Discussion and Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation Questions and Answers

Answer: A

It is probing.

Probing questions follow up a student's first response and push for more: 'Why do you think so?', 'Can you give an example?', 'What would happen if...?', or 'Can anyone add to what she said?'. They encourage students to elaborate, clarify and justify their answers, on their own or by building on peers' responses.

Conditioning and chaining are behaviourist learning processes, and trial and error is a way of learning by repeated attempts. None is a questioning technique.

Answer: B

The emphasis should be on content coverage and objectives of the question paper.

A summative question paper must be valid: it should sample the whole content taught in a fair, balanced way, and its questions should test the learning objectives set for that content, such as observation, understanding and application. Teachers usually plan this with a blueprint that sets the weight of each unit and each objective.

The length of the paper and its total marks are administrative details decided after the content and objectives are settled; they do not by themselves make a good question paper.

Answer: C

Formative assessment is A and C: assessment for learning and assessment as learning.

Formative assessment takes place during learning to improve it. As assessment for learning, the teacher uses it to give feedback and adjust teaching. As assessment as learning, students take part in it themselves, through self- and peer-assessment, and learn to monitor their own progress.

Assessment of learning is summative: it measures what has been learnt at the end of a period. 'Assessment about learning' is not a recognised category.

Answer: D

The statement is a learning outcome.

NCERT's Learning Outcomes for the elementary stage are written as observable statements of what a child does at the end of a class, beginning with an action: 'describes', 'explains', 'identifies', 'records'. 'Child describes different skilled work related to farming and their inheritance (from elders) in daily life' is written in exactly that form.

A learning objective states what the teacher intends a lesson to achieve. A statement of competency describes a broader ability. A learning indicator is a finer marker used to judge progress towards an outcome. None of these is the format of the statement given.

Answer: A

The information that should not be recorded as a bias is samples of the children's work in the portfolio.

A portfolio holds actual pieces of a child's work collected over time. Such samples are direct evidence of what the child can do, so they are a sound and fair basis for assessing progress, not a source of bias.

The other three are the kinds of information that bias a teacher's judgement. Prior impressions of a child's ability, a past result in one subject or area, and the child's social background can all lead a teacher to expect a certain performance and to see what is expected rather than what the child actually does.

Answer: B

The tool is Anecdotal Records.

An anecdotal record is a brief, factual, descriptive note of a significant incident the teacher observes: what the child did or said, when and in what situation. Written soon after the event and collected over time, these notes show a child's development, behaviour and learning in real situations.

An observation list (checklist) only records whether a behaviour is present, with no description. A rating scale records how well or how often something occurs on a fixed scale. A portfolio is a collection of the child's own work, not the teacher's descriptive notes.

Answer: D

The tool that is NOT for formative assessment is the annual achievement test.

Formative assessment takes place during learning to guide teaching. Portfolios of children's work, rating scales and anecdotal records of what children say and do are all used continuously to track progress and give feedback.

An annual achievement test is given at the end of the year to sum up what has been learnt, which makes it a summative tool.

Answer: A

The practice to avoid is judging the answers given by children in terms of right or wrong.

In EVS, children's answers often come from their own experience and can differ, for example in how families store water or celebrate festivals. Marking them simply right or wrong discourages thinking and ignores diverse experiences; teachers are advised to look at the reasoning and the quality of observation instead.

Discussing 'What we have learnt', using indicators and qualitative assessment are all recommended EVS assessment practices.

Answer: B

The tool is Rubrics.

A rubric sets out the criteria for a piece of work and describes what each level of achievement looks like for each criterion. Because it spells out achievement criteria for every component, it can be used for any kind of work, written reports, oral presentations or field-trip observations, exactly what Dev wants.

A rating scale records how much of a trait is present on a scale, without describing the criteria at each level. A checklist only records whether something is present or absent. Teachers' narratives are descriptive notes and do not state achievement criteria in advance.

Answer: D

The inappropriate indicator is Remembering.

The indicators suggested for assessing learning in EVS focus on process skills: observation and recording, discussion, expression, explanation, classification, questioning, analysis, experimentation, and concern for justice, equality and cooperation. They show how children explore and think about their environment.

Remembering, the recall of facts, is the kind of rote outcome that EVS assessment is meant to move away from, so it is not an appropriate indicator. Discussion, observation and analysis are all on the list.