Assessment in the MYP

What do MYP Classes Assess?

Clear and consistent assessment is integral to successful teaching and learning. MYP assessments challenge students to develop a variety of skills.   Each course uses subject-specific assessment criteria to evaluate and inform students, teachers, and parents of progress.The five skill categories are:

  • thinking skills—including areas such as critical thinking, creative thinking and ethical thinking
  • research skills—including skills such as comparing, contrasting, validating and prioritizing information
  • communication skills—including skills such as written and oral communication, effective listening, and formulating arguments
  • social skills—including areas such as forming and maintaining positive relationships, listening skills, and conflict resolution
  • self-management skills—including both organizational skills, such as managing time and tasks, and affective skills, such as managing the state of mind and motivation 

How do MYP Classes Assess?

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 four assessment criteria (A, B, C, D) that measure students against certain standards or skills. These objectives measure skills most relevant to the subject. Students are assessed based on their level of consistent demonstration of skills.  It is very important to note that these scores are not calculated based on total points and average. 

 

All subject criteria have a total of five achievement bands (0 / 1-2 / 3-4 / 5-6 / 7-8).  Scores of 3-8 are passing. 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 3 at the start of the school year but improves to show consistent achievement at the level of 7, the student will receive a score of 7 for that specific criterion.  This method 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.