Categary:School Based Evaluation
IMPLEMENTATION OF SCHOOL BASED EVALUATION IN KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA AND STATE SCHOOLS – A REPORT
The success of any educational endeavor is deep rooted not only in defining the goals but also in assessing the extent of accomplishing these goals. Classroom practices are one of the most important educational endeavors, which help to enhance learning through participation among learners. The efficacy of teaching-learning process depends on the assessment procedures used in classroom. In order to initiate desired learning outcomes, it is necessary to know the progress of learning during specific classroom instructional session. Teaching and evaluation are integral components of an educative process. Teaching aims to achieve the instructional objectives and evaluation focuses on finding out whether learners' participation is directed towards the pre-determined instructional objectives. Teaching and evaluation are purposive and perpetual educational endeavors. Purposive in the sense that every aspect of teaching is to improve cognitive, affective and psychomotor aspects of learner and consequently evaluation should be comprehensive to assess over all development. Perpetual in the sense that learning is a perennial process and as a result evaluation need to be continuous. Evaluation, hence, cannot be segregated from teaching learning process. Realizing that evaluation plays a pivotal role in quality improvement, NPE 1986 and POA 1992 recommended the introduction of continuous and comprehensive evaluation. In order to operationalise the recommendations of NPE. Department of Educational Measurement and Evaluation, NCERT has developed a scheme for school based evaluation and tried it out in D.M. Schools attached to all the four Regional Institutes of Education. On the basis of the findings of the try out the scheme was modified and a handbook was prepared to provide practical orientation to teachers. School-based evaluation reflects the continuity and comprehensibility aspects of evaluation. The purpose of this project is to find out the feasibility and suitability of the scheme in schools of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and M.P. State Board of Education. This is a follow up study, after experimenting it in D.M. Schools, to ascertain the applicability of the scheme in two different school contexts. This project is carried out in six schools located in Bhopal city for one academic session i.e. 2004-2005. U.Lakshmi Naryana Project Coordinator
INTRODICTION
Evaluation is an important aspect of any educative process. Student learning can be improved through well-planned procedures of evaluation that are inbuilt in the teaching learning process. Many times teachers attempt to assess the progress of learning while teaching in the classroom – sometimes deliberate and at times spontaneous. Thus evaluation is considered as an integral part of teaching learning process. Evaluation is a process of collecting, analyzing and interpretation of the evidences about students' progress in cognitive and non-cognitive areas. On the basis of these evidences teacher could take certain decisions to improve classroom practices for enhancing the attainment levels among students. Evidences are collected, analyzed and interpreted through some tools and techniques. Tests are most prominent tools to collect evidences about the progress of learning among learners. Observation is an important technique used to collect evidences of development in specifically co-scholastic areas. Tests provide the marks or grades and observation gives an idea or impression. The evidences such collected will be analyzed and interpreted to know the exact progress of learning or development desired behavioral traits. On the basis of this interpretation teachers will be able to take certain series of decisions about the child as to how he/she is progressing and how to match instruction to the level of learners for maximum attainment. Hence, evaluation is a decision-making process that intends to lead students towards better performance and consequently helps to bring about qualitative improvement in education.
Evaluation is both process and product. When we talk about the evaluation process, it mainly focuses on teachers as the teacher has to decide why, what, when and how to evaluate and how to make sense of it. The thoughtful teacher uses the information of students' results as guide to improve his/her own teaching practices. The performance of learners in scholastic areas can either be evaluated during the process of instruction or after completion of instruction in a regular temporal sequence. The former is formative evaluation and the latter is summative evaluation. The evaluation in scholastic areas is mostly focused on the attainment of instructional as well as educational objectives. Some of the important purposes of evaluation are –
• To know the efficacy of instruction, to determine the rate of progress of learners, • To predict success of learners in their future scholastic endeavors, • To know the attainment of instructional and educational objectives, • To motivate learners for better learning, • To diagnose the weaknesses, • To provide continuous record of achievement, • To place students in rank order and • To increase self confidence among students
The process of evaluation involves in selection of suitable tools and techniques for collecting evidences to know the progress of performance among learners. The quality of evaluation depends on the suitability of evaluation tools selected. Hence, in order to make a right choice of tools and techniques, a teacher should be clear about what is, exactly, to be evaluated. A teacher is also required to know the strengths and weaknesses of evaluation tools and techniques, in order to use them purposefully, meaningfully and effectively. As a variety of instructional objectives are to be evaluated, different evaluation techniques need to be utilized simultaneously. This would help teacher to collect more evidences on various aspects of learner achievement on different objectives.
