If you ever come across any terms used throughout the blog of which you do not know the definition of, visit this page to find out what the definition of each is.

What is self-assessment?

Klenowski defines self-assessment as “the evaluation or judgment of ‘the worth’ of one’s performance and the identification of one’s strengths and weaknesses with a view to improving one’s learning outcomes” (1995, p. 146). In other words it using metacognition to diagnose where one is in their own learning process.

What is social and emotional learning?

Social and emotional learning is the process through which teachers help to foster the knowledge, attitudes and skills required for students to become self- and socially aware (SEL Defined, 2014).

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What makes a form of assessment good? Validity, Reliability & Fairness.

Any valid form of assessment should have a well-defined link as to what aspect of student learning it is created to measure, and should be designed so that teachers are able to relate each student’s knowledge and understanding to appropriate reference points (Earl and Katz, 2006).

Reliable forms of assessment should provide consistent inferences of a student’s learning regardless of who is assessing the student, when the student is being assessed or what method is being used to assess the student (Earl and Katz, 2006).

The third aspect that all good assessments should have is fairness. As stated by Tierney, a fair assessment should be transparent in its expectations, and will be designed so that students with different learning styles or needs can demonstrate their learning, and be assessed comparably between one another through appropriate assessment methods (2011).

Earl, L., & Katz, S. (2006). Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind: Assessment for learning, assessment as learning, assessment of learning. Western and Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Education: Governments of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, and Yukon Territory.

Klenowski, V. (1995). Student self-evaluation processes in student-centred teaching and learning contexts of Australia and England. Assessment in Education, 2(2), 145-163.

Tierney, R. D. (2013). Beware the bicycle: Six strategies for fair classroom assessment. Education Canada, 53(1).

SEL Defined. (2014, January 1). Retrieved January 23, 2015, from http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/