Assessment, Evaluation & CCE • Topic 3 of 4

School-Based Assessment & Tools

School-Based Assessment (SBA) means the assessment is planned and carried out by the teacher within the school, as part of regular teaching, rather than handed over to an external one-shot examination. Its rationale: the class teacher knows the child best, can assess over time and in natural settings, can cover skills a written paper cannot (speaking, group work, attitude), and can feed the findings straight back into teaching. CTET frequently asks you to match the right tool to the purpose. Observation -- watching and noting a child's behaviour and skills during normal activity, useful for process and attitudes. Anecdotal records -- short, factual, dated notes describing specific incidents of a child's behaviour. Checklists -- a yes/no list of whether specific skills or behaviours are present. Rubrics -- a scoring guide that spells out the criteria and levels of quality for a task, making subjective judgement more objective and transparent. Portfolios -- a purposeful collection of a child's work gathered over time that shows effort, progress and achievement. Projects -- extended tasks that assess application, research and creativity. Peer assessment -- learners assess each other's work against shared criteria. Self-assessment -- the learner judges their own work (this overlaps with assessment AS learning). The thread running through all of them: these tools assess the process and the whole range of abilities, not just a final memorised answer.

✅ Solved examples

1. A teacher keeps short, dated, factual notes such as 'June 12: Aarav shared crayons and helped a crying classmate.' This tool is called:
An anecdotal record -- a brief, factual, dated description of a specific observed incident of behaviour.
2. To assess a project fairly and transparently, a teacher hands out a chart listing the criteria (research, neatness, originality) and what each quality level looks like. This is a:
Rubric -- a scoring guide stating criteria and levels of performance, which makes assessment more objective and consistent.
3. A folder that collects a student's drafts, best pieces and reflections across the term to show growth over time is a:
Portfolio -- a purposeful, cumulative collection of work that documents effort, progress and achievement.
4. The strongest argument for school-based assessment over a single external exam is that the class teacher can:
Assess the child continuously and in natural settings across many skills (including attitudes and process), and feed the results directly back into teaching.

✏️ Practice — try these, take hints as needed

1. A yes/no list recording whether each child can hold scissors, tie laces and write their name is a(n):
Simple present/absent tool.
Checklist
2. A scoring guide that specifies criteria and quality levels to reduce subjectivity in marking is a:
Makes grading transparent.
Rubric
3. Watching a child during free play to assess social skills and cooperation is the tool of:
No paper test.
Note behaviour as it happens.
Observation
4. Students exchange essays and assess each other's work against given criteria. This is called:
Classmates judge classmates.
Peer assessment
5. A cumulative collection of a learner's work that shows progress over time is a:
Like an artist's sample folder.
Portfolio

📝 Topic test — 8 questions

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