Formative Assessment Policy and Its Enactment in the Philippines

Abstract

In this chapter formative assessment is defined as a process of providing information to teachers to focus instruction on the improvement of student learning outcomes. The Department of Education in the Philippines in 2012 started the implementation of a new curriculum within a new structure which extended the education system from a Grade 1–10 to a K–12 structure to bring it into line with the developed world. A significant part of the curriculum reform is an assessment framework that includes formative approaches to assessment. The goal of the policy on formative assessment is to help teachers recognise relevant intervention practices that will improve student learning outcomes. An observation study of the link between assessment and teaching in a sample of 61 classroom lessons identified baseline practices and ways in which the emerging policy of the Department of Education in the Philippines could be promulgated. The observation study focused on classroom organisation, teacher instructional and assessment strategies, lesson structure, resources used by teachers, and student involvement in class work, as well as both formal and informal assessment practices. The observations were documented in a series of narratives aimed at identifying variation between teachers within grade level and disciplines. It emerged that a lesson structure which lingers from the previous curricular approach may be both the major inhibiting factor regarding formative use of assessment data and the most obvious opportunity for change.