Purpose of keeping accurate and reliable records of student achievement:
Making judgments is at the heart of assessment and keeping track of those judgments is an important way of monitoring progress in learning. Assessment results might be recorded informally (e.g. in a teacher’s mark book) or formally (e.g. on a report card that goes home to parents). Recording of any kind means that an assessment has been made of a student’s progress in learning and a judgment has been reached about the standard of performance. It is the judgment which is recorded. Recording helps to systematise a demanding and complex process that teachers undertake on a daily basis. Records of assessment are themselves evidence that assessment has taken place and at the same time provide a basis for designing ongoing assessment. A good record-keeping system helps to make explicit and transparent the process of teacher judgment in arriving at assessment decisions. There are no legislative or statutory requirements that apply to all Australian schools but there are principles of natural justice that require assessment to be neither arbitrary nor unfair.
One way to ensure that assessment is able to meet criteria is to have a record-keeping system that light, in the case of a dispute, enable a second judgment to be made on a student’s learning progress. At the very least, such records should enable individual teachers to explain why they have reached a particular decision. Decisions about assessment are neither private nor personal: they are public, and there needs to be a public face to the assessment process. The culture of a ‘fair go’ is very much part of the Australian ethos and records of assessment are one way to reflect that culture in schools. Record keeping needs to be a priority for schools, and the development of a specific school policy is highly desirable.
Reasons for making record keeping a priority in schools:
1. Assessment processed need to be transparent
2. Assessment processes should be neither arbitrary nor unfair
3. Good practice in assessment requires the use of multiple assessment tasks so that students have a number of opportunities to demonstrate what they know and are able to do
4. It is important for assessment tasks to be reliable indicators of what a student knows and are able to do
5. It is important for assessment tasks to be valid indicators of what a student knows and is able to do
6. Student progress in learning can be mapped against predetermined standards
7. Reflection on assessment practice is an important part of teachers’ professional practice.
Principles and strategies for reporting to students and parents/carers:
The fundamental purpose of reporting is the enhancement of student learning. Effective reporting necessitates an understanding of the information needs of parents, students and other teachers.
Principles for reporting:
Report forms:
While there is a Government-mandated and uniform procedure for issuing formal reports to parents bi-annually, teachers typically assess and report formatively throughout the year for units of work or individual assignments using a combination of percentage marks, grades, ranks, written comments and outcomes.
Marks:
The time-honoured tradition of ascribing marks is a useful way of indicating performance that may be interpreted both summatively and formatively.
Letter grades:
Assigning the grades A to E potentially reduces disagreements between assessors as there are fewer categories involved. So, while marks and letters may yield potentially useful information useful information in quantifying assessment and discriminating levels of performance.
Ranks:
Rans are most frequently used in conjunction with marks, and report normative information. They indicate how the student has performed relative to other students. One possible problem is that marking may be misleading if additional information about the distribution of marks is not provides. The problem with rankings alone is that they provide no information about the performance of students according to particular criteria. They provide normative information only.
Words:
There is a continuing trend reporting to supplement quantitative information (marks, grades, ranks) by written comment. Some reports have virtually abandoned the former in favour of the rich description that written comment can provide. One traditional format allowed for a mark, a grade a comment on the remainder of the line. This format encouraged the use of labels such as ‘good’, ‘poor’, or ‘hyperactive’ and, as such, provided little more information than the marks or letter grades.
Outcomes:
As a result of the national curriculum of the early 1990’s and it emphasis on outcomes, reporting increasingly involves outcomes on report forms. These outcomes typically begin with a verb (‘multiplies two digits by two digits’; ‘publishes written texts in different forms using word processing’; ‘present work clearly and imaginatively’). And ticked according to options such as ‘highly competent’, ‘competent’, ‘developing’ and ‘experiencing difficulties’. The Board of Studies claims that when teachers judge the achievement of outcomes the focus shifts from marks and grades to actual performance.
