TEP419 Assignment 2 Design a summative assessment task for a HSIE or English unit.

. The assessment task will use knowledge and skills from Creative Arts Strands

This summative assessment task is an informal assessment activity designed for Stage 3 students studying a unit of work on Gold for HSIE. The unit of work is planned as a 10 week program. Each week students will have 2 x 1hour HSIE lessons. The task will be given at the end of the teaching and learning cycle (Week 8). (See detailed program outlined in the mind map below) The assessment task is one of three assessment tasks to be given to students during their study of Gold. The first two assessment activities will occur during the unit (formative assessment) and enable the teacher to gage student understandings and make changes to the teaching and learning program as required. This summative task is designed to assess the knowledge and understandings students have gained during their study of Gold. It will do this through a Creative Arts based summative assessment where students will use knowledge and skills to design, organise, and create an artwork. Students will draw upon visual arts techniques such as point, line, shape, pattern, and colour. They will also need to consider the material they use, the arrangement of these materials, the form, as well as the purpose of the artwork. During their study of Gold in HSIE, students would be reviewing and practicing a range of skills, knowledge and techniques in corresponding Creative Arts lessons. These creative arts lessons will focus on one technique at a time through appropriate activities and demonstrations.
MIND MAP

Prior Knowledge 'What do we know?'

Week 1

The Discovery of Gold (Timeline)

Week 2
CCS3.1 - Explains the significance of particular people, groups, places, actions and events in the past in developing Australian identities and heritage

Getting to the Gold fields

Week 3

Location of Gold fields

Week 4

Living Conditions in the Goldfields

Week 5

UNIT CONTENT Weekly Topics

HSIE Unit of Work 'GOLD'

OUTCOMES

CCS3.2 - Explains the development of the principles of Australian democracy

Mining techniques and tools

Week 6

ENS3.6 - Explains how various beliefs and practices influence the ways in which people interact with, change and value the environment

Effects of Gold Mining

Week 7
This unit provides opportunities for students to explore the influence of the discovery of gold on Australian identity, environment and heritage

Assessment Task Activity

Week 8 and 9

Presentations

Week 10

The Assessment Task Students will be given the following assessment task in Week 8 of their HSIE Unit:

Design a movie poster for a movie related to the events of the Gold Rush in Australia. Your poster needs to clearly capture your understandings of the main events and their significance in Australias history. Your poster must contain both images and a promotional blurb.

Remember movie posters are designed to persuade audiences to see a movie. You will present your poster to your peers and the film director (teacher) in Week 10.

Students will have two weeks (4 x 1hr lessons) to design and create their movie poster. In the final week, students will present their posters to the rest of the class. They will discuss the images they created and justify why they were chosen for their movie poster. Before the students begin work on their assessment task, the teacher will show the class a number of movie posters as examples. As a class, students can discuss the different features they can see in the posters, such as images, colours, text, blurb etc. They can also make note of the techniques and elements they think are good and the ones they do not find as effective. This activity will allow students to get some ideas and begin to visualise how they will design their posters. At this stage, the teacher can also discuss the visual arts skills and techniques students may need in order to create the different elements of the poster. These techniques should be fresh in students minds as they have been reviewing and practicing them in their Creative Arts lessons. It will be up to the students to decide what features of the gold rush they think are important, as well as how they will represent them on their posters. They can conduct further research on the topics if they require it. The teacher will continually reinforce what they need to think about when designing these posters. Students will be advised to begin their posters using lead pencil so they can correct any mistakes.

Resources Students will have access to a number of resources in order to complete this task. They will each need an A3 size piece of paper, which will be their poster. They will need an assortment of paints, crayons, oil pastels, pencils, markers, rulers, glues and scissors. They will also need a range of resources on gold, such as books, picture books, printouts, information sheets, as well as internet access (if students require more information).

Differentiation In order to differentiate the task for the different learning abilities in the class, lower achieving students can be given more of a scaffold by the teacher. The scaffold would give a set of instructions that will help students with the poster design. This would mean that students can spend more time thinking about the different aspects of gold rather than the way they should design their poster. The teacher can also help the students by providing more resources on the main events of the gold rush.

