Getting to grips with intitial assessment

Getting to grips with intitial assessment

Initial assessment is all about matching the learner to the appropriate programme of learning. It is arguably the single most important, and perhaps the most difficult, part of a teacher’s job.

Here are some tips to help you to develop an effective initial assessment process:

•Please take a look the DEL guidance docuemnt and the LSDA NI Quick Guide. These can be found in the reosuces section of this group. (Please note that although these documents were written with literacy and numeracy in mind, the good practice identified is likely to apply equally to ICT.)

•Also please look at the document ‘Guidance for teaching and learning Essential Skills ICT Initial Assessment – September 2008’ This document gives you the entry level curriculum. This will help you in assessing the learners strengths and weaknesses.

•Take your time! Initial assessment is not just one activity that you do during the first lesson. Rather, it is a process. It can take some time to get an accurate idea of a learner’s abilities and needs.

•Make your first lesson fun and interesting. Your primary goal should be to engage the learners and encourage them to come back for more. No one is going to be overly enthusiastic about doing a test (onscreen or on paper) during their first lesson.

•Initial assessment is not just about using tools or activities. It’s also about observation and listening.

•Because every group of learners is different there can be no fixed or standardised tool for initial assessment. E.g. It may be appropriate to use an online assessment tool with 16-19 year olds, but if you were to attempt to use it with senior citizens you might find that they will be intimidated and may not come back for more.

•People do not fit easily into boxes. You will find that many of your learners will have ‘spiky profiles’. This is where a learner as well developed skills in one area and is in need of development in others. E.g. a leaner may be able to use Face book or BEBO, but you might find they don’t know how to use simple functions in Office, Windows or Mac OSX.

•If you find that some of your learners need entry level skills development, your organisation should give you additional time to deliver a short period of ‘frontloading’ training.

Please feel free to ask any questions here.

I hope that this helps

Mark Byrne, LSDA NI

1. Hi Mark
   This is very good advice. I have had a variety of groups and not one initial assessment tool would have suited them all. It is imperative to choose the correct tool or tools for the group you have. I found that I needed to use different tools within the one group just by observing the difficulty some may be experiencing. So much of it is observation as this is a practical course – seeing is believing.
   Patricia McAleavey

   

   patriciamcaleavey
   7 Sep 2009
   19:29