Reporting interviews:
Reporting interviews are typically focused or non-directive and include the traditional teacher-parent interview, the teacher-student interview (which may operate preparatory to the teacher-parent interview or in its own right), the student-parent interview or student-led conference (which involves extensive preparation and a prior teacher-student conference), and the teacher-student-parent interview or three-way reporting.
The teacher-parent interview:
The teacher-parent interview is typically conducted mid-yearly, though it is also frequently arranged on request. The practice of conducting a meeting with parents once or twice a year to discuss student achievement in the most enduring feature of the school-home relationship. These meetings function as opportunities for involving parents in the assessment process in general and, in particular, indicating areas for remediation and suggestions for improvement. Benefits include the capacity to share details about student achievement; to obtain explanations and eliminate uncertainties; and to ‘blend school and home learning environments’.
Suggestions for teachers are:
· Identify criteria (outcomes) by which students are to be assessed/reported
· Collect evidence to demonstrate the achievement or non-achievement of the criteria (tests, portfolios, work samples).
· Conference with the student to indicate what will be reported to parents
· Provide parents with sufficient notice
· Begin the interview positively; perhaps identify a strength and ask the parents to embellish it
· Outline your routines and policies
· Discuss the student’s preferred learning activities and your main concerns
· Share your thoughts about and responses to the information conveyed
· Check with the parent to ensure a common understanding
· Speak an accessible language
· Offer the parent any support material that explains policy or pedagogy
· Request written feedback from the parent
Suggestions for parents are:
· Ensure that the interview is not the first contact with the teacher
· Plan specific questions before the interview
· Identify information about your child that you might share with the teacher
· Talk with your child before the interview (strengths, weaknesses, homework, support possibilities).
· Consider attending the first interview without your child
· Discuss issues without becoming personal
· Combine proffered criticism with praise
· Address specific issues rather than talk in generalities
The questions that parents might ask at interviews:
· What does my child enjoy doing the most?
· What is my child really good at doing?
· Does my child ask questions and participate in class activities?
· Is my child reluctant to do certain activities?
· Does my child do classwork and homework efficiently?
· What areas does my child need to improve?
· What areas could I assist my child with at home?
· How is my child relating to his/her peers?
· Is my child experiencing any problems in class that are not related to schoolwork?
· Do you have any problems with my child?
· How is my child progressing in comparison to others?
The teacher-student interview:
The teacher-student interview is particularly useful for diagnosing learning difficulties and gaining insight into a student’s progress. While teachers typically conference with students regularly in the classroom, particularly in assessing reading and writing skills, there is also scope for the longer and formal interview. These interviews typically occur more frequently before the more tradition parent-teacher interview and provide opportunities to examine student work beforehand, focussing on the assessment criteria, and to ask questions that may trigger student reflection and promote insights. Ideally the directing of the interview should be shared between student and teacher. Suggestions for conducting teacher-student interviews are shown below.
· Encourage informally, rather than intimidate the student with structure
· Demonstrate interest and active listening through appropriate verbal and non-verbal language
· Reflect neutrality by avoiding the expression of disapproval or surprise, and stating your own opinion
· Pause to elicit further responses, particularly if the initial response is ‘I don’t know’.
· Assist the student with verbal expression if necessary, but avoid ‘shaping’ the answers
· Provide reassurance and sympathy as appropriate
· Phrase the questions deliberately so that they relate to the student’s level
· Maintain interest by ensuring that the interview is both lively and relevant
· Avoid sarcasm, incredulity and laughter
· Interview sensitive students away from their peers
The student-parent interview:
The student-parent interview, or ‘student-led reporting’, is not a common reporting practice, but it is occasionally used as an alternative to teacher-parent interviews. It is part of a formal reporting process conducted at the school, and the students are fully prepared by the teacher to undertake the reporting.
