📅 Implementing Capabilities program: Assessment of Critical and Creative Thinking

RSVPed Attending Assessment of Critical and Creative Thinking

In this session a range of strategies for assessing Critical and Creative Thinking will be explored. Different assessment methods will be introduced within the context of planning for assessment. Examples of student work and associated tasks from Levels 5 and 6 will be used to illustrate the discussion, however this session is suitable for all teachers from F-10.

This VCAA webinar unpacks the Critical and Creative Thinking curriculum and how to go about assessment. The curriculum is broken into three strands:

  • Questions and Possibilities
  • Reasoning
  • Meta-cognition

Some examples of activities include:

Lotus Diagram

The Lotus Diagram is a structured concept mapping activity which provides a means of assessing questioning and reasoning. What was interesting about the example provided was that there may not be an explicit way of completing the task, this ambiguity is where the reasoning comes in.

Compass Points

The Visible Thinking routine, Compass Points, is a way of not only coming up with ideas, but also to step back and help make preconceptions more visible. In regards to assessment, what matters with such as task is how a students may use a particular tool to foster their learning.

Journaling

Showing your thinking in Mathematics provides a means of making your logic and reasoning visible. As a process, this could involve focusing on processes or digging into particular errors.

If students are not being challneged, then they are just practicing what they know

This reminds me of Back-to-Front Mathematics.

Tiered Success Criteria

Sometimes the biggest challenge is getting all students to push themselves further. One method for doing this is using the SOLO Taxonomy to create tiered success criterias to help students managing their own learning and thinking.


My take-away from this session is that from an assessment perspective, a stimulus can provide many different opportunities for assessment. What matters is the lens that you use. I was also reminded of the work of the ATC21s team and the work done to develop assessment methods for collaboration. So often it felt that the process was a subplot to the product of learning.

The VCAA have collected together a number of samples to demonstrate what is possible.

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