Design and Technologies – Ways of Assessing
The Ways of assessing complements the Ways of teaching and aims to support teachers in developing effective assessment practice in Technologies.
The Ways of assessing also complements the principles of assessment contained in the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline.
Assessment, both formative and summative, is an integral part of teaching and learning. Assessment should arise naturally out of the learning experiences provided to students. Assessments provide regular opportunities for teachers to reflect on student progress and achievement.
Assessment strategy
Observations of student learning, conducted both informally and formally, through a range of oral or written tasks to inform judgements.
Students evaluate and provide feedback against defined criteria on their peers' work or client brief. This process can be formative or summative, formal or informal.
Students apply project management skills to work collaboratively over an extended period to investigate, create, and solve a problem. Emphasis is on the process and the final product, assessing individual contributions and collective performance. Students develop and apply skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking and creativity, demonstrating ability to use knowledge in meaningful and authentic ways.
Students apply knowledge and skills by selecting and applying a range of technologies, focusing on applying knowledge through project management and production processes.
Students demonstrate the application of learning through ideation, algorithms, tables, graphs, diagrams, posters, infographics, brochures, websites, photographs and other media (e.g. slides, animations, blogs).
Students plan and investigate, either individually or in groups, to identify and construct questions; gather data; process, analyse and evaluate their data; and communicate their findings. This could be presented in a variety of formats, e.g. report, poster, oral presentation.
Students practise personal reflection, metacognition skills and evaluate against the criteria.
Students communicate ideas through spoken and written language, such as, informative, analytical and persuasive texts, computer aided drawing (CAD) and step by step production plans, recounts, reviews, reports, infographics, discussions, speeches, responses to texts like stories or pictures, debates, explanations, procedures, analytical and persuasive essays, or imaginative texts, such as narratives.
Video or audio recordings of activities, such as role-plays, performances, speeches, text reading, or play-based learning.
Collections of student work that provide long-term documentation of progress and achievement. Portfolios may be subject area specific or contain a range of work undertaken by the student and be evidence of project management.
Students present and defend opposing viewpoints on a topic. This format assesses critical thinking, communication skills, research, and the ability to construct and rebut arguments.
Diagnostic tasks are generally short, individual, targeted or written tasks, designed to provide information about students’ thinking.
Students use visual frameworks, including digital formats, that support and structure thinking by making the thought process visible. They illustrate relationships, patterns and connections between ideas and show connections between data. Examples include concept maps, flowcharts and cause-and-effect patterns.
These may include verbal questioning, multiple-choice, short answer responses or open-ended questions that require longer, sustained written responses and discussion.
Short assessments used to measure students’ understanding of specific content or skills. They can be formative or summative and are typically designed to provide quick feedback on student learning. Quizzes help identify gaps in knowledge, reinforce key concepts, and inform future teaching by assessing retention, recall and comprehension in a timely and efficient manner.
Discussions or interviews with students that are conducted either face-to-face or via audio and video recordings. Interviews can be used to probe for a deeper understanding of a student’s learning.