The Concept of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation
Evaluation is now considered as an integral part of teaching learning process. It cannot be separated from teaching as teaching includes evaluation. As child development is a continuous process, evaluation should be continuous. The progress of the learner will be evaluated quite often in continuous evaluation. Learner is subjected to schooling for scholastic and co-scholastic gains. As such evaluation should cover all the aspects of schooling and teacher should be able to assess the all round development of the child. In fact comprehensive evaluation covers the whole range of student's experiences in the context of total school activities. It includes physical, intellectual, emotional and social growth comprising of social personal qualities, interest, attitude and values. Varieties of techniques need to be executed to carry out the comprehensive evaluation. The main characteristics of continuous and comprehensive evaluation are-
• It is informal and formative in nature • It is based on the assumption that the teacher knows his pupils best and hence he/she should only entrusted with the responsibility of evaluation • It provides opportunities for the use of multiple techniques of testing • It is built into the total teaching learning programme rather than done at a specific point of time • It provides opportunity to teacher for regular diagnosis of learning difficulties followed by remedial measures • It involves analysis and interpretation of the evidences of achievement to arrive at right decision and make judgment
In the light of the above a comprehensive scheme of evaluation at primary level has been developed, tried out and finally improved on the basis of experiences of the practicing teachers involved in its implementation. The school Based Evaluation Scheme along with its implementation strategy has been provided in teacher handbook.
The Moorings
Quality improvement in educative process, especially primary education, is a long felt and yet to be accomplished goal of Indian education. Out of many parameters of quality primary education, such as, curriculum development, instructional procedures, learning process and so on, evaluation is pivotal. As evaluation is the epicenter of any endeavor to enhance the quality in primary education, designing a meaningful, realistic and context specific system of evaluation is the need of the hour. In view of the prevalence of evaluation, department of educational measurement and evaluation, NCERT has conceptualized a scheme of school-based evaluation. This scheme is a well thought strategy of reaching to the classroom practitioners at primary stage of schooling. The main purpose of this scheme is to strengthen the evaluation practices in primary schools to further accelerate learning attainments among learners. The scheme of school-based evaluation has been evolved out of deliberate thinking and experimentation of manifesting thoughts into practice. The scheme is designed on the basis of series of researches to locate the exact lapses in teaching and evaluation at primary level.
One of the prominent studies among series of researches is 'evaluation practices in primary school of Delhi' (1995) conducted by DEME. This study gave many insights in designing the school-based evaluation. This study identified the deficiencies of teachers in understanding the concept of evaluation and its role in improving learning. Further NPE (1986) felt the need for overhauling educational system in general and evaluation in particular. In order to improve evaluation practices NPE (1986) and POA (1992) have recommended for introduction of continuous and comprehensive evaluation. Further, National Curriculum Framework for School Education (2000) suggested the concept of school-based evaluation, which has its roots in the concept of continuous and comprehensive evaluation. Keeping in view the findings of researches and recommendations of policy documents, Department of Educational Measurement and Evaluation, NCERT has evolved the school-based evaluation for primary schools. This scheme has been experimented in four D.M. Schools attached to four Regional Institutes of Education to find out the feasibility of implementing the scheme in school context. On the basis of experiences gained through the experimentation, the scheme is modified in order to make it more suitable, meaningful and realistic. The present project is to widen the scope of implementing the scheme in Kendriya Vidyalaya and State Government schools. The main purpose of this project is to ascertain the feasibility of implementing the scheme in two different contexts, viz., Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and State Government schools.
D.M. School Experiences And Impressions
The scheme is tried out in D.M Schools for one academic year. Prior to the implementation of scheme there are two major apprehensions among teachers and people concerned. The first apprehension is that the scheme of school-based evaluation would consume time and the second is that it would increase the workload of teachers. After the experiment, both the apprehensions are disproved. Though teachers are, initially skeptic about time and workload, after completion of the try out, they themselves realized that this scheme could be implemented within the time available without increasing the workload. Besides this the other pertinent impressions resulted in the D.M. School experimentation are as follows.
Teachers are deficit in evaluating the scholastic areas. This is specifically evident in preparation of different questions. As a result of this deficiency, teachers are unable to test all the abilities of learners. Teachers found to be inadequate in concepts of diagnosis and remediation. As regards evaluation of co-scholastic areas, teachers faced certain problems in using appropriate devices and recording the observations. Taking these deficiencies of teachers as clues, a Handbook is developed to improve their evaluation practices by bridging the lapses and to equip teachers in playing the role of an evaluator.
