Assessment, monitoring and feeback - 4. Key types of written assessment

This unit is aimed specifically at trainee teachers and their tutors.

Trainee teachers often begin their PGCE year with a limited view of assessment, seeing it as a summative exercise usually achieved by a written task. This unit acknowledges the place of written assessment but reinforces that it is a crucial part of teaching and learning and that these should be seen as only part of the repertoire of assessment which will be developed in units 5, 6 and 10. This is a three-hour session which asks trainee teachers to consider the variety of written assessments that could be employed in a classroom, how effective they might be and when different methods may be employed and to begin to understand the significance of the key concepts being assessed.

At the end of this unit trainee teachers will:

To make trainees aware of

  • different types of written assessment
  • advantages and disadvantages of each type of written assessment
  • what constitutes good written assessment

Recommended resources: 

  • Whiteboard/flip chart
  • Downloaded examples for  from websites Activity 5 (see links on right for suggestions)