What is Meaningful Assessment

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If you were trying to teach kids about floatation, how would you go about it? How would you know that the concepts you are trying to impart on the kids are being transfered? If they can recite the principles of floatation, do they really understand them? Could they apply them? In other words, what is meaningful assessment?

I have two students I am thinking about. One is a very bright, academically able boy. He has no trouble accessing the curriculum. He enters ICAS exams, and get merits and distinctions. He can get information through text, and understands things in concept.

The other student does not access the curriculum well. He has a low reading age. He does enter exams, and usually does poorly on traditional assessments.

Here's the kicker. The first student can complete all tasks in a traditional assement on measurement. The second student fails the traditional assessment. In the Hard Materials Room the first student can't measure two pieces of timber. The second, less academically able student, has no problem. So who understands the prinples of measurement? The first boy who can ace the test, or the second boy who can measure real life objects?

In the end, don't both boys understand the concept of measurement? In real life the first boy will probably never need to be able to measure accurately. He will probably be an accountant , or lawyer and employ the second boy to do the measuring for him. He needs to understand the concept so he doesn't get ripped off on a building project, but in the end, both boys have a working understanding of measurement. So what kind of assessment can you do to capture the understanding of both boys?

Let's take the concept of floatation. There is some complicated math and science behind the concept of bouyancy and floatation.

Archimedes Principle

The buoyant force FB on an object of volume V submerged in a fluid of density D is

FB = DgV

NOTE THAT D IS THE DENSITY OF THE FLUID, NOT THE DENSITY OF THE OBJECT.

In a classroom, my first student will understand this. The second student will get left behind. Perhaps though we can make a task that has both of these students working together to demonstrate their understanding. An authentic task. As a school, you might have a few key concepts that you might want all students to know. Just lately, at my school we did a school wide unit on aquatics and it was this, the principle of floatation that we wanted all students to know. How can we capture all students understanding.... Lets have a raft race! Simple assessment really, get six kids, give them some chalk to

plan, lots of rope, timber and empty containers, and the assessment is simple. The raft floats...or it doesn't! To make it qualitative, how many kids can you get on the raft? Which raft is the fastest. Simple really, and a hell of a lot more fun than any test you can imagine. Shouldn't all school be like this?

Alex MacCreadie

Educator http://maccreadie.webs.com

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