Outcomes-based assessment asks teachers to make their expectations for learners up-front and public. To assist teachers in doing so, the Department of Education’s assessment guidelines provide some useful step-by-step instructions for designing assessment rubrics. They ask teachers to think carefully about what good learner-work looks like, and then to write the descriptions as assessment criteria.
However, I believe that one key element seems to be missing in the process: the study of work that children have done in response to past or similar assignments.
Examining how children have responded to an assignment and the qualities of work they have produced can provide a rich and authentic source for the kind of descriptions needed for assessment criteria. A range of this learner-work could also serve as visible exemplars to learners now tasked with this assignment as to what is expected. If looking at previous and diverse learner-work was included as a step in the process, then assessments would become more valid, useful and meaningful for both teachers and learners.
— Don Glass,
Wits school of education