Assessment in the PYP has generally followed the “backwards by design” process (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005). This assessment philosophy encourages teachers to design assessment by first identifying the desired knowledge, conceptual understandings and skills, followed by the design of the assessment, and finally planning learning activities to ensure acquisition of knowledge, conceptual understandings and skills.

“Forward by design” takes into consideration what other learning may have occurred beyond what has been planned. This design approach supports the development of “soft” skills, that are not immediately measurable, and that can emerge through the learning process. Forward by design is particularly relevant in supporting the development of approaches to learning and for the learner profile. This encourages student participation in assessment design, inviting them to evidence what else they know or can do.

In the PYP inquiry learning environment, the learning process is valued as much as the learning outcomes. Designing assessment that are both backward by design and forward by design will ensure that knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills and attributes of the IB Learner profile are monitored, supported and valued.

In designing a holistic assessment, teachers consider the following questions.

• What learning goals will be achieved?

• How can I involve students in the assessment design?

• How could students engage in dialogues with teachers about the development of learner profile attributes?

• What data or evidence should be gathered?

• What tools or strategies should be used to gather data?

• How will the evidence be monitored, documented and measured?

• How could students be asked to evidence any additional learning?

• How will the results be shared to feed back to the student?

• How will the results be used to inform next steps in learning and teaching?

• How will the results of the assessment be used to inform the learning community

The significant content identified by the school supports the outcome of students becoming internationally minded. Once this content is identified, teachers plan multiple opportunities for their students to develop knowledge, conceptual understandings and skills to support self-regulatory learning. In determining what to assess, teachers might ask the following questions.

• Is it the process or product of learning we aim to evaluate?

• Is it to understand prior knowledge—what the student already knows and can do?

• Is it to check if learning is on track or if the student is ready for extension?

• Is it to elicit depth and breadth in understanding?

• is it to extend students’ learning?

• Is it to understand how the student makes connections and applies learning?

The criteria for assessment must be known to students at the beginning of the inquiry and should be documented in one of the PYP planners, an adapted planner or the PYP planning process. The criteria accommodate a wide range of knowledge, conceptual understandings and skills. They are revisited and modified during the course of the inquiry, ensuring that they also reflect emergent knowledge, understandings and skills.

Note: the revised PYP outlines a planning process which schools can follow. They have the flexibility to not use a planner, PYP or adapted, as long as all the elements are documented accordingly.

Inquiry

PYP assessment recognizes the importance of monitoring and documenting the process of inquiry. Through careful observation of the inquiry process, teachers monitor students’ ability to make connections across subjects and to apply skills to construct new knowledge.

When monitoring and documenting student learning, the teacher considers:

• the nature of students’ inquiry over time—observing for depth and breadth

• students’ awareness that authentic challenges require solutions based on the integration of knowledge that spans and connects different subjects

• how students demonstrate and develop subject knowledge

• how students apply their conceptual understandings to further their inquiries successfully

• how students demonstrate and develop the approaches to learning

• how students demonstrate both independence and an ability to learn collaboratively.

Conceptual understanding and approaches to learning

Monitoring, documenting and measuring conceptual understandings focus on how concepts are recalled, explained, applied and transferred through a range of learning experiences. Skills are monitored and documented for growth over time; they manifest at different points in time and in different ways, are closely interconnected and are open to interpretation. It is, therefore, important that teachers allow for flexibility to monitor and document conceptual understandings over time.

TSM: Solo taxonomy (PDF Version here)

Progress in conceptual understandings is evident when:

• the use of abstract concepts increases

• connections are made between multiple concepts to explore the central idea

• understandings are transferred to more complex contexts

• actions are informed and taken based on existing and new understandings of the central idea.

Students increase their depth of understanding through adding to, expanding on, testing and adjusting their ideas. Strategies to support conceptual understandings include the following.

• Increase wait time strategy for students to answer questions so they can move beyond factual understanding to make connections and discuss deeper understandings*.

• Encourage students to use and add to concept maps to show connections and relationships between concepts.

• Use exit cards strategy for students to list their understandings of the concepts and questions they may still have.

• Use the bus stop strategy to post concepts around the learning space. Students individually or collaboratively record, challenge, expand or add their ideas using symbols or words as they move around the “bus stops”.

• Provide opportunities for students to think in pairs or small groups to encourage deeper discussions.

• Ask open-ended questions: For example, “What do you think?”, “How could you change the issue?”, “What other alternatives are there?”.

*(Sackstein 2016)

Supporting self-regulated learning

Assessment is a powerful tool to support lifelong learning. Whenever and wherever possible, teachers provide opportunities for students to practise self-assessing and self-monitoring so they can internalize their own learning and develop strategies to adjust their learning. To develop students’ assessment capability, teachers:

• are mindful of the well-being of students to ensure self-assessment promotes a positive sense of agency and self-efficacy

• provide timely, specific and well-considered feedback that students can act upon

• provide students with opportunities to experience success

• challenge students to take risks to extend their learning

• challenge students when there are misconceptions or misunderstandings so they can self-correct

• support students in viewing mistakes as learning opportunities.

Students and teachers are actively engaged in assessing students’ progress as part of the development of knowledge, conceptual understandings and skills. Recognizing that self-regulated learning is not a fixed personality trait (Clark 2012) and that students learn in diverse, complicated and sophisticated ways, teachers call on a variety of strategies and tools to support assessment of students’ work.

Teachers:

• provide multiple opportunities and contexts for students to practise their skills

• clearly define and communicate learning goals and success criteria with students and parents

• design guided and open-ended learning experiences that allow for a range of opportunities to demonstrate skills in different contexts

• collect and use observable learning evidence that can be seen, heard or touched

• identify where and when students are most ready to learn and be challenged.