The benefits of student-led conferences:
· Students engage in self-evaluation, and this inspired them to produce quality work
· Student performance is an expression of authentic assessment as the students are given responsibility to report as active learners
· Students are empowered in the reporting process, which is therefore generally less threatening and more constructive
· Teachers are redefined as coaches who can provide students with constructive feedback
· Student-parent communication is enhanced
The teacher-student-parent interview:
The teacher-student-parent interview, or ‘three-way reporting’, is endorsed as a means of improving communication between parents, teachers and students. Students demonstrate what they know by showing evidence of their achievements. Parents learn about their child’s progress, have the opportunity to ask questions, and can negotiate strategies for supporting the child. The teacher facilitates the process, responding to questions as necessary, and learning valuable information about the student’s home environment. The NSW Department of School Education suggests a one-page proforma for teachers that may be used at the interview. It contains sections to record the student’s area of strength, areas needing improvement, and an action plan specifying action for the student, teacher and parent.
The benefits of three-way reporting:
· For teachers: It promotes shared responsibility for student learning and strengthens communication with parents
· For students: It enhances self-esteem and empowers them as they assume ownership of their learning
· For parents: It increases their understanding of learning, and allows them to participate more actively in the reporting process.
Portfolios:
Portfolios, used as a reporting tool at interviews, provide a selective and reflective collection of student work, and their role in the reporting process depends on their declared purpose. In Australia, portfolios emerged as the ideal assessment and reporting expression of two trends: the authentic assessment movement, which emphasised assessment as performance-based and –situated; and outcome-based education, which emphasised assessment as observable, demonstrable benchmarks of student achievement.
Different classification of portfolios is presented below:
The accountability and instructional portfolio: This profile includes information yielding valid comparisons; and the instructional portfolio, containing less formally assessed material, possibly incorporating student reflection. If the intention of reporting is to demonstrate student achievement from tests and to measure that performance against age norms, then the accountability portfolio will prove a suitable tool. If, however, parents are concerned with obtaining a holistic understanding of their child’s educational performance, the instructional portfolio is more appropriate.
The showcase portfolio contains the student’s best work. Parents and stakeholders may wish to view this portfolio, particularly insofar as the best work demonstrates the achievement of outcomes. Some teachers declare a preference for normal, as opposed to best, work because it is more authentic – that is, it provides a better indication of typical performance. They believe the ‘showcase’ carries the implication of work that is cosmeticized or highly polished.
The evaluation portfolio, in which contents are marked and graded. Parents and other stakeholders would almost certainly be interested in seeing this portfolio. Despite the fact that outcomes-based assessment, with the associated emphasis on criterion-referenced assessment, has been the norm for many years, there is still an entrenched desire among parents for a percentage mark, which for many provides a familiar indication of subject mastery. An indication of their child’s performance in relation to that of others is regarded as even more valuable.
The documentation portfolio, which contains evidence of student progress, systematically kept by the teacher without attention to scoring criteria. This is of interest to parents, but more so if some scoring rubric can be used to explain it. It may have greater appeal to teachers who can more readily ascertain the quality of students’ performance.
The process portfolio, which contains ongoing work with written reflection by the student. This element of student engagement is consistent with the shift of school assessment towards a constructive framework that views learning as complex and situated. The nature of student engagement in the portfolio process: self-reflection by the student in selecting contents; dialogue among students as they collaborate in editing or selecting; dialogue between the student and teacher in portfolio conferences; dialogue between students and family; and dialogue between teacher, student and family.
Portfolios are particularly suited as reporting tools for three-way or teacher-parent-student interviews. The portfolios are prepared to document evidence of achievement, and the student is often encouraged to direct the interview, with the teacher clarifying parent questions that cannot be answered by the student. The portfolios required for dynamic reporting of this nature need to have the characteristics: displaying a rich variety of evidence that is sufficient to justify claims of achievement, presenting content that is current and relates to the criteria, and evolving and therefore constantly reviewed.
School-wide reporting:
While there are formal strategies for reporting, such as the report form, interview and portfolio, there are many other ways for schools to report the achievement of students both individually and collectively.
Brochures:
Most schools make information available to the parents of prospective students. Such information typically includes a description of the school, pastoral care provisions, homework expectations, explanations of school rules and progress/subjects offered. Brochures are particularly helpful when they create a dialogue with parents, either by indicating their possible involvement in home-school partnerships, or by helping them to understand educational issues (how schools have changed, and how to help the child reading at home).
