TG 02- Vinny, Prasad, Puvan

What have we understood about Alternative Assessment?



AA responds to the individual learning styles and intelligences of pupils. It sould enable teachers to measure how far students have mastered a topic or a process skill over a period of time. AA provides students with the challenges that would prepare them for the real world outside their clasrooms and textbook context. It focuses students' learning more towards the process, development and evaluation of a problem or task rather than targeting at the final solution. Multiple forms of intelligences are also applied in AA to meet the different learning needs of students.




An Example of a Lesson:



Lesson Objective:



At the end of the lesson, pupils should be able to solve mathematical problem sums through visualisation.








Task:





Introduction

• Pupils to recall formula for area of semi-circle and a rectangle.


• Teacher to tell pupils that they are ready to solve the given problem sum.
  Doing so motivate as well as stimulate students to come out with a solution.


• Teacher to introduce problem sum

Development 1: Sieving prior knowledge

• This lesson provides opportunities for both group work and individual.



• In groups, pupils are required to discuss and write out their thoughts or draw out their solution.



• Questions crafted in worksheet incorporate Multiple Intelligence (Visual Spatial intelligence and Logical Intelligence).

Development 2: Use of concrete materials to develop ideas

• Pupils are given manipulative of the figure to manipulate with.



• Concrete materials allow students to relate better to the question and allowing students to act out their thoughts to find out if their solution is feasible.
  
  

Development 3: Developing solution to problem sum

• After the 30 minutes group discussion, teacher to go through solution with the class.



• Pupils are asked to come up to the white board, using their manipulative to present their solution.
  The use of students’ own manipulative allows personal involvement in the problem sums thus encouraging them to work for a solution.



• Teacher assists the teaching of students by asking ‘Why” questions.
  E.g. Why did John mention that we need to find the area of the small semi-circle, medium semi-circle and triangle in order to find the area of the whole figure instead of the small, medium and large semi-circles?



• The questioning processes enable teacher to access students’ understanding of the lesson through their replies to the “why” question. It also allows teacher to clarify doubts, sort students’ thoughts as well as identify misconception.

Consolidation and Conclusion

• After discussion, pupils are asked to attempt another question in the worksheet individually.
  

• Question is crafted in such a way that students could apply what was taught earlier.



• This emphasizes and evidences the learning process as an active demonstration of knowledge which is one of the characteristics of alternative assessment.



• Marks allocation provided on the worksheet allows students to focus more on the process rather than the answer.



• Through pupils’ submitted worksheet, teacher is then able to assess individual understanding. Pupils are assessed on the process steps they used to solve the problem sum instead of their answer.



• Teacher to provide manipulate for the question if students fail to grab the skill of visualization.
  
  

Rubrics for the Task