Some of the achievements of the scheme for children are that they stopped throwing waste papers in classrooms, started understanding their responsibilities towards a neat classroom, became more disciplined with their interaction with each other, started taking interest and initiative in curricular and co-curricular activities, prepared material related to curricular areas including Art Education and Work Education and above all the performance of children in scholastic areas is improved. After completion of the implementation of the scheme teachers developed the competency in preparing Design, Blue Print, and Marking Scheme of the test papers. They are able to prepare objective-based test items, structure different types of test items, understood the advantages of grading scheme and started using checklists for assessment of non-scholastic areas.
ABOUT THE SCHEME
Under this scheme primary classes are divided into three levels keeping in mind the development of children at this stage of schooling. Primary stage has different length of schooling in different states. In some states primary education is from class I to IV whereas in several states it is from class I to V. The scheme provides a flexible option to the states, which have primary education up to class IV, can have two levels instead of three levels.
• Level – I: Classes I and II • Level – II: Classes III and IV • Level – III: Class V
Scholastic Areas: The guidelines pertaining to scholastic areas are provided to all the levels of primary education i.e. classes I and II; classes III and IV; and class V. The common guidelines for all classes are listed below.
• Teaching and evaluation will continue to be competency based • After teaching each competency, the hard spots in learning will be identified by the teacher • Remediation will be organized to remove learning difficulties and a retest will be given to them • Multiple techniques will be used to evaluate students' performance • For developing the term test design, question paper and marking scheme will be prepared. Fro all remaining competency based tests, only question paper and marking scheme will be developed • Tests will be conducted as per the school schedule • Test results will be interpreted and necessary action will be taken • Some of the questions which are attempted wrongly by most of the students are to be discussed in the class as a whole • Individual student's query can be taken for discussion by the teacher • The teacher will also take help of brilliant students in assisting the low achievers in the subject through peer group learning mode at this stage. However, the teacher will have to be careful in making the groups of bright and low achievers. The formation of groups will depend on the performance of students in competencies of different subject areas • Record of student performance will be maintained regularly to know the progress of the child • For reporting absolute grades will be used, equal weightage will be given to all the competency based tests and unit test/term test. For students who have undergone remediation the second test will be counted for awarding of grades and reporting • Absolute grading means conversion of range of marks into letter grades. To implement this process the first step will be evaluating the responses of the students and allotting marks. This will be followed by converting these marks into range of marks and then each range into letter grades. Absolute grading on three-point scale will be used for reporting as given below.
Table-1: Classification of grades for scholastic areas Range of marks Grade Description 70% and above A Good 30% - 69% B Average Below 30% C Below Average
• Grades awarded to the students will be reported in the report card and will be communicated to parents • Cooperation of the parents may also be solicited in practicing different components of learning
Co-Scholastic Area: It deals with mainly emotional and psychomotor aspects of child growth. It includes co-curricular and personal and social qualities, attitudes, interest and values. Co-curricular areas consist of art education, work education, health and physical education along with personal social qualities, attitudes and values. The guidelines pertaining to co-scholastic areas are provided to all the levels of primary education i.e. classes II and I; classes III and IV; and class V. The common guidelines for all classes are listed below.
• All children must participate in at least one activity from each area of co-curricular activities organized by the school • The performance of the children will be observed, recorded on the criteria decided during participation • Physical exercises will be compulsory for all students. But for physically challenged students simple exercises will be organized • Obsertations and recordings in co-curricular areas will be done activity wise • Extraordinary performance of the students will be recorded in anecdotal records • Equal weightage should be given to both process and product. Process evaluation means the participation of students in the activity from the beginning to end. This will be observed and graded directly. On the other hand the product evaluation covers the evaluation of the outcome of the activity in the form of a prepared material or demonstration of activity • The observations will be recorded, rated and graded on a three-point scale for each activity separately. However, performance of the students in these areas will be reported to the parents at the end of the term as suggested below. Table-2: Classification of grades for co-scholastic areas Percentage of Observation Grade Description 70% and above A Almost Always 30% - 69% B Sometimes Below 30% C Rarely
