Assessment Practices and Monitoring of Learning during the COVID-19 Crisis

Marjorie B. Cudal

One of the greatest challenges in the country is the continuous education despite the health crisis. The “new normal” education has been adapted by the Department of Education in response to the current situation. Under the DepEd order no. 012, s. 2020, the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP) of the Department of Education has addressed the challenges for the continuation of education. This school year 2020-2021 has started the implementation of distance learning to all learners. One way to ensure that learning takes place is through assessment. Teachers should develop new strategies in monitoring and assessing learners’ performance both in formative and summative methods during this health crisis.

The Department of Education issued the Interim Guidelines for Assessment and Grading in the Light of the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan as the assessment and grading scheme of student learning to be implemented this school year. Teachers need to craft assessments both formative and summative adhering to the principles of the quality of assessment ensuring safety, health and well-being of all learners. Given the distance learning set up, formative assessment should be precise, regularly conducted and has a flexible grading system as it would enable targeting the learning competencies to be evaluated in the summative assessment. Summative assessment, as stated in the DepEd Order no. 31 s. 2020, shall be conducted in the form of written works and performance tasks measuring essential knowledge and understanding through quizzes and long/ unit tests. The assessments to be designed should be taken asynchronously depending on the learning modality of the students. The delivery of assessments should be open for all and should have alternative access across modalities. It is also important to give equal considerations for learners who do not have access to the examination and learners who are lag behind.