Newsletters:
Letters are the most common form of contact with parents and cumulatively provide valuable information about the school culture. They are a quick and efficient means of reaching parents and can be devised at short notice. They are ‘universally appreciated’ and are the ‘common means by which parents find out what is happening in their schools’.
Open nights, speech nights and assemblies:
These are opportunities to showcase the best work of students. While not reporting systematically on individual performance, they do provide helpful models of best work or practice that may assist parents in developing healthy expectations.
Classroom visits and classroom/in-school displays:
These can be formally organised to showcase student work and for parents to be the audience for student exhibitions. Teachers may adopt an open-door policy by which classroom visits are part of normal school routine.
Out-of school displays/performances:
As schools have become self-managing and autonomous, they have become more active in advertising and displaying student work and performance in community venues and shopping malls. This is a strategy for reporting best practice to the community.
Policy statements/curriculum and program documents:
These are not given to parents as the number of curriculum statements provided by systems is limited, but they should be available in the school for parents to consult. They are statements of the system and school’s expectations of the student.
Homework:
Homework is valued by parents as it allows them to observe their child’s work and to gain insight into progress, particularly if it is a requirement that parents sign the completed work. Students benefit most when immediate feedback is provided by both teacher and parent.
Formal school meetings:
Such meetings may comprise the parents’ association meetings that usually occur monthly, school council meetings, and meetings to address parents on specific policies or innovations (e.g. the child protection legislation). They are valued by parents, yet a preference is expressed for small, practical and focused group meetings.
Social occasions:
School barbecues, trivia nights and similar social gatherings provide a good forum for informal reporting between teacher and parent.
School-university partnerships:
Some schools are forming partnerships with local universities that enable shared action research, shared experience in the provision of professional development, and collaboration in planning, teaching and evaluating prospective teachers. This strategy not only represents a form of reporting to the wider educational community but also ultimately improves the learning outcomes of prospective teachers and school students.
(Source: Brady & Kennedy, 2010; Brady & Kennedy, 2012)
References:
Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (2010). Curriculum Construction (4th ed.). Frenches Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson.
Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (2012). Assessment and reporting: Celebrating student achievement. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia.
Making judgments is at the heart of assessment and keeping track of those judgments is an important way of monitoring progress in learning. Assessment results might be recorded informally (e.g. in a teacher’s mark book) or formally (e.g. on a report card that goes home to parents). Recording of any kind means that an assessment has been made of a student’s progress in learning and a judgment has been reached about the standard of performance. It is the judgment which is recorded. Recording helps to systematise a demanding and complex process that teachers undertake on a daily basis. Records of assessment are themselves evidence that assessment has taken place and at the same time provide a basis for designing ongoing assessment. A good record-keeping system helps to make explicit and transparent the process of teacher judgment in arriving at assessment decisions. There are no legislative or statutory requirements that apply to all Australian schools but there are principles of natural justice that require assessment to be neither arbitrary nor unfair.
One way to ensure that assessment is able to meet criteria is to have a record-keeping system that light, in the case of a dispute, enable a second judgment to be made on a student’s learning progress. At the very least, such records should enable individual teachers to explain why they have reached a particular decision. Decisions about assessment are neither private nor personal: they are public, and there needs to be a public face to the assessment process. The culture of a ‘fair go’ is very much part of the Australian ethos and records of assessment are one way to reflect that culture in schools. Record keeping needs to be a priority for schools, and the development of a specific school policy is highly desirable.
Reasons for making record keeping a priority in schools:
1. Assessment processed need to be transparent
2. Assessment processes should be neither arbitrary nor unfair
3. Good practice in assessment requires the use of multiple assessment tasks so that students have a number of opportunities to demonstrate what they know and are able to do
4. It is important for assessment tasks to be reliable indicators of what a student knows and are able to do
5. It is important for assessment tasks to be valid indicators of what a student knows and is able to do
6. Student progress in learning can be mapped against predetermined standards
7. Reflection on assessment practice is an important part of teachers’ professional practice.
Principles and strategies for reporting to students and parents/carers:
The fundamental purpose of reporting is the enhancement of student learning. Effective reporting necessitates an understanding of the information needs of parents, students and other teachers.