Personal Social Qualities: They belong to co-scholastic areas concerning emotional and skill development. Common guidelines for developing and assessing personal social qualities are as follows. • The direction of the development rather than its status will be observed. • In case of undesirable behavior of the students it will neither be highlighted not be reinforced by way of scolding them. • The decision with regard to the evidence of any personality trait will be taken tentatively. • Personal social qualities will be observed and recorded using behavior indicators daily/twice/thrice/weekly/fortnightly as per the schedule of the individual school. • The students behavior will be rated on the basis of frequency of the occurrence of the behavior indicators on periodic basis. • Direct grading on three-point scale will be used for reporting purposes. • For primary level, ten personal social qualities have been identified for development and evaluation purposes. • The recording and reporting scheme is furnished in the following table. Table-3: Recording and reporting scheme S.No. Personal Social Qualities Observation Recording Reporting 1. Cleanliness Regular Thrice a week Unit/Term 2. Obedience/Discipline Regular Thrice a week Unit/Term 3. Cooperation Regular Thrice a week Unit/Term 4. Regularity/Punctuality Regular Thrice a week Unit/Term 5. Respect for Elders Regular Thrice a week Unit/Term 6. Protecting Environment Regular Thrice a week Unit/Term 7. Dignity of Labor Regular Thrice a week Unit/Term 8. Truthfulness Situational As & when observed Unit/Term 9. Patriotism Situational As & when observed Unit/Term 10. Responsibility Situational As & when observed Unit/Term
Monitoring: This is a continuous and systematic observation of the implementation of school based evaluation scheme. Monitoring in a school is a mechanism of overall coordination and supervision of the tasks taken up by a team like head teacher and teachers. A three-tier system of monitoring is to be followed during implementation of the scheme as detailed below. Table-4: Monitoring scheme Tier Person Monitoring Frequency 1st Tier Education Officer Twice/Thrice a year 2nd Tier Principal/Head Master/In charge Primary Once in a month 3rd Tier Teachers on rotation basis Weekly/Bimonthly
In order to strengthen the evaluation practices it is necessary to involve teachers in the monitoring process and they should have a positive approach. A senior teacher should not feel offended when a junior teacher is monitoring and rendering useful advice. In fact, in this process teacher is not supposed to play a role of supervisory in literal sense. Therefore he is not supposed to utter any adverse remark against any teacher. Moreover, the teacher who is being supervised must keep in mind that this monitoring is for the system not for individual's work. Besides, the interpersonal relationship should not be affected by monitoring process.
MODUS OPERANDI
The school-based evaluation has been implemented in Kendriya Vidyalaya and State Government schools during the academic session 2004-2005. On the basis of the experiences and problems encountered while experimenting in D.M. Schools, the scheme is modified. This modification has been carried out at DEME, NCERT in series of workshops conducted at New Delhi. In order to secure evidences of how the scheme would work in other contexts, such as, Kendriya Vidyalayas and State schools, the scheme is implemented for one academic year in selected schools at Bhopal. This project is carried out in three phases.
Phase – I: Selection of schools and orientation of educational functionaries Phase – II: Implementation and Monitoring Phase – III: Reporting
Selection of Schools: In the first phase schools have been selected to implement the school based evaluation scheme. After securing the prior permission from KVS and State government authorities, the scheme is implemented in following schools.
1. Kendriya Vidyalaya – 1, Bhopal 2. Kendriya Vidyalaya – II, Bhopal 3. Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bairagarh 4. Deepsikha Government Middle School, Bhopal 5. Sanjay Gandhi Government Middle School, Bhopal 6. Sarojini Naidu Government Middle School, Bhopal
Out of these six schools three are KV schools and three are state government schools. There are three are three KV schools in Bhopal and all the three schools are selected for conducting the experiment. Out of many state government schools only three schools have been selected for this project. These three schools are selected on the basis of discussions held with SCERT officials. Availability of full contingency of teachers is one of the most important criteria kept in mind while selecting these schools. The project coordinator personally visited the schools to estimate the facilities and resources available prior to the selection of schools.
Orientation Programmes:
In order to acquaint the educational functionaries and teachers about the scheme, orientation programmes are organized at RIE, Bhopal before implementing the scheme.
Orientation of Educational Functionaries: The roles and responsibilities of educational officers, principals and head masters are pertinent in effective implementation of the school-based evaluation. Hence, a one-day orientation programme is organized at RIE, Bhopal for education officers, principals and head masters of KV and state government schools on 24th June 2004. Two education officers, one each from Kendriya Vidyalaya and SCERT, Bhopal, have attended the orientation programme. Besides education officers, all the three principals of K.V. schools, head masters and in charge primary sections of selected schools have attended the orientation programme. The main purpose of this orientation programme is to acquaint them with the school based evaluation scheme and their roles and responsibilities in implementing the scheme. In this orientation programme the educational officers are informed, in detail, about following aspects.
• School based evaluation scheme • Experiences of D.M. school experimentation • Procedures and strategies of evaluating, recording and reporting persona social qualities • The concept of art of healthy and productive living and procedures of evaluation • Roles and responsibilities of educational functionaries in implementing the scheme Orientation Programmes for Teachers: In order to orient primary teachers of selected schools about the school based evaluation scheme, five-day orientation programmes are organized at RIE, Bhopal in two batches as detailed below.
