Year 7
Humanities and Social Sciences Support Materials
Assessment Principle 2
Assessment should be educative
Geography snapshot: Liveability of places
Humanities and Social Sciences/Knowledge and understanding/Geography/Place and liveability and Skills/Analysing/Evaluating/Communicating and reflecting
| Content Description |
|---|
The factors that influence the decisions people make about where to live and their perceptions of the liveability of places Apply subject-specific skills and concepts in familiar and new situations Draw evidence-based conclusions by evaluating information and/or data to generate a range of alternatives and plan for action in response to contemporary events, challenges, developments, issues, problems and/or phenomena; make comparisons; evaluate costs (disadvantages) and benefits (advantages); and infer relationships Represent information and/or data using appropriate formats to suit audience and purpose |
Nature of the assessment
Teacher observation of students during fieldwork in the local community
Purposes of the assessment
To monitor students’ understanding of the factors that influence the decisions people make about where to live, and people’s perceptions of the liveability of places.
To evaluate students’ ability to apply knowledge and understandings gained in the classroom to a real-life context.
Stage in the Teaching sequence
Middle of teaching cycle – formative assessment
Assessment task
Students were provided with a fieldwork booklet to record their observations of:
- physical (natural) and cultural (man-made) features in their suburb/local community
- specific examples of the urban functions in the neighbourhood that would make it more liveable to certain groups of people in the community.
Students were also required to develop a sketch map of an ideal liveable suburban area and to highlight the characteristics of a liveable suburb.
During the fieldwork, the teacher prompted students’ ideas and pointed out features, but did not provide lists of examples or answers to the students.
Further into the teaching program, students completed a summative assessment during which they were able to refer to their fieldwork booklets.
Assessment process
Formative assessment of the students’ understanding of:
- the term ‘liveability’
- how liveability may vary according to age or individual groups within the suburb
- the geographical concept of place
- their ability to use their understanding to develop a sketch map.
The teacher used the sketch maps to provide feedback to students and to support them in understanding what they currently knew and could do, and what they needed to learn next.
Using the information
The teacher used the students’ questions during the field trip, their fieldwork booklet and sketch maps to reflect on the effectiveness of her teaching and the needs of individual students.
The teacher provided additional learning opportunities prior to the students’ completion of the summative assessment.