Alternative Assessment: Principles and Examples

Assessment plays several important roles in education, both today and in the past (Schneider & Hutt, 2014). First, it has the traditional role of measuring students’ learning, to facilitate communication between educators, students, and stakeholders. Second, it serves as an important tool to help coordinate and articulate educational systems both nationally and internationally. Finally, it also plays the role of learning support. Assessment complements curriculum and teaching; determines the significance of what is taught and the intellectual challenge of work for students (Penney, Brooker, Hay, & Gillespie, 2009).

Calls to reform assessment spans over a few decades. It started with calls for assessment as learning and assessment for learning. There are ongoing calls for culturally relevant assessment (Trumbull & Nelson-Barber, 2019). And there are calls and research on flexibility, inclusion and accessibility, and a pedagogy of care in assessment.
There is also a focus on designing assessments for learning that occurs in technology-enabled learning environments. These calls for reform in assessment has also been coupled with research that show the positive impact of interactive online assessment (Yulia, Husin, & Anuar, 2019) and the positive effects of online assessment on students’ performance (Ogange, Agak, Okelo, & Kiprotich, 2018), and the importance of storytelling as assessment.

Therefore, this five-week course seeks to expand participants’ understanding of alternative assessments. Its goal is to help participants identify why they need to rethink traditional assessment. It will also allow participants to examine the principles of alternative assessment. In its final sessions, it will introduce participants to multiple concrete examples and resources that they can refer to in their future work.

After completing this course, participants should be able to:

• Demonstrate understanding the difference between traditional and alternative assessments and why we need alternative assessments
• Identify and analyse the principles of alternative assessments
• Recognise the different examples of alternative assessments and create a plan to use alternative assessments in their classroom

Eligibility
All school leaders and educators in Ras Al Khaimah and the United Arab Emirates

Mode of Delivery
Virtual Training