Principles for reporting:
- Reporting should involve teachers/schools in providing quality information regarding the achievements of students: Parents in particular have a right to detailed information regarding their children’s learning both in and out of the classroom, and they also have a responsibility to communicate relevant information about their children to the teacher and the school.
- Report should involve input from parents and students: Apart from their responsivity to report, parents want to share information about their children’s progress and the students themselves can assume more responsibility for their own learning by engaging in the process. Even with the provision of written reports, there are opportunities for parent and student engagement. For instance, parents can respond in writing prior to possible interview; and students can discuss the report before it is sent home, or even be involved in the reporting. The QCAR framework furthers the argument for parental involvement by suggesting that parents should be involved in the development, implementation and review of reporting practices.
- Reporting should provide as meaningful information as possible: Rather than only the bare ascription of marks and rankings, or bland evaluations that the student is ‘doing alright’, reporting should provide detailed information about the strengths and weaknesses of students.
- Reporting, like assessment, should improve learning: Assessment information is a continuous and integral part of teaching and learning. What that information is reported to the students and parents, it should become the basis of a concerted effort for improvement through the targeting of diagnosed area. Ideally, effective reporting recommends work to be undertaken. This primary function of reporting underlines the need for the accurate and detailed communication of information.
- Reporting, like assessment, should enhance student motivation and commitment to learning: One great inhibitor of learning is student lack of understanding about the assessment process and the way it has been reported. When the assessment criteria are explicit, and when they have been clearly communicated with suggestions for improvement, students can target areas for work and accept more responsibility for their own learning.
- Reporting should ensure that all communicated information about a student is confidential: While individual students results are confidential to the student and parent, they may be made known to other teachers to assist in the development of school programs.
- Reporting should relate directly to the curriculum being offered: Assessment strategies and forms of reporting should express the concerns of the curriculum, rather than promote teacher/school comment that is peripheral. The Australian Council of State Schools claims that if assessment/reporting does not ‘grow from the curriculum’, there is a danger that ‘the assessment practices will distort and drive the curriculum itself’.
- Reporting should involve the complete range of educational experiences: While reporting should express the concerns of the curriculum, the full school curriculum allows for student achievement in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains, and for performance both in and out of the classroom. A possible danger is the focus on classroom cognitive performance to the exclusion of other areas.
- Reporting should involve detailed and explicit descriptions of what students have achieved: The implementation of this principle has arguably produced the greatest changes in reporting in the last decade. Outcomes-based assessment and reporting, which emerged as part of the national curriculum agenda of the early 1990’s, not only involve reporting by explicit criteria (outcomes) but also represent a shift from reporting only by marks, rankings and comments. There must also be ‘integrative criteria’. Thus, reporting should reflect the student’s ability to demonstrate specific skills, but also the ability to put them together.
- Reporting should involve effective communication with assessment stakeholders: As reporting involves two-way process of written and verbal information, there is a need to ensure that the process is not obfuscated by jargon, lack of clarity, or reporting formats that do not allow for the full picture of a student’s progress to be delineated. The ACT Department of Education and Training’s principles broaden the requisite of communication to include the development of effective partnerships.
- Reporting should involve a range of strategies: Just as assessment strategies should be varied to allow students to represent their achievements to the optimum extent, so reporting strategies should be varied to enable student achievements to be reported with more fidelity to parents and other stakeholders. The ACT Department of Education and Training’s principles argues that strategies ‘be inclusive and provide reasonable accommodations’ for parents of students with special needs.
- Reporting should be efficient and manageable: As effective argument and reporting are time consuming, teachers need to weight the benefits of enhancing student learning and motivation through the provision of detailed and explicit reporting with the time lost to teaching preparation in doing so. Frequent, smaller informal and formative reports are one alternative to the larger formal and summative report.
