Designing assessment tasks for deep thinking

1. Designing assessment tasks for deep thinking Gabrielle Matters Director, Assessment & New Basics Department of Education and the Arts Queensland

2. Outline • Deep thinking • Assessment task • Live tasks assessing deep thinking • The design process

3. Deep knowledge The acquisition of facts, concepts, theories, perspectives, and modus operandi that are critical to a significant topic or discipline, and that extend beyond the superficial, the routine or the trivial

4. Deep understanding Applying knowledge to constructing explanations, drawing conclusions, discovering relationships, making complex connections, solving problems, asking new questions, formulating and testing out hypotheses

5. Deep approach to learning • Correlates with motivation and self-concept, which correlate with academic success • Students get excitement and satisfaction from study

6. Assessment species HSC Student Task SAT, QCS Test Examination Testing Task J

7. Assessment task Tool or device or constructed situation that creates the opportunity for learners to display the nature and quality of their learning

8. Student work • Artefact • Performance • Oral presentation • Computer program • Extended writing • Test/exam response • Field work • Practical work • Project work • Long or short • Not necessarily written • Done in a controlled assessment space or not • Completed in a specified time or not • Done individually or in groups •  zero levels of teacher assistance

9. Assessment tasks • Long or short • Not necessarily written • Done in a controlled assessment space or not • Completed in a specified time or not • Done individually or in groups •  zero levels of teacher assistance

10. Live tasks • Rich Task • Mathematics Task • Teacher-Generated Task

12. Designing a structure Students will identify a client’s needs and take these and other factors into account in preparing a design brief for a structure. They will design an environmentally sensitive and aesthetic structure to fulfil this brief and communicate the design through sketches, plans and models. They will give due consideration to structure and materials, quantities and costs.

14. Finding the gingerbread man The Gingerbread Man has escaped from the classroom. How can we use maps and calendars to keep a record of his journey, and use this to tell of his adventures?

16. Can art have a social impact? Using their knowledge and understanding of economic and ecological sustainability and the procedures for social inquiry, students will undertake a local investigation into problems of recycling, reducing and re-using waste materials. Using ideas or messages based on this research, students will make a visual art object that captures the significance and meaning of the chosen ideas for a local audience.

17. ©The State of Queensland (Department of Education and the Arts) 2005

18. Design criteria • Intellectual challenge • Authenticity • Accessibility • Credibility

19. Good assessment tasks The task must be based in the curriculum. Students must know what is expected. Students must recognise the task as worthwhile and relevant. The task must be capable of eliciting an optimal performance from students.

21. Three essential elements • What is taught/learnt – intentions of the curriculum • What is assessed – knowledge, skills, dispositions in the domain being sampled • What isrewarded – high-quality performance on the criteria set down in the marking scheme and incorporated in an associated exemplar or indicative solution

22. Michael Jordan Being an athlete takes more brains than brawn. It takes time and effort. It takes endurance and commitment. It takes an athlete who can stay in the air for 2.5 seconds while shooting a goal; an athlete who knows which laws of physics keep him there.

23. Michael Jordan cont’d Assess the information presented in this magazine, using appropriate calculations to support your argument.

24. What is being assessed Outcomes H12 and H9 in the Physics syllabus

25. Marking guidelines

26. For 4 marks • Correctly determines the take-off speed and recognises that this is impossible OR correctly determines that the height to which the athlete jumps is impossible AND hence the information is not accurate

27. Designing a structure Students will identify a client’s needs and take these and other factors into account in preparing a design brief for a structure. They will design an environmentally sensitive and aesthetic structure to fulfil this brief and communicate the design through sketches, plans and models. They will give due consideration to structure and materials, quantities and costs.

28. What is being assessed • New Basics referents • … • … • Targeted repertoires of practice • … • …

29. For an A-grade • faithful interpretation of client needs via comprehensive and well-organised job specifications • … • …

30. Desirable features cont’d • cogent rationalisation in a design brief of environmental sustainability, aesthetic appeal, cultural appropriateness, financial viability and social significance, via the discourse of architecture

31. Desirable features cont’d • vivid ideation in conceptualising a structure for a selected site

32. NSW Examination Physics Year 12 (est. 7 min) External assessment Higher Sch Certificate Fulfils design criteria Meets depth definition Triangle works QLD Student task Multi-disciplinary Year 9 (3 yr) Internal assessment New Basics Report Fulfils design criteria Meets depth definition Triangle works Extreme examples

33. Design criteria • Intellectual challenge • Authenticity • Accessibility • Credibility

34. Depth • Deep knowledge • Deep understanding • Deep approach to learning

35. Essential elements • Intended = • Assessed = • Rewarded 

36. Conclusion • Not a function of the assessment regime • A product of the successful application of the design criteria and the interplay of three essential elements • Don’t waste energy berating the former • Become an expert in the latter