Back to VCAA Bulletin No. 45 - February 2019
Guide to Formative Assessment Rubrics now available
To support teachers to use formative assessment rubrics when teaching the Victorian Curriculum F–10, the VCAA has developed the
Guide to Formative Assessment Rubrics with the University of Melbourne's Assessment Research Centre.
The guide is designed to assist Victorian teachers to develop and use formative assessment rubrics to progress student learning. It also supports teachers to work together to interrogate the curriculum and use their professional expertise and knowledge to develop rubrics with measurable, student-friendly descriptions of skills and knowledge.
The guide comprises the following four parts:
- describing a learning continuum
- developing a formative assessment rubric
- collecting, interpreting and using evidence to plan for teaching and learning
- formative assessment rubrics in practice.
The examples in the guide focus on Literacy and Numeracy.
An earlier version of the guide was used during a series of professional learning workshops in 2018. Over 120 teachers worked with the VCAA and the University of Melbourne to test the process outlined in the guide and to put their rubrics into practice in a range of classroom settings. Participating teachers developed a deeper knowledge of curriculum and were encouraged to explore how to implement the curriculum with the use of high-quality formative assessment practices in their schools.
In 2019 a similar professional learning experience will be offered through an expression of interest process. If you are interested in participating this year, sign up to receive the
F–10 Curriculum Update.
For more information about the
Guide to Formative Assessment Rubrics and related professional learning workshops, visit the
F–10 Resources and Support: Formative Assessment webpage.
Looking for advice about implementing Digital Technologies?
Developing an understanding of where to start and how the curriculum looks when implementing the Digital Technologies curriculum has been made simpler with the release of a series of video resources for teachers. This series of presentations vary in length and cover a range of topics, including algorithms, curriculum planning, digital devices and unplugged learning.
Created by classroom teachers involved in the Specialist Teachers program, the video presentations provide links to the Digital Technologies curriculum, lesson ideas and activities for teachers.
You can find the new videos resources on the Digital Technologies
Video Resources webpage.
Online language assessments
Schools can access a range of online language assessments at no cost. Available in Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Modern Greek and Spanish, the language assessments support the teaching of Levels 5–6 and above.
Developed with and hosted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), the assessments provide teachers with a bank of test items that can be used to create a diagnostic report of a student's listening and reading skills. The report is available instantly and can be downloaded in an Excel format. It includes student information, the date of completion, raw scores and the percentage of correct answers, which can be presented as user-friendly charts.
The language assessments in 2019 have improved reporting functionality, giving teachers more information about student performance and growth over time. These will be added to each of the language assessments throughout the year, with the first set of preliminary scaled scores for French, Japanese and Italian due to be released in Term 1.
For more information, including how to register and access the language assessments, go to ACER's
VCAA Language Assessments webpage.
Bushfire education
The VCAA
Bushfire Education website provides a series of free teaching and learning resources for primary and secondary schools, suitable up to Year 8.
Resources are structured around the four themes of learning about bushfires, preparing for bushfires, responding to bushfires, and recovering from bushfires. The themes are explored through sequenced lesson plans, each having a specific learning intention and links to the relevant curriculum area and additional resources. The website also includes a gallery of over 140 images and links to other resources, digital media, fact sheets and task sheets.
For more information, contact the Victorian Curriculum F–10 unit at
vcaa.f10.curriculum@edumail.vic.gov.au.