Report forms:
While there is a Government-mandated and uniform procedure for issuing formal reports to parents bi-annually, teachers typically assess and report formatively throughout the year for units of work or individual assignments using a combination of percentage marks, grades, ranks, written comments and outcomes.
Marks:
The time-honoured tradition of ascribing marks is a useful way of indicating performance that may be interpreted both summatively and formatively.
Letter grades:
Assigning the grades A to E potentially reduces disagreements between assessors as there are fewer categories involved. So, while marks and letters may yield potentially useful information useful information in quantifying assessment and discriminating levels of performance.
Ranks:
Rans are most frequently used in conjunction with marks, and report normative information. They indicate how the student has performed relative to other students. One possible problem is that marking may be misleading if additional information about the distribution of marks is not provides. The problem with rankings alone is that they provide no information about the performance of students according to particular criteria. They provide normative information only.
Words:
There is a continuing trend reporting to supplement quantitative information (marks, grades, ranks) by written comment. Some reports have virtually abandoned the former in favour of the rich description that written comment can provide. One traditional format allowed for a mark, a grade a comment on the remainder of the line. This format encouraged the use of labels such as ‘good’, ‘poor’, or ‘hyperactive’ and, as such, provided little more information than the marks or letter grades.
Outcomes:
As a result of the national curriculum of the early 1990’s and it emphasis on outcomes, reporting increasingly involves outcomes on report forms. These outcomes typically begin with a verb (‘multiplies two digits by two digits’; ‘publishes written texts in different forms using word processing’; ‘present work clearly and imaginatively’). And ticked according to options such as ‘highly competent’, ‘competent’, ‘developing’ and ‘experiencing difficulties’. The Board of Studies claims that when teachers judge the achievement of outcomes the focus shifts from marks and grades to actual performance.
Reporting interviews:
Reporting interviews are typically focused or non-directive and include the traditional teacher-parent interview, the teacher-student interview (which may operate preparatory to the teacher-parent interview or in its own right), the student-parent interview or student-led conference (which involves extensive preparation and a prior teacher-student conference), and the teacher-student-parent interview or three-way reporting.
The teacher-parent interview:
The teacher-parent interview is typically conducted mid-yearly, though it is also frequently arranged on request. The practice of conducting a meeting with parents once or twice a year to discuss student achievement in the most enduring feature of the school-home relationship. These meetings function as opportunities for involving parents in the assessment process in general and, in particular, indicating areas for remediation and suggestions for improvement. Benefits include the capacity to share details about student achievement; to obtain explanations and eliminate uncertainties; and to ‘blend school and home learning environments’.
Suggestions for teachers are:
· Identify criteria (outcomes) by which students are to be assessed/reported
· Collect evidence to demonstrate the achievement or non-achievement of the criteria (tests, portfolios, work samples).
· Conference with the student to indicate what will be reported to parents
· Provide parents with sufficient notice
· Begin the interview positively; perhaps identify a strength and ask the parents to embellish it
· Outline your routines and policies
· Discuss the student’s preferred learning activities and your main concerns
· Share your thoughts about and responses to the information conveyed
· Check with the parent to ensure a common understanding
· Speak an accessible language
· Offer the parent any support material that explains policy or pedagogy
· Request written feedback from the parent
Suggestions for parents are:
· Ensure that the interview is not the first contact with the teacher
· Plan specific questions before the interview
· Identify information about your child that you might share with the teacher
· Talk with your child before the interview (strengths, weaknesses, homework, support possibilities).
· Consider attending the first interview without your child
· Discuss issues without becoming personal
· Combine proffered criticism with praise
· Address specific issues rather than talk in generalities
The questions that parents might ask at interviews:
· What does my child enjoy doing the most?
· What is my child really good at doing?
· Does my child ask questions and participate in class activities?
· Is my child reluctant to do certain activities?
· Does my child do classwork and homework efficiently?
· What areas does my child need to improve?
· What areas could I assist my child with at home?
· How is my child relating to his/her peers?
· Is my child experiencing any problems in class that are not related to schoolwork?
· Do you have any problems with my child?
· How is my child progressing in comparison to others?
