Assessment and Computing - A Practical Guide to Teaching Computing and ICT in the Secondary School - page 76

You may find it helpful to break down your learning objectives into categories.
One popular general classification is 'SACK': skills, attitudes, concepts and
knowledge. For example, in the PowerPoint topic, examples of the learning outcomes
that might be included are:
• can open the PowerPoint program (Technique or Routine: Skill)
• can work in pairs to produce a joint presentation (Process: Attitude)
• can understand why the amount of text on a PowerPoint slide should be
limited (Concept)
• knows that PowerPoint is a presentation package (Terminology: Knowledge)
• knows that presentation packages are used in commercial organisations (Fact:
Knowledge).
Task 4.6
Assessment methods
Each of those outcomes should be assessable. How could you assess that each
had been achieved? Do you have a choice of methods for assessment? Have you
thought about how you will feedback on this work yet?
Your learning outcomes will also need to take account of the range of abilities in
your teaching group. A common approach used is to preface learning outcomes
with 'All learners …', 'Most learners …' and 'Some learners …'. Outcomes for a
single lesson need to be a subset of those describing the whole unit of work. It is
unwise to have more than half a dozen learning objectives for a single lesson, and
fewer still will be easier to manage.
If you use a system such as SACK you will be able to ensure that your lessons do
not focus unduly on any one single category. In particular, many lessons you
observe may focus on low-level skills development, (new techniques and
consolidation of familiar ones), and this will constrain the learners from undertaking
higher-order learning activity. Specifically, you won't be stretching the abilities of
your more able learners.
Opportunities for assessment need to be identified at a very early stage when
planning a lesson or a unit of work. At the fundamental level the learning objectives
specify the learning that is to take place in the lesson, while the learning outcomes
indicate the evidence that pupils must produce, to indicate that the learning
objectives have been met. This evidence can take a variety of different forms, from
'hard' evidence, such as printouts and worksheets, to 'soft' evidence, such as
question and answer, demonstrations and observations. Opportunities for pupils
to generate evidence for assessment should be planned for at a very early stage, but
it should be noted that opportunities for assessment which have not been planned
for will also arise frequently and should be taken advantage of.
The tools for measuring the outcomes of learning need to be shared with the
learners. These can range from the extremely complex (for example, the mark
scheme associated with A-level Computing project work), or the more simple (for
instance, the 'I can do ...' sheets; for an example, see Figure 4.2 that some schools
use). Other ideas are given in the Record Keeping section below.