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Social Studies teachers are required to monitor the progress of students
in relation to the achievement objectives by devising specific learning
outcomes based on the achievement objectives.
In Social Studies learning outcomes may be written to describe what
students will do or produce to show that they have acquired certain
(Strand-related) knowledge and understandings, or that they can carry out
a particular Process.
The process of developing measurable learning outcomes that can be
assessed involves the following steps:
Decide what will be assessed in this unit - strand-based knowledge and
understandings and/or a Process (or Process-related skills).
If it is knowledge and understandings that are to be assessed:
- Refer to the Strand Achievement Objective that has been determined as
relating to the topic/study/unit.
- Unpack the achievement objective in the context of the unit.
- Develop measurable knowledge-focused Learning Outcomes that clearly relate to the
unpacked achievement objective.
If it is a Process, or a skill within a Process, that is to be
assessed:
- Refer to the Indicators provided for each Process or, better still, devise your own
Indicators (the Steps in the Process).
- Identify the Skills that students will demonstrate as they carry out
each step of the process.
- Develop measurable skills-focused learning outcomes that clearly relate to the
Process and its component skills.
- Depending upon who is carrying out the assessment the learning outcomes
should be preceded by:
- The student is able to (teacher assessed).
- I am able to (self assessed).
- (Student A) is able to (peer assessed).
- Assessment Activities and Assessment Schedules can now be
developed from the learning outcomes. The assessment schedule will clearly
identify the criteria that students will be expected to achieve at
different levels.
Exemplars
Determining the level or levels at which students are achieving is difficult.
The exemplars of student work that will accompany each unit on Social
Studies Online will play a significant role in helping teachers across the
country to begin establishing national benchmarks of achievement against
the curriculum.
Exemplars:
- help teachers place students' work within a particular curriculum
level.
- help teachers develop a common understanding of the standards expected at
each curriculum level.
- can be collected over time to illustrate a student's progress against
the curriculum levels (and form part of a portfolio).
- can be used by teachers as teaching models to be discussed with
students.
- are most powerful in achieving consistency when they are the basis of
professional discussion among teachers.
NB - The units contained in Social Studies Online will include exemplars
of students' work. Each will be ascribed a curriculum level and an achievement level with a
commentary as to why the teacher concerned thought the students' work did
or did not achieve that level. It should be noted that such level
ascription requires considerable professional judgement and is not a
science. We very much welcome your feedback on this, as well as your colleagues'.
Only through local and national dialogue can we begin to increase the
consistency of teacher judgement.
Reliability
A one-off assessment does not provide reliable evidence of performance.
Teachers will need to assess an achievement objective more than once before they can
reliably report that a student has achieved the standard required at a curriculum level.
Reliability is also enhanced if assessment is carried out by more than one
teacher.
This material has been produced by UNITEC Institute of Technology
under contract to the Ministry of Education.
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