The teacher-student interview:
The teacher-student interview is particularly useful for diagnosing learning difficulties and gaining insight into a student’s progress. While teachers typically conference with students regularly in the classroom, particularly in assessing reading and writing skills, there is also scope for the longer and formal interview. These interviews typically occur more frequently before the more tradition parent-teacher interview and provide opportunities to examine student work beforehand, focussing on the assessment criteria, and to ask questions that may trigger student reflection and promote insights. Ideally the directing of the interview should be shared between student and teacher. Suggestions for conducting teacher-student interviews are shown below.
· Encourage informally, rather than intimidate the student with structure
· Demonstrate interest and active listening through appropriate verbal and non-verbal language
· Reflect neutrality by avoiding the expression of disapproval or surprise, and stating your own opinion
· Pause to elicit further responses, particularly if the initial response is ‘I don’t know’.
· Assist the student with verbal expression if necessary, but avoid ‘shaping’ the answers
· Provide reassurance and sympathy as appropriate
· Phrase the questions deliberately so that they relate to the student’s level
· Maintain interest by ensuring that the interview is both lively and relevant
· Avoid sarcasm, incredulity and laughter
· Interview sensitive students away from their peers
The student-parent interview:
The student-parent interview, or ‘student-led reporting’, is not a common reporting practice, but it is occasionally used as an alternative to teacher-parent interviews. It is part of a formal reporting process conducted at the school, and the students are fully prepared by the teacher to undertake the reporting.
The benefits of student-led conferences:
· Students engage in self-evaluation, and this inspired them to produce quality work
· Student performance is an expression of authentic assessment as the students are given responsibility to report as active learners
· Students are empowered in the reporting process, which is therefore generally less threatening and more constructive
· Teachers are redefined as coaches who can provide students with constructive feedback
· Student-parent communication is enhanced
The teacher-student-parent interview:
The teacher-student-parent interview, or ‘three-way reporting’, is endorsed as a means of improving communication between parents, teachers and students. Students demonstrate what they know by showing evidence of their achievements. Parents learn about their child’s progress, have the opportunity to ask questions, and can negotiate strategies for supporting the child. The teacher facilitates the process, responding to questions as necessary, and learning valuable information about the student’s home environment. The NSW Department of School Education suggests a one-page proforma for teachers that may be used at the interview. It contains sections to record the student’s area of strength, areas needing improvement, and an action plan specifying action for the student, teacher and parent.
The benefits of three-way reporting:
· For teachers: It promotes shared responsibility for student learning and strengthens communication with parents
· For students: It enhances self-esteem and empowers them as they assume ownership of their learning
· For parents: It increases their understanding of learning, and allows them to participate more actively in the reporting process.
Portfolios:
Portfolios, used as a reporting tool at interviews, provide a selective and reflective collection of student work, and their role in the reporting process depends on their declared purpose. In Australia, portfolios emerged as the ideal assessment and reporting expression of two trends: the authentic assessment movement, which emphasised assessment as performance-based and –situated; and outcome-based education, which emphasised assessment as observable, demonstrable benchmarks of student achievement.
Different classification of portfolios is presented below:
The accountability and instructional portfolio: This profile includes information yielding valid comparisons; and the instructional portfolio, containing less formally assessed material, possibly incorporating student reflection. If the intention of reporting is to demonstrate student achievement from tests and to measure that performance against age norms, then the accountability portfolio will prove a suitable tool. If, however, parents are concerned with obtaining a holistic understanding of their child’s educational performance, the instructional portfolio is more appropriate.
The showcase portfolio contains the student’s best work. Parents and stakeholders may wish to view this portfolio, particularly insofar as the best work demonstrates the achievement of outcomes. Some teachers declare a preference for normal, as opposed to best, work because it is more authentic – that is, it provides a better indication of typical performance. They believe the ‘showcase’ carries the implication of work that is cosmeticized or highly polished.
