Literacy and Mathematical Literacy are foundational to success for all students and early identification of a student’s learning needs is critical to effective intervention. Knowledge about a student’s strengths and needs guides teachers and support services staff in providing effective programming by linking assessment to practice. Instructional strategies that include differentiated instruction, and match the learning profiles of students, ensure access to learning for all children.
As a result of the Expert Panel Report on Literacy and the Report of the Expert Panel on Mathematics, the focus has been on professional development and learning resources to enhance the capacity of teaching and support staff to assist all students including those with special education needs through greater precision and personalization.The Ministry's EduGAINS website is a comprehensive resource to support literacy and mathematics.
Dufferin-Peel educators and support services staff, in consultation with parents, may initiate informal assessment measures that may enhance effective programming and support student achievement.
Formal professional assessments initiated by board psychology and speech and language pathology staff, require signed informed consent prior to the initiation of the assessment. Information regarding consent, timelines, and the process of the communication of results, will be shared.
For students requiring an Individual Education Plan, the IEP will be used to guide staff in assessing, evaluating and reporting achievement.
The Ontario Ministry of Education’s Growing Success resource document is founded on seven fundamental principles to ensure that assessment, evaluation, and reporting are valid and reliable, and that they lead to the improvement of learning for all students.
[ ] | The Ontario Ministry of Education’s Growing Success resource document is founded on seven fundamental principles to ensure that assessment, evaluation, and reporting are valid and reliable, and that they lead to the improvement of learning for all students.] |
The 2010 document supports assessment practices and procedures that:
- are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;
- supports all students, including those with special needs, those who are learning the language of instruction (English or French) , and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;
- are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences , needs and experiences of all students;
- are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the school year or course and at other appropriate points throughout the school year or course;
- are on-going, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;
- provide on-going descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement; and
- develop students’ self assessment skills to enable them to assess their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.
Terms such as diagnostic, formative, and summative, which are used to identify the nature of assessment, have recently been supplemented with the phrases assessment for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning. They are defined in Growing Success as follows:
- assessment for learning is the on-going process of gathering and interpreting evidence about student learning for the purpose of determining where students are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there. The information gathered is used by teachers to provide feedback and adjust instruction and by students to focus their learning. Assessment for learning is a high yield instructional strategy that takes place while the student is still learning and serves to promote learning;
- assessment as learning is the process of developing and supporting student metacognition. Students are actively engaged in this assessment process; that is, they monitor their own learning; use assessment feedback from teacher, self, and peers to determine next steps; and set individual learning goals. Assessment as learning requires students to have a clear understanding of the learning goals and success criteria. Assessment as learning focuses on the role of the student as the critical connector between assessment and learning; and
- assessment of learning is the process of collecting and interpreting evidence for the purpose of summarizing learning at a given point in time, to make judgements about the quality of student learning on the basis of established criteria, and to assign a value to represent that quality. The information gathered may be used to communicate the student’s achievement to parents, other teachers, students, themselves and others. It occurs at or near the end of a cycle of learning.
