MYP Assessment
Assessment is integral to all teaching and learning at every grade level. It is central to the goal of effectively guiding students through the understanding of concepts, the acquisition of knowledge, the mastery of skills, the development of attitudes and the decision to take action. Assessment is the gathering and analyzsing of information about student performance.
To give students the fairest opportunity to demonstrate their skills against each assessment criterion, the MYP promotes the use of a range of assessment strategies designed to give a clear picture of your child’s progress. There are two main types of assessment:
Formative Assessments
These are generally smaller assignments and are used to give students and teachers an opportunity to practice skills needed for more formal summative assessments or be part of the process of completing larger projects. Examples of formative assessments might be in-class discussions, study questions, essay outlines, or short daily homework tasks. Formative assessments will not always be graded, but provide valuable opportunities for students to demonstrate areas in which they might need help developing. Formative assessments can also help teachers determine the direction of the unit of study. It is imperative that students are committed to completing all formative tasks.
Summative Assessments
These are larger assessments such as essays, exams, projects, or presentations. While formative assessments can be used to determine achievement levels, it is summative assessments that are used to determine a student’s level of achievement to the greatest extent.
As an MYP school, IICS uses criterion-referenced assessment based on student skills, not just content knowledge. Each subject has four assessment criteria and each criterion is graded out of a possible score of eight. As a criterion-referenced assessment, it is important to note that to convert student scores out-of-eight into percentages would be an inaccurate way to interpret these scores.
In the MYP, students are measured by their progress, NOT through an average of points earned. To do this, each subject has for assessment criteria (A, B, C, D) that measure students against certain standards or skills. As these objectives measure skills, students are assessed based on their level of consistent demonstration of skills. It is very important to note that as these scores are not calculated based on total points and average, student scores may seem lower than you might expect, but in reality are not. Any student achieving at a level four or five out of eight is achieving in line with the grade level expectation.
Each of the criteria for every subject has a total of five achievement bands (0 / 1-2 / 3-4 / 5-6 / 7-8). A score of 0-8 will be given to the student based on his or her most consistently demonstrated level of achievement. For example, if a student is achieving at a level of three at the start of the school year but improves to show consistent achievement at the level of eight, the student will receive a score of eight for that specific criterion, as it most accurately reflects their level of skill in that area at that time. Thus, the pressure is not on the student to “get it” right away, but rather reflects the MYP’s commitment to hard work, improvement, and progress.
Below are all of the assessment criteria for each subject used in the MYP. Each has a maximum achievement of eight.