New Trend of Learning Assessment

Jestoni Magno Jasmin

Classroom assessment is so integrally linked to instruction, curriculum, and student motivation. It has the

power to transform both learning and teaching. The increased attention being paid to standards and their

assessment has created a new opportunity to support learning and improve classroom practices.

Classroom assessment is a new challenge with a familiar name. Thinking about learning differently means

changing the way we assess. In the past, norm-referenced assessment involved comparing students to

students. The knowledge, skills, and attitudes being compared varied from teacher to teacher and school

to school. Currently, students-based education (sometimes called criterion –referenced education) requires

that classroom assessment information respond to the question. “Given the students need to be self-

directed, independent, life-long learners with the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for success, has

this student need to be learned? To what degree of quality? This assessment task is a new challenge and it

requires different kinds of evidence of learning.

Apparently, the Philippine curriculum had changed to K-12 program and an offshoot to this curriculum is

the K-12 “assessment framework”. At this point, let me differentiate assessment from evaluation.

Assessment refers to tracking the students’ progress (formative) and evaluation refers to checking if they

have learned (summative).

KPUP actually refers to the various levels of assessment. Unlike before when the combination of quizzes,

long tests and periodic or end-of-term exams were used as the primary component of grades, the

framework now takes into account these various levels. Let me refer here an attempt to a simple

explanations but the details can be seen in the DepEd order no. 73 s. 2012.
  Knowledge (K) – 15%- checks factual information. Similar to the usual pen-and-paper activities

like objective-type quizzes and tests.

 Process (P)- 25%- Checks skills and operations like outlining, expressing, and converting

information to other forms.

 Understanding (U)- 30%- Checks big concepts, meanings, and principles through explanations and

interpretations.

 Performance/ Product (P)- 30% Checks actual application of learning through projects.

Taking a look at the breakdown, one can see what used to be the biggest chunk of students’ grades accounts

for just 15% and what used to be considered minor activities such as projects now account for 30%.

Theoretically, these are quite sound principles since contemporary views on learning say that learning must

be applied to what is relevant to the learners’ life.

Problems, however, lie in how this whole thing is going to be implemented. I don’t believe that all schools

have a thorough understanding of the framework including the underpinning theories. In no portion, save

for a lonely citation of the document does it cite which theories and scholarship influenced these guidelines.

I can only assume from my own deduction that it applies or adheres by principles proposed by scholars

like Bruner, Piaget, Vygotsky, Wiggins and McTighe.

Going around and talking to teachers also reinforce my reservations. While the DepEd has provided talks

and discussions with schools and teachers, this change in the system requires more than just one

orientation. It requires a robust transition program-something that I think are left for schools to figure out.

Compound the problem with parents not being educated on these reforms, K-12 is not the system that

many of the parents, even the younger ones, grew up in. They little or no idea about KPUP or the BDAPPA.
The shift in mindset where projects now weigh more than exams can be a tough pill to swallow for the

generations of parents who considered numbers the basis for their child’s intelligence.

No matter how flawless we think the plans are, it’s where the rubric meets the road where it counts. If

teachers have almost no idea on how to proceed and facilitate all these new policies, then we’d be in bad

shape.