Conducting school-based assessments during remote learning
Each VCE study design has some inherent flexibility around the delivery of school-based assessment. Schools can make decisions about the conditions and arrangements for school-based assessments. These conditions must meet the
VCE assessment principles,
study design requirements and
VCE and VCAL Administrative Handbook specifications. You may consider delivering school-based assessments remotely or may choose to reschedule for a later date when face-to-face learning resumes.
The
VCE and VCAL Administrative Handbook outlines the rules, regulations and policies governing VCE and VCAL delivery. The following links will help you to develop, document and implement your school’s assessment and authentication policies, processes and strategies during this time:
Important dates
Please refer to the
administrative dates and scored assessment schedule.
Assessment integrity
To maintain the integrity of VCE assessments during remote learning, we advise schools and teachers to:
- consider the full range of assessment task options in each study design and select the type that is most appropriate for a remote and flexible learning setting to assess student performance for the outcome
- ensure that questions and task requirements assess if students have a conceptual understanding of the key knowledge and can apply the key skills, rather than simply recall information through memorisation
- consider the length of the time allocated and the assessment conditions that are best suited for remote and flexible learning
- provide students with clear written details of the school’s rules, procedures and authentication requirements relating to school-based assessment and the VCAA rules, in particular ‘Students must not cheat or assist other students to cheat, including taking any action that gives or attempts to give them or another student an unfair advantage’
- ask students to fill in an
Authentication Record for School-based Assessment form (also available from VASS Downloads) for any school-based assessment work they complete outside of the classroom. This form requires students to declare that all resource materials and assistance have been acknowledged and that all unacknowledged work is their own. You can collect and maintain these declarations during periods of remote learning in several ways, including: - asking students to submit the declaration with their school-based assessment work, either on the cover or the work itself, in their submission email or through a learning management system
- using an online form created using platforms such as Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, Survey Monkey or Compass Insights
- asking students to record their declaration via video or audio, which they can submit using email or through a learning management system
- waiting until students return to school to sign the declaration. In this case, tell students at the start that this will happen.
Authenticating remote assessments
Teachers are responsible for judging a student’s satisfactory completion of a unit and for assessing each student’s level of achievement in Units 3 and 4 outcomes. By reporting satisfactory completion, you certify that students have achieved the set of outcomes for the unit according to the rules set out by the VCAA and your school. If any part or all of a student’s work cannot be authenticated, the matter must be dealt with as a breach of rules.
You can authenticate remote school-based assessments through a learning management system (LMS), cloud-based file management tool or similar third-party software. Methods of authenticating assessments include:
- releasing the school-based assessment to students at the beginning of a remote lesson, with clear instructions for students to submit their responses at the end of the lesson
- providing temporary access to the school-based assessment
- using a read receipt to track when a student has accessed an emailed assessment
- using an LMS or video conference to provide instruction, observe students and ask questions
- asking students to email short-answer responses under timed sessions
- asking students to present oral tasks using video technology
- asking students to document the specific stages of the development of their work, starting with an early part of the task, such as the topic choice, list of resources or preliminary research. Copies of each student’s written work should be regularly monitored and submitted at given stages in their development
- using a video conference to validate individual school-based assessments after submission
- ensuring that, where there are multiple classes for a particular study, students in all classes access school-based assessments simultaneously. If this is not possible, the assessment task should be suitably modified for each class
- asking students to demonstrate their understanding of assessed outcomes when, or around the time, they submit their work.
A proportion of a school-assessed task (SAT) can be completed remotely, as long as students thoroughly document the authentication process in their folio and regularly check-in with a teacher. This may also be done via a video conference during the marking process.