Case Study - Michael Kelly S4488785

Project Describe:

This case study deals with the implementation of an assessment for learning task in a Year 10
Legal Studies classroom. This particular class was made up of 27 students at a school in the
Western Suburbs of Melbourne. These 27 students were at times a difficult group to deal with
partly due to some behaviour issues and partly due to the sheer number of students present in
the classroom at any given time. The assessment task required students in groups (3-4
students) to do a 3-5 minute presentation surrounding an event or program that they could
develop to celebrate diversity and multiculturalism within their local community. This area
relates to the Civics and Citizenship Victorian Curriculum in which ‘inclusivity’ is promoted as
well as ‘respect, civility, equity, justice and responsibility’ (VCAA 2018, n.p.). The specific strand
this task related to was VCCCC037 ‘Discuss how and why groups, including religious groups,
participate in civic life’ (VCAAa 2018, n.p.). The students were given 2 weeks of class time to
complete this task. The result of this was 6 groups with only 3 managing to complete the
assessment task by the due date, 1 group being given special consideration to present at a later
date and the remaining 2 groups not being able to produce any work that they had done
towards the task. The AITSL standards most relevant to this situation are standard 1.2 which is
‘understand how students learn’ and relates to the implications of student learning and how to
address this through teaching as well as standard 2.3 which relates to ‘curriculum, assessment
and reporting’ as this case study deals directly with the design and use of an assessment
strategy related to lesson sequences (AITSL 2018, n.p.).

Practice Explain:

The way that I have interpreted this situation is that there is some change that could have been
made to the way that I assess this class. With hindsight I’ve come to realise that the large
minority of this class cannot self manage through group work and as such it is an ineffective
form of assessment for this particular group of students. In order to help improve this however
group work should not be avoided but used as a tool to help assist these students in learning
how to be productive whilst participating in this type of activity. While the majority of the students
did produce at least some aspect of work that could be marked it was still a disappointing event
in my teaching placement as it felt as though there was a lot of valuable class time devoted to
an activity that was simply wasted.

Practice Theorise:
Case Study - Michael Kelly S4488785

The recurring sentiment that comes across when discussing with teachers is that feedback
needs to be used effectively when implementing assessment tasks both informally and formally.
Feedback should be used to ‘reduce the gap between actual learning performances and a
specific learning objective’ (Voinea 2018, p. 11). In this case the feedback provided should be a
part of the learning process for the students who are not productive with their class time, and as
encouragement for the students who are so that all feedback relates to the ‘learning objective’
regardless of performance (Voinea 2018, p. 12). Of the 27 students that make up this class, 4 of
these students were on behaviour management plans that required weekly reporting to parents
and these 4 students were spread across the 2 groups that failed to produce the work. The
reporting back to the parents was done through an online form and email which required rating
specific actions such as use of class time and respect on a scale of 1-5 depending on how well
the student had demonstrated these actions in that given week. This seemed to me to be an
ineffective way of communicating the response needs for these particular students and it is hard
for me to gauge whether or not this reporting had any effect at all as there was no direct
parental response that I was made aware of, however this is the common practice across the
school and these forms are adopted in every classroom for particular students.

Practice Change:
A strong assessment for learning involves providing ‘summative feedback’ that allows students
to ‘understand what is good about their work’ as well as ‘how they can build on it and develop
further’ (Brown 2005, p. 84). There was a lack of this ongoing feedback that in the future would
definitely be implemented in my classroom assessment for learning activities. Ongoing feedback
in a ‘narrative form’ would serve to address the ‘weak and strong points’ of student learning and
give some direct guidance to each of the students individually and in this case as a group on
how to effectively use their time, while this was done somewhat there are improvements to be
made so that it does not simply come across as authoritative but rather guiding and prompting
(Voinea 2018, p. 8). Similarly, the nature of the task may have felt less ‘integral’ to the study
area due to the focus on less information or theory and more personal opinion and organisation
whereas a stronger combination of both would work to make the task feel more formal and in
need of completion (Brown 2005, p. 83). The instructions and criteria sheet for the assessment
task were provided to the students in class 3 weeks before the due date and they were informed
that while they would have class time to work on this task, if there was little progress they would
need to do further work outside of class to complete the task. Through discussion with my
mentor it was agreed that this amount of time was more than enough for the magnitude of the
task, however the solution offered by my mentor teacher was simply to leave the students who
did not complete the task as ungraded. In regards to the parental feedback as stated before it is
hard to gauge how effective this was, but the faceless and responseless nature seems
ineffective and should in my opinion be a dialogue rather than a one sided piece.

References:
Case Study - Michael Kelly S4488785

AITSL 2018, Australian Professional Standards for Teaching, Australian Institute for Teaching
and School Leadership, viewed 8 August 2018, <https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards>

Brown, S 2005, ‘Assessment for Learning’, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 1,
no. 1, pp. 81-89.

VCAA 2018, Civics and Citizenship, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, viewed 7
August 2018, <http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/the-humanities/civics-and-
citizenship/introduction/rationale-and-aims>

VCAAa 2018, Level 10: Civics and Citizenship, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority,
viewed 7 August 2018, <http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/level10>

Voinea, L 2018, ‘Formative Assessment As Assessment for Learning Development’, Journal of

Pedagogy, vol. 1, no.1, pp. 7-23.