end of instruction (e.g., if it is a five-day lesson, then the assessment administered on Day 5) or at the end of every phase of the lesson (i.e., Explore, Firm Up, Deepen, and Transfer), the teacher gives a summative assessment for the purpose of making a judgement on the level of proficiency the learner has attained. Thus, from the perspective of the teacher, the assessment, being evaluative, becomes "assessment of learning". From the perspective of the student, the results of assessment can be used to inform or improve future learning; thus, summative assessment also becomes "assessment as learning".
Assessment for, assessment as, and assessment of learning are summed up in the Nature of Assessment.
a. Content standard- assessment in this area considers what the student knows (knowledge), can do (process or skills, i.e., how the student makes sense of or constructs meanings out of the facts and information), and understands (understandings or meanings made); andNature of Assessment
b. Performance standard- assessment in this area looks into how the student transfers his/her understanding to life situations in the form of products and performances, or through authentic performance tasks.
In summary, the nature of assessment may be defined in terms of the purpose that it seeks to fulfil, namely:
1. Assessment for learning- when assessment is done at the start of instruction in order to determine students' background knowledge and skills, and during instruction in order to track students' progress in understanding.
2. Assessment as learning- when students reflect on the results of assessments, and use the results to chart their own progress and plan the next steps to improve performance; it builds metacognition as it involves students in setting and monitoring their own learning goals.
3. Assessment of learning - being summative, it measures students' attainment of standards.
Levels of Assessment
Assessment shall be at four levels and shall be weighted as follows:
Level of Assessment Percentage Weight Knowledge 15 Process or skills 25 Understanding(s) 30 Products/Performances 30
___________Total: 100%
The levels are defined ned as follows:The teacher and the students doing self-assessment are advised to use rubrics as scoring guides. Prototypes of these rubrics, including other assessment tools, are provided in Enclosure 2.
1. "Knowledge" refers to the substantive content of the curriculum, the facts and information that the student acquires.
2. "Process" refers to cognitive operations that the student performs on facts and information for the purpose of constructing meanings and understandings.
3. "Understandings" refers to enduring big ideas, principles and generalizations inherent to the discipline, which are assessed using the facets of understanding.
4. "Products/Performances" refers to real-life application of understanding as evidenced by the student's performance of authentic tasks.
Assessment tools shall be those most appropriate for the level being assessed. The level of knowledge, for example, being on facts and information, may be assessed using traditional measures (e.g., paper-and-pencil tests using multiple choice, true-false, or matching type of tests) if the intention is to find out students' knowledge of specific facts and information. But if the purpose is to determine if students' knowledge of facts and information is of sufficient breadth and depth to develop understanding, then the constructed response type of assessment will be useful. For the latter, the use of rubric as a scoring guide will be appropriate.
For the assessment of process or skills, the emphasis should be on how students construct meanings or make sense of the facts and information. Students, for example, may be asked to outline, organize, analyze, interpret, translate, convert, or express the information (such as a set of statistics) in another form or format; draw analogies; construct graphs, flowcharts and mind maps or graphic organizers; or transform a textual presentation into a diagram. They may also be asked to draw or paint pictures, or do role plays to represent or express creatively their sense of the facts and information. Assessment, in this regard, may focus on how logically and analytically students make sense of the information.
It is important that the teacher quality assures or assesses formatively the process of meaning-making that students undertake even as early as the exploration phase of the lesson when students are collecting information. Students need to understand the content requirements of the task. Thus, they need to sift through or screen the information for usefulness, authenticity, accuracy, or relevance. They need to distinguish between fact and opinion, between truth and hearsay. They should know what is important and what is not, what is essential and what is trivial. They may need to outline before they organize the information into a coherent story or paragraph. Assessment for learning is, therefore, very critical as early as this stage when students are exploring their understanding, the process of meaning-making being an essential building block to developing, firming up and deepening one's understanding.
The next level of assessment centers on the meanings or understandings that students themselves make or develop. Assessment at this level should be able to draw from the students their understanding of the EU (Essential or Enduring Understanding) which may be expressed using the facets of understanding.
The highest level of assessment focuses on the products or performances which students are expected to produce through authentic performance tasks. The GRASPS model of assessment is recommended to be used for this purpose.
Results of the assessment across levels should be fed back immediately to the students, consistent with the principle of assessment as learning. As already mentioned, students need to learn from the results of the assessment so they know what to improve further, and then they can plan strategically how they can address any learning deficiency.
Please note that the assessment of student performance does not specify such factors as participation, projects, tests, and homework. These factors were the basic considerations in the grading system under the 2002 BEC; however, in the 2010 SEC, said factors are considered in the context of how they are used to demonstrate student understanding and as expressions or exhibition of student products and performances. Homework, for example, may be viewed as an opportunity for integration of learning and as an avenue for producing products and performances. Thus, homework which under the 2002 BEC was viewed as an output in itself and was therefore rated as a factor for reporting student performance, is treated under the 2010 SEC as a means to integrate learning and transfer this to real life through products and performances. Homework is, therefore, not rated; what is rated is the product or performance it produces. In the same manner, participation as a factor in student rating in the 2002 BEC is not rated separately in the 2010 SEC. In the latter, participation may be taken in the context of transfer of understanding which may include one's involvement in community projects. In this light, participation becomes a performance and is, thus, rated at that level.
Levels of Proficiency
At the end of the quarter, the performance of students shall be described in the report card, based on the following levels of proficiency:
- Beginning- The student at this level struggles with his/her understanding; prerequisite and fundamental knowledge and/or skills have not been acquired or developed adequately to aid understanding.
- Developing- The student at this level possesses the minimum knowledge and skills and core understandings, but needs help throughout the performance of authentic tasks.
- Approaching Proficiency- The student at this level has developed the fundamental knowledge and skills and core understandings and, with little guidance from the teacher and/or with some assistance from peers, can transfer these understandings through authentic performance tasks.
- Proficient- The student at this level has developed the fundamental knowledge and skills and core understandings, and can transfer them independently through authentic performance tasks.
- Advanced- The student at this level exceeds the core requirements in terms of knowledge, skills and understandings, and can transfer them automatically and flexibly through authentic performance tasks.
| Level of Proficiency | Equivalent Numerical Value |
| Beginning | 74% and below |
| Developing | 75-79% |
| Approaching Proficiency | 80-84% |
| Proficient | 85-89% |
| Advanced | 90% and above |
What should appear in the report card is not the numerical value, but the equivalent level of proficiency, abbreviated as follows:
B for Beginning;At the end of the four quarters, the Final Grade shall be reported as the average of the four quarterly ratings, expressed in terms of the level of proficiency.
D for Developing;
AP for Approaching Proficiency;
P for Proficient; and
A for Advanced.
Honor students shall be drawn from among those who performed at the Advanced Level. Subsequent guidelines shall be issued as basis for ranking of honors.
View here the:
Pilot Adoption of Standard-Based Assessment and Rating System at the Secondary Level for School Year (SY) 2011-2012
Prototype Assessment Tools and Rubrics
- https://www.affordablecebu.com/
