Assessment

Overview

Assessment is based on teaching performance in the placement component of the Engaging and Assessing Learners subjects, including the development of a Pebble Pad ePortfolio, completion of hurdle requirements and successful completion of the Clinical Teaching Practice Assessments particular to each placement. Teacher Candidates must complete each component satisfactorily to pass the placement hurdle requirement of the Engaging and Assessing Learners subject.

Ongoing assessment of Teacher Candidates’ engagement with teaching and evidence of student learning will be conducted in consultation with the Clinical Specialist and Mentor Teacher during the placement. The main purpose of this assessment is to assist Teacher Candidates to monitor their professional engagement in teaching, to identify areas of teaching which need further development and to help develop strategies to address particular needs.

Teacher Candidates will regularly self-evaluate (i.e., engage in reflective practice) with the input of the Mentor Teacher and Clinical Specialist. The self-evaluation will frame a professional dialogue about teaching performance between the Teacher Candidate and the Mentor Teacher in an ongoing way, and at the conclusion of the interim period in order to set professional goals for the placement.

Teacher Candidates must attend all placement days and their teaching performance must be completed to a satisfactory level to pass the E&AL subject.

Graded assessment of a Teacher Candidate’s progress is undertaken during their placement against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST). The Mentor Teacher has a designated role in the assessment of Teacher Candidates and prepares an online assessment report at the conclusion of both the Interim Period and after the placement. This is done in conjunction with an ongoing process of consultation with the Clinical Specialist.

At the completion of the placement, the Clinical Specialist moderates and allocates the final mark, in consultation with the Mentor Teacher in accordance with the criteria for assessment.

Please refer to the Assessment and Results Policy (unimelb.edu.au) for specific information related to Professional Placements.

Teaching Practice

Graded assessment of a Teacher Candidate’s progress against the Australian Professional Standards for Graduate Teachers (APST) is undertaken during their placement.

The Mentor Teacher has a designated role in the assessment of Teacher Candidates by providing formative feedback via the Interim and Final report. These are completed in consultation with Teacher Candidates and Clinical Specialists. At the completion of the placement, the Clinical Specialists moderate the final mark, in accordance with the criteria for assessment.

The Teacher Candidate will provide the Interim Report to the Mentor Teacher before the end of week two of placement.

The Final Report will be emailed to the Mentor Teacher by the start of week four of placement.

If there are any circumstances that will cause a significant impact on a Teacher Candidate’s capacity to complete the placement, the Mentor Teacher should contact the Clinical Specialist as soon as is possible.

Teacher Candidates are expected to maintain professional documentation, respond to constructive feedback, and reflect on their teaching practice in an ongoing way. Teacher Candidates need to provide cumulative evidence of the minimum required hours of fully documented lesson plans for lessons that have been implemented, reflected upon, and evaluated in terms of implications for future teaching practice. These should be recorded on the Lesson Plan Tally sheet and be stored in the ePortfolio.

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

Teacher Candidates will be assessed against the standards in a graduated manner as they work towards being deemed ‘ready to teach’ by the end of the course. The Standards outline what teachers should know and be able to do. Teachers use the Standards to demonstrate the quality of their professional work. The Standards are comprised of the three domains of Professional Knowledge , Professional Practice and Professional Engagement. Across these domains, collectively, there are seven standards and thirty-seven focus areas that define the characteristics of effective teaching. These standards can be viewed at https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards.

Seven Standards:

  1. Know students and how they learn
  2. Know the content and how to teach it
  3. Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
  4. Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments
  5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning
  6. Engage in professional learning
  7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers, and the community

Within the Clinical Teaching Practice subjects, the placement, assessment tasks and seminars are designed to focus on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, and Teacher Candidates must demonstrate satisfactory performance in the standards required for the particular placement.

Teaching Performance Assessment - Assessment for Graduate Teaching (AfGT)

The Assessment for Graduate Teaching (AfGT) is a summative, capstone teaching performance assessment instrument that is undertaken in the Engaging and Assessing Learners 3 subject in the final placement (Master of Teaching (Secondary) (Primary) and (Early Childhood and Primary). It is comprised of Teacher Candidates developing delivering and evaluating between 5-8 sequenced lessons in 1 discipline area, together with two, six to 10-minute recordings of their teaching practice.

The AfGT has been designed with consideration of the complex, intellectual work of teaching. It seeks to assess a pre-service teacher’s capacity to collect and interpret evidence in order to plan for, implement, assess, and reflect upon the effectiveness of their teaching in relation to the learning of their students.

The AfGT is supported by evidence stored in the Teacher Candidate’s ePortfolio. It is also supported by relevant documentation, such as lesson/curriculum planning documents, reflections, evaluations, feedback, assessment records and work samples.

The AfGT is a graded task that is assessed against the Australian Professional Standards for Graduate Teachers as evidence that the Teacher Candidate is ‘classroom ready’. Teacher Candidates must pass each of the four Elements that comprise the AfGT to pass the AfGT and therefore the placement and the corresponding E&AL subject.

Teacher Candidates are afforded the opportunity by the Mentor Teacher/s to undertake each of the above tasks. Where this may not be possible the Clinical Specialist should be consulted.