I Batch – 28-6-2004 to 2-7-2004 II Batch – 5-7-2004 to 9-7-2004
All teachers working in selected schools need to be oriented about the scheme for successful implementation and try out. With a view to minimize the regular academic work of the schools, orientation of teachers is organized in two batches. This arrangement facilitates the education authorities to depute all teachers spreading over two batches without dislocating the normal work of the schools. All the teachers working in selected schools are invite to attend the orientation programme in any one of the batches. Out of around 60 teachers working in six selected schools, total 49 teachers have participated in two orientation programmes. Due to some administrative and academic compulsions, all teachers of the selected schools could not be deputed for the orientation programmes. Batch wise split of teachers attended the orientation programmes is furnished below.
Table-5: Number of teachers attended orientation programmes S.No. School No. of teachers Batch-I Batch-II 1. K.V. School – 1, Bhopal 6 5 2. K.V. School – 2, Bhopal 2 2 3 K.V. School, Bairagarh 5 7 4 Deepshika Govt. Middle School, Bhopal 9 - 5 Sanjay Gandhi Govt. Middle School, Bhopal 3 6 6 Sarojini Naidu Govt. Middle School, Bhopal - 4 Total 25 24
Almost all teachers from four out of six schools, namely, K.V. School – 1, K.V. School – Bairagarh, Deepshika Govt. Middle School and Sanjay Gandhi Govt. Middle School, have participated in orientation programme. Only four teachers each from K.V. School – 2 and Sarojini Naidu Govt. Middle School have been deputed and participated in the orientation programme, resulting some problems in implementing the scheme in these schools. The orientation programmes are conducted in participatory approach, where all the teachers are given adequate opportunities to share their experiences and thoughts. Teachers have been oriented on the following aspects.
• Concept of evaluation • School based evaluation scheme • Monitoring • Evaluation of scholastic and co-scholastic areas – Techniques and Tools • Forms of questions • Balanced question paper • Art of healthy and productive living • Co-curricular areas • Personal social qualities • Observation • Criterion referenced testing • Diagnostic testing and remediation • Oral testing • Recording and reporting procedures • D.M. School experience
In these orientation programmes, the teachers are divided into groups and asked to prepare question papers along with design and blue print, observation schedules and action plans. The school wise action plans prepared by the teachers are appended.
One copy of the handbook entitled, ' What Primary Teachers need to know about School Based Evaluation', which has been developed by DEME, NCERT is supplied to each school for their ready reference. RIE, Ajmer has translated this handbook in Hindi. The English versions are supplied to K.V. Schools and Hindi versions to State Government Schools. Besides handbook following resource materials (furnished in appendices) have been provided to all the participants for better understanding of different important aspects of evaluation.
• Observation • Criterion Referenced Testing • Oral Testing • Diagnostic Testing and Remediation • Recording and Reporting Procedures
School based evaluation scheme involves recording and reporting of scholastic and co-scholastic performance of students on continuous and comprehensive basis. For this purpose different schedules have been supplied to the schools. The schedules supplied to schools are listed below.
• Recording and Reporting Schedules for scholastic areas • Recording Schedules for Personal Social Qualities • Self-Assessment Schedules • Peer Evaluation Sheets • Anecdotal Records Formats • Teacher Feedback Forms
Monitoring: During orientation programme, educational functionaries and teachers have been acquainted with the tasks to be performed while the scheme is in operation. In order to check whether the tasks are being carried out as per the stipulations of the scheme, an effective monitoring mechanism is essential. RIE faculty, education officers and principals/head masters/in charge primary sections are assigned the responsibility of monitoring the performance of teachers, with a view to help them in improving their evaluation practices and procedures. In a three tier monitoring proposed in the scheme, teachers are also given responsibility of monitoring. But in this project teachers could not share the responsibility of monitoring in any of the six selected schools. For effective and systematic monitoring, RIE project team shared the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of the scheme in six selected schools as detailed below.
The team members shared the responsibility of monitoring two schools each and out of which one is KV school and the other is state government school. The team members and the project coordinator visited the schools at least once in two months. During their visits, RIE faculty discussed with the teachers and helped to resolve the academic problems encountered during implementation of the scheme. At the time of our visits mostly in state government schools, teachers often raised the administrative and infrastructure related problems, for which we could not do much except sympathetic hearing. The team members realized a drastic difference between KV schools and state government schools in implementing the scheme. KV schools already following the school based evaluation and as such there are no many problems either academic or infrastructure related. The state government schools are new to this scheme and have certain impediments in carrying out the tasks of school based evaluation.
