Evaluation

Evaluation is a big part of team work and cycle-based organisation in the school.

"This [evaluation] is really for student learning, so students have to be involved in the process. We've made changes in our practice to make sure that students are at the centre of the evaluation piece." Andrew Aitken

"We cannot evaluate a competency that we don't teach. What are we really doing in class to teach it, to make sure that kids progress in building that competency?" Micheline Gagné

Changing teaching pratices and building student-centred evaluation tools in general, and constructing a shared vision of portfolio practice in particular, is the result of a school and team process.

Video Clip (Building Evaluation Tools)

Teachers have developped common observation and assessment tools by cycle. They are also working on common portfolio tools and a shared vision of portfolio implementation by cycle and across the cycles.

The place of testing
Despite the growing importance given to portfolios, tests and end of year examinations are still part of the evaluation landscape. But rather than using the exam as a measure of how the students are doing, teachers are learning to use it as a tool to reflect on what they need to do to improve student learning. For example, finding that test results showed their students to be weak in the area of reading for information, teachers agreed they needed to focus more on that aspect of the ELA program.

So, in a sense, they are using the portfolio process to reflect on these evaluations and set goals for their teaching practice.