A group of researchers associated with Chrysalis, an educational research and innovation organisation, advocated the need for a paradigm shift in the formative assessment of students so as to make school days enjoyable.
Sharing some points of a three-year research on authentic assessment to the reporters here recently, Ganesh Subramanian, Director, Chrysalis, said that formative assessment was an important part of learning. It implied that the teachers should be able to make students understand the topics by following various means. For this, teachers were needed to be equipped with necessary understanding and skills.
It needed a curriculum and curricular tools to enable seamless integration of assessment and learning. However, as per the survey carried out by the team with 800 teachers across 123 schools, just two per cent of teachers had better understanding with the term, formative assessment. About 71 per cent of the respondents did not perceive formative assessment as a process of gathering information to improve the teaching-learning process.
Mr. Subramanian said, hence, the purpose of assessment should be focused on improving learning of students instead of teaching to test. Similarly, focus should be on assessing the students without they knowing that they were being assessed. Moreover, the assessment should be based on outcome instead of topic.
To create awareness of the formative assessment among the school heads and teachers, the team of Chrysalis had been conducting workshops in various places. It had evolved an integrated learning and assessment tools suitable to all boards, including Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
