Page 35 - Learning for All – A Guide to Effective Assessment and Instruction for All Students, Kindergarten to Grade 12, 2013

4. Planning Assessment and Instruction
Developing class profiles and student profiles can help teachers plan daily assessment and instruction that enables every student to learn and achieve success. The resulting strategies and approaches are, according to principles of UDL, “necessary for some, and good for all”.
Knowing Your Students
Education is moving away from a model based on the transmission of information in one direction – from teacher to student – and towards a reciprocal model that ensures students are listened to, valued, respected for who they are, and recognized as partners in their education. Greater student involvement in their own learning and learning choices leads to greater student engagement and improved achievement.
Involving students as partners in the learning and teaching process calls for educators to:
• see the student as a whole person;
• know about various dimensions of every student’s learning process, and not just about
the student’s academic performance;
• support every student in playing a more active role in his or her learning;
• take students’ strengths, needs, interests, and views into account in planning learning
opportunities.
(Adapted from Ontario Ministry of Education, 2011)
An emphasis on knowing your students as the starting point for effective planning of assessment and instruction is consistent with this approach. The following steps are part of the process of getting to know all the students in the class:
• gathering information about the students;
• engaging students and parents during the course of information gathering;
• processing and synthesizing information in order to develop an understanding of each
student’s strengths, learning style(s), preferences, needs, interests, and readiness to learn;
• selecting and/or developing, and implementing, appropriate and productive combinations
of assessment and instructional strategies, activities, groupings, and resources to address the diverse needs of the students in the class.
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