By Chris Worsnop

A good media education has three components:

• Students should experience media
• Students should interpret media
• Students should make media products

Teachers need good assessment instruments, and different ones, for each of these three parts of the program.

Experiencing media

In experiencing the media, instruments such as student anthologies, logs and journals and surveys would be useful.

Interpreting media

For assessing the interpreting of media, different instruments are needed - such as reports and reviews; analytical frameworks; critical/deconstruction exercises; and projects and investigations.

Making media products

For assessing the media students make, teachers can use portfolio assessment (course work assessment) and/or scales and rubrics.

In media education assessment, it is important that teachers make sure they are not assessing some aspect other than the ones they intend to assess. Assessment tools that emphasize students' ability to write (such as essays) may be assessing their writing rather than their media abilities. Instruments that require students to draw (such as storyboards, or animation exercises) may be assessing artistic ability rather than media ability. Good assessment assesses what the course teaches, not something else.

If our way of assessing does not support the way we prefer to teach, then the assessment instrument should be questioned. For instance, it probably would not be appropriate to administer a group of multiple-choice questions to assess whether our students were able to respond to subtext in a media presentation. On the other hand, if we have taught a short unit on the names of the parts of a video camera, a quick multiple-choice test might be OK to test this kind of low-level knowledge.

Why is Assessment Important?

It is important for teachers to conduct good assessments so that they will know:

• how well they are teaching
  
  If students all achieve well in a program, it is likely that the program is being successfully taught to them. It could also be the case that the material is too easy for the group of students, or even that the students are remarkably capable and are learning the material despite poor teaching. If some students do well and others do not, the teacher has information about which group in the class needs extra help, or which topics were less well taught than others.
  
  
• how well the students are learning
  
  The information assessment provides gives teachers a profile of each student's learning (provided the assessment is authentic, that is). This information is valuable in forming groups for remediation, further instruction or acceleration.
  
  
• whether they are teaching the right material at the right time
  
  Some material is harder to learn if it is not approached in the right manner or at the tight time, or in the right sequence. Assessment information helps teachers to keep checking on their pedagogy, timing and sequencing.
  
  
• what they should teach next
  
  When students have achieved one expectation in a program, a well-informed teacher knows what those students are ready to learn next.
  
  
• what they should teach again
  
  When students fail to learn something in a program, the teacher can investigate a number of possible causes:
  
  
  • the program is at fault, because the material is not accessible to these students
  • the teaching is at fault, because the presentation did not connect with these students
  • the students are at fault in one way or another.
    
    
• what they do not need to teach at all
  
  Sometimes students show that they are already competent in a skill, knowledge, task or concept that has not yet been taught. In that case, there is no need to teach that topic, or the topic can be covered only lightly.
  
  
• whether or not they are covering the expected curriculum satisfactorily
  
  Teachers can use assessment information to judge whether all the expected skills, knowledge, concepts etc. are being covered and achieved by the students.
  
  
• what to report to parents and administrators
  
  Assessment information is exactly what teachers need to fill out in reports for parents that outline students' learning.
  
  
• whether or not they should worry about accountability
  
  Teachers who willingly embrace good assessment as an important part of their program are making it clear to their community of parents, administrators and politicians that they are happy to be held accountable for their programs.