Rationale This task was selected as it allows students to demonstrate their level of understanding in a creative way. It is intended to provide a summation of students learning. It is an open ended task and allows for different levels of response. It is designed to assess outcome CCS3.1 (explains the significance of particular people, groups, places, actions and events in the past in developing Australian identities and heritage). Students will use the skills they have gained in creative arts lessons to complete the task; however assessment will be based mainly on their understanding of the significant events in the Australian Gold Rush era. The presentation they are required to give will allow the teacher to gain a better understanding of their learning and the knowledge gained by students. The following criteria will be used to assess individual performance:
Criteria Meets criteria at a superior level Demonstrates a high level of understanding of the significant aspects of the Gold Rush in Australia Poster is neat, clear and simple, with a high standard of organisation of the elements Text, title and promotional blurb convey a very meaningful message Presents the poster with a thorough explanation and justification of events Poster has a high level of ability to persuade an audience to see this movie Meets criteria at a substantial level Demonstrates a satisfactory understanding of the significant aspects of the Gold Rush in Australia Satisfactory standard of organisation of the elements Meets criteria at a satisfactory level Demonstrates some understanding of the significant aspects of the Gold Rush in Australia Fails to meet criteria Demonstrates little understanding of the significant aspects of the Gold Rush in Australia Poster shows only little evidence of organisation and meaningful composition of elements

Content /20

Organisation of the elements /10

Some evidence of organisation

Text layout /10

Message is satisfactory and relevant Presents the poster with a good explanation and justification of events

Message shows some relevance Presents the poster with a soundexplanation and justification of events

Text and blurb is not relevant to the event and its significance Presents the poster with a limited explanation and justification of events Poster is lacking in qualities that would persuade an audience to see this movie

Presentation /5 Exposition text-type qualities /5

Poster demonstrates some ability to persuade

Only a little ability to persuade an audience to see this movie

Mark: ____/50

Conclusion The goal of programming and assessment is student achievement (NSW Board of Studies, Creative Arts Syllabus, 2006, p.97). Assessing is the process of collecting, analysing and recording information about student progress towards achievement of syllabus outcomes (NSW Board off Studies, HSIE Syllabus, 2007, p.80). This summative assessment, also known as assessment of learning, is designed to gage student achievement of outcomes, as well as their overall understanding gained during learning experiences. Summative assessments, if fair and reliable, provide us with opportunities to draw valid conclusions about students learning (Killen, 2005, p.128). This assessment task is an example of an alternative assessment, that is, it focuses on methods other than strict adherence to the standard tests-and-measurement paradigm. Gullo (2005) clarifies the goals of alternative assessment in his book. Firstly, he states, alternative assessment should incorporate actual classroom work, and secondly, it should enhance both student and teacher participation in the assessment process (Gullo, p.8). This summative assessment task achieves both of these goals. The assessment task is designed to be a valid and reliable assessment. Validity refers to the notion that an assessment task is assessing what it is meant to be assessing (Killen, 2005, p.107). It is also about making valid inferences about achievement of outcomes from appropriate evidence (Killen, p.114). In this case, we are assessing the HSIE outcome CCS3.1, and the task will allow the teacher to obtain evidence on whether students have achieved this outcome. Reliability is an indication of the consistency with which a test measures whatever it is measuring (Killen, p.122). This assessment task has two components, designing a poster and presenting to the class, which, along with teacher questioning and observation, will allow the teacher to get a consistent measure of how well students are achieving the outcomes. In addition, the comprehensive marking criteria allows for consistency in marking.

References Gullo, Dominic F (2005). Understanding assessment and evaluation in early childhood education. Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Killen, Roy (2005). Programming and Assessing for Quality Teaching and Learning. Nelson Australia Pty Limited. NSW Board of Studies (2006). Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Board of Studies NSW NSW Board of Studies (2007). Human Society and Its Environment K-6 Syllabus. Board of Studies NSW