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“Educator assessment is part of everyday teaching and learning in the classroom. Educators discuss with learners, guide their work, ask and answer questions, observe, help, encourage and challenge. In addition, they mark and review written and other kinds of work. Through these activities they are continually finding out about their learners’ capabilities and achievements. This knowledge then informs plans for future work. It is this continuous process that makes up educator assessment. It should not be seen as a separate activity necessarily requiring the use of extra tasks or tests.”
As the quote above suggests, assessment should be incorporated as part of the classroom practice, rather than as a separate activity. Research during the past ten years indicates that learners get a sense of what they do and do not know, what they might do about this and how they feel about it, from frequent and regular classroom assessment and educator feedback. The educator’s perceptions of and approach to assessment (both formal and informal assessment) can have an influence on the classroom culture that is created with regard to the learners’ expectations of and performance in assessment tasks. Literature on classroom assessment distinguishes between two different purposes of assessment; assessment of learning and assessment for learning.
Assessment of learning tends to be a more formal assessment and assesses how much learners have learnt or understood at a particular point in the annual teaching plan. The NCS provides comprehensive guidelines on the types of and amount of formal assessment that needs to take place within the teaching year to make up the school-based assessment mark. The school-based assessment mark contributes 25% of the final percentage of a learner’s promotion mark, while the end-of-year examination constitutes the other 75% of the annual promotion mark. Learners are expected to have 7 formal assessment tasks for their school-based assessment mark. The number of tasks and their weighting in the Grade 10 Mathematics curriculum is summarised below:
| Tasks | Weight (%) | ||
| School-Based Assessment | Term 1 | Test
Project/Investigation |
10
20 |
| Term 2 | Assignment/TestExamination | 10
30 | |
| Term 3 | TestTest | 10
10 | |
| Term 4 | Test | 10 | |
| School-Based Assessment Mark | 100 | ||
| School-Based Assessment Mark (as a % of Promotion Mark) | 25 | ||
| End-of-Year Examination | 75 | ||
| Promotion Mark | 100 |
The following provides a brief explanation of each of the assessment tasks included in the assessment programme above.
All mathematics educators are familiar with this form of formal assessment. Tests include a variety of items/questions covering the topics that have been taught prior to the test. The new NCS also stipulates that mathematics tests should include questions that cover the following four types of cognitive levels in the stipulated weightings:
| Cognitive Levels | Description | Weighting (%) |
| Knowledge | Estimation and appropriate rounding of numbers.Proofs of prescribed theorems.Derivation of formulae.Straight recall.Identification and direct use of formula on information sheet (no changing of the subject).Use of mathematical facts.Appropriate use of mathematical vocabulary. | 20 |
| Routine Procedures | Perform well known procedures.Simple applications and calculations.Derivation from given information.Identification and use (including changing the subject) of correct formula.Questions generally similar to those done in class. | 45 |
| Complex Procedures | Problems involve complex calculations and/or higher reasoning.There is often not an obvious route to the solution.Problems need not be based on real world context.Could involve making significant connections between different representations.Require conceptual understanding. | 25 |
| Problem Solving | Unseen, non-routine problems (which are not necessarily difficult).Higher order understanding and processes are often involved.Might require the ability to break the problem down into its constituent parts. | 10 |
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