Ela Dtlls

The assessment process in a teaching environment is a necessary requirement to enable you to be able to measure a student’s knowledge and understanding. Assessment comes in many different forms and uses many different methods, each are important in obtaining an outcome to which the tutor can obtain positive outcomes. Gravells (2011:7) suggests that “Assessment is a way of finding out if learning has taken place”. Gravells (2011:7) adds that “It enables the assessor to ascertain if your learner has gained the required competence, skills, knowledge an understanding needed at a given point towards their programme or qualification”. This is important to me as a tutor as I need to be aware of the learner’s progress and if they have retained any of the information / training they have been given.

Formative assessment occurs during the teaching and learning process, types of Formative methods I use often include practical tasks and projects as well as group and peer discussions. “Formative or continuous assessment takes place during the course and can provide valuable information about how students are progressing in a fairly informal and non-intrusive way, although it may feel to the student that they are continually being assessed”. (Wilson:2009:58)

The University of Manchester (www.manchester.ac.uk) suggests 'Summative assessments are set to enable tutors to evaluate, and assign a mark to their students' learning at a particular point in time’. The majority of summative assessments I carry out are unseen examinations. This can cause pressure and anxiety for students particularly when grades are required for further learning. I do not use this method frequently only at the end of the course to test learning and this is an assessment method I need to develop.

Norm-referencing is “a standardized test that compares a student's test performance with that of a sample of similar students who have taken the same test” (www.education.com). This form of assessment helps...