Appendix C: Assessment and Evaluation Introduction

After a general discussion of assessment and evaluation, this appendix uses sample evaluation plans to show how activities, assessment, and evaluation might come together in a particular Core French program. Prescribed learning outcomes, expressed in observable terms, provide the basis for the development of learning activities, and for assessment and evaluation strategies.

These samples show how teachers might structure a unit. The topics and activities are ideas only. Teachers can adapt them according to their teaching situation.

Communicative Assessment and Evaluation

Assessment is the systematic gathering of information about what students know, what they are able to do, and what they are working toward. Communicative assessment tools include practice assignments, quizzes, samples of student work, pencil-and-paper tests, projects, and oral and written reports. Assessment methods include observation, student self- and peer assessments, holistic rating scales, performance reviews, and portfolio assessments.

Teachers evaluate student performance from the information collected through assessment activities. Teachers use their insight, knowledge about learning, and experience with students, along with specific criteria they establish, to make judgments about student performance in relation to prescribed learning outcomes.

Students benefit most when teachers provide evaluation on a regular, ongoing basis. When teachers and students see evaluation as an opportunity to promote learning rather than as a final judgment, it shows learners their strengths and suggests how they can develop further. Students can use this information to redirect efforts, make plans, and establish future learning goals.

Evaluation may take different forms, depending on the purpose.

• Criterion-referenced evaluation should be used to evaluate student performance in classrooms. Evaluation is referenced to criteria based on learning outcomes described in the provincial curriculum. The criteria reflect a studentÕs performance based on specific learning activities. When a studentÕs program is substantially modified, evaluation may be referenced to individual goals. These modifications are recorded in an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
• Norm-referenced evaluation is used for large-scale assessments; it is not to be used for classroom assessment. A classroom does not provide a large enough reference group for a norm-referenced evaluation system. Norm-referenced evaluation compares student achievement to that of others rather than comparing how well a student meets the criteria of a specified set of outcomes.

Criterion-Referenced Evaluation

In criterion-referenced evaluation, a student's performance is compared to established criteria rather than to the performance of other students. Evaluation referenced to a prescribed curriculum requires that criteria are established based
on the learning outcomes listed under the curriculum organizers for the subject.

Criteria are the basis of evaluating student progress; they identify the critical aspects of a performance or a product that describe in specific terms what is involved in meeting the learning outcomes. Teachers can use criteria to evaluate student performance in relation to learning outcomes. For example, weighting criteria, using rating scales,
or developing performance rubrics (reference sets) are three ways teachers can evaluate student performance using criteria.

Samples of student performance should reflect learning outcomes and identified criteria. The samples clarify and make explicit the link between evaluation and learning outcomes, criteria, and assessment.

Where a student's performance is not a product, and therefore not reproducible, teachers should provide a description of the performance sample.