Introduction

The 21st century students needs to be a Life Long Learner. He or she need to have the skills of self-reflection and self-direction. Assessment is therefore probably the most important thing we can do to help our students to reflect on their own learning process and competences to become Life Long Learners. 21st century skills can ‘t be assessed using traditional evaluation tools. Alternative methods are needed to gain self-awareness through self-assessment. The student can develop these skills through Assessment for Learning or AfL. However Assessment in the classroom should not be limited to one kind of assessment.

Integrated Assessment Systems

M. Birenbaum (2003) talks of an Integrated Assessment Systems (IAS) where the different modules of assessment have to take place

Assessment of Learning (AoL)

Assessment of Learning is a summative assessment used primarily to compare students and report progress .Unit tests are a commonly used form of Assessment of Learning. AoL is norm-referenced

Assessment for Learning (AfL)

Assessment for Learning , a type of formative assessment, is utilized by teachers in order to gain an understanding of their students’ knowledge and skills in order to guide instruction. AfL is criterium – referenced

Assessment as Learning (AaL)

Assessment as learning is also a formative assessment which focuses on teaching students’ the metacognitive processes to evaluate their own learning and make adjustments. AaL is self – referenced

The Assessment Continuum

How the Integrated Assessment Systems (IAS) can be implemented is shown in the “Assessment continuum” :

From ‘Assessment in the Primary School Curriculum’ – Guidelines for Schools - NCCA

Assessment for Learning has 5 key strategies:

The Assessment for Learning tools :

• Portfolio Assessment : students gather evidence of their competences and learning progress in a portfolio. They become aware of their strengths and their weaknesses and how to deal with it.

• Performance Assessment : students are made aware through rubrics of the criteria they need to consider during a learning process. Through feedup , feedback and feedforward they reflect on their own learning process ,what they have achieved and where they will be going next.

• Co Assessment : parents – teachers and students sit together and receive feedback on the competences and the own learning process and progress.

• Peer Assessment : students assess their peers. Through the feedback, students learn about themselves and can make changes.

• Self Assessment : students reflect on their own learning process and competences by means of the different tools for Assessment mentioned above.