The evaluation portfolio, in which contents are marked and graded. Parents and other stakeholders would almost certainly be interested in seeing this portfolio. Despite the fact that outcomes-based assessment, with the associated emphasis on criterion-referenced assessment, has been the norm for many years, there is still an entrenched desire among parents for a percentage mark, which for many provides a familiar indication of subject mastery. An indication of their child’s performance in relation to that of others is regarded as even more valuable.
The documentation portfolio, which contains evidence of student progress, systematically kept by the teacher without attention to scoring criteria. This is of interest to parents, but more so if some scoring rubric can be used to explain it. It may have greater appeal to teachers who can more readily ascertain the quality of students’ performance.
The process portfolio, which contains ongoing work with written reflection by the student. This element of student engagement is consistent with the shift of school assessment towards a constructive framework that views learning as complex and situated. The nature of student engagement in the portfolio process: self-reflection by the student in selecting contents; dialogue among students as they collaborate in editing or selecting; dialogue between the student and teacher in portfolio conferences; dialogue between students and family; and dialogue between teacher, student and family.
Portfolios are particularly suited as reporting tools for three-way or teacher-parent-student interviews. The portfolios are prepared to document evidence of achievement, and the student is often encouraged to direct the interview, with the teacher clarifying parent questions that cannot be answered by the student. The portfolios required for dynamic reporting of this nature need to have the characteristics: displaying a rich variety of evidence that is sufficient to justify claims of achievement, presenting content that is current and relates to the criteria, and evolving and therefore constantly reviewed.
School-wide reporting:
While there are formal strategies for reporting, such as the report form, interview and portfolio, there are many other ways for schools to report the achievement of students both individually and collectively.
Brochures:
Most schools make information available to the parents of prospective students. Such information typically includes a description of the school, pastoral care provisions, homework expectations, explanations of school rules and progress/subjects offered. Brochures are particularly helpful when they create a dialogue with parents, either by indicating their possible involvement in home-school partnerships, or by helping them to understand educational issues (how schools have changed, and how to help the child reading at home).
Newsletters:
Letters are the most common form of contact with parents and cumulatively provide valuable information about the school culture. They are a quick and efficient means of reaching parents and can be devised at short notice. They are ‘universally appreciated’ and are the ‘common means by which parents find out what is happening in their schools’.
Open nights, speech nights and assemblies:
These are opportunities to showcase the best work of students. While not reporting systematically on individual performance, they do provide helpful models of best work or practice that may assist parents in developing healthy expectations.
Classroom visits and classroom/in-school displays:
These can be formally organised to showcase student work and for parents to be the audience for student exhibitions. Teachers may adopt an open-door policy by which classroom visits are part of normal school routine.
Out-of school displays/performances:
As schools have become self-managing and autonomous, they have become more active in advertising and displaying student work and performance in community venues and shopping malls. This is a strategy for reporting best practice to the community.
Policy statements/curriculum and program documents:
These are not given to parents as the number of curriculum statements provided by systems is limited, but they should be available in the school for parents to consult. They are statements of the system and school’s expectations of the student.
Homework:
Homework is valued by parents as it allows them to observe their child’s work and to gain insight into progress, particularly if it is a requirement that parents sign the completed work. Students benefit most when immediate feedback is provided by both teacher and parent.
Formal school meetings:
Such meetings may comprise the parents’ association meetings that usually occur monthly, school council meetings, and meetings to address parents on specific policies or innovations (e.g. the child protection legislation). They are valued by parents, yet a preference is expressed for small, practical and focused group meetings.
Social occasions:
School barbecues, trivia nights and similar social gatherings provide a good forum for informal reporting between teacher and parent.
School-university partnerships:
Some schools are forming partnerships with local universities that enable shared action research, shared experience in the provision of professional development, and collaboration in planning, teaching and evaluating prospective teachers. This strategy not only represents a form of reporting to the wider educational community but also ultimately improves the learning outcomes of prospective teachers and school students.
(Source: Brady & Kennedy, 2010; Brady & Kennedy, 2012)
References:
Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (2010). Curriculum Construction (4th ed.). Frenches Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson.
Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (2012). Assessment and reporting: Celebrating student achievement. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia.