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Q. 1 – What are the Objectives of Ed-fIRST?
• To improve outcomes based education, learning and assessment practices.
• To ensure teachers and heads of schools understand the implications of excellence in designing assessments, preparing test items, conducting research and following global practices.
• To raise standards of excellence in curriculum delivery, assessments and professional development.
• To help teachers at the grass root level with developing research ideas and conducting them to achieve excellence.
• To facilitate innovative practices in Pedagogy, preparing schools for academic audits and improving outcomes
• To create an end to end outcomes focused implementation plan for whole school assessment based on a quality assurance framework
• To create Master Trainers through Train the Trainer (TOTs) using blended learning technology enabled programs
• To provide opportunities for online training wherever possible

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Q.2 – What is ‘Whole School Assessment’

Ed-fIRST through the digital tool ‘Whole School Assessment – I’ will evaluate the quality and efficiency of school systems. It attempts to measure the outcomes of processes and good practices complemented by the school by following an evidence based approach.

School assessment is a process of quality assurance through self-analysis and self-monitoring of the quality enhancement processes. This involves documenting school quality, fostering accountability and improvement. The purpose of school assessment is not merely to collect data but to use the data thus generated for self-reflection, analysis and improvement by the school.

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Q.3 – What is the process followed in School Assessment?
The School Assessment prepares a school to reflect on its own systems through a process of internal self evaluation. It evaluates itself through a technology enabled platform against a set of standardized desirable attributes.
The overarching goals encompass quality enhancement and aligning the school with global best practices.

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Q. 4 – How is Whole School Assessment (WSA-I) useful for managements?

It is important for school managements as it will lead to brand building and internal school accountability. These twin purposes help to define the school. All interested stakeholders can know about your school at the local, national and international level.

With reverse brain drain happening at an unprecedented pace it is essential that people’s perception about your school is backed up with evidence to demonstrate the quality of the institution. Parents proposing to know about your school, even if they are thousands of miles away can have easy access to the unique strengths of the institution.

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Q.5 – How can Ed-fIRST help in bringing good assessment practices within school?
It is important for key administrators, Principals, teachers, students and parents to be aware about the nature of assessments, purpose and goals of formative and summative assessments and the feedback from these assessments which helps to improve student learning.
E-fIRST can help head teachers and other teachers to master high quality assessment at the classroom level.
To strengthen skill development and ensure employability among young people based on recognition of their prior learning and current competencies we propose to:

1. disseminate strategies for implementing school based assessments
1.1. help teachers with good practices in assessment ‘for’ learning
1.2. develop e-assessment strategies
1.3. help teachers tailor formative and summative test item banks for use in future
1.4. evaluate current assessment initiatives such as continuous and comprehensive evaluation
1.5. empower teachers to develop good test items
2. develop assessments
2.1 help schools develop test item banks
2.2 develop robust assessment instruments
2.3 use assessment as feedback strategy
2.4 help teachers develop rubrics
3. help teachers conduct Action Research in their classroom

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Q. 6 – What are the objectives of the ‘Assessment Matters’ and other programs of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) on Assessment?
Objectives of ‘Assessment Matters’ Training Programs

As Heads of schools, it is imperative to:
• be aware of your beliefs about the purpose and focus of assessment
• understand the different types of assessment – informal, unstructured, formal, diagnostic, formative and summative
• develop an understanding of providing specific and skillful feedback to teachers, students and parents
• be able to apply best practices frameworks and guidelines for using a variety of assessment procedures
• understand that summative assessments can be used to form judgements about students, teachers and schools

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Q.7 – What are the objectives of training programmes for teachers on assessment?
As teachers, you need to be able to:
• be aware of your beliefs about the purpose and focus of assessment
• understand the different types of assessment – informal, unstructured, formal, diagnostic, formative and summative
• develop an understanding of providing specific and skillful feedback to teachers, students and parents
• be able to apply best practices frameworks and guidelines for using a variety of assessment procedures
• understand that summative assessments can be used to form judgements about students, teachers and schools
• understand, reflect and apply how assessment can guide your teaching
• understand and apply strategies of assessment to improve student learning and reform your teaching.
• collaborate with other teachers to share your experiences and extend your thinking
• provide an overview about assessments
• understand and evaluate the quality of assessment
• understand and form judgements about the quality of assessments.
• articulate and review key research on purposes and effects of assessment
• understand, construct and score objective type and subjective type test items
• understand the need to develop guidelines for assessment tasks which are inclusive, ethical, fair and valid.
• to know what students ‘know’ and can ‘do’

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Q. 8 – Why should a school opt for ‘Whole School Assessments’?
Whole School Assessments:
The Whole School Assessment prepares a school to reflect on its own systems through a process of internal self evaluation. It evaluates itself through a technology enabled platform against a set of standardized desirable attributes.

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Q.9 – What is school academic Audit?

The academic audit of organisations is an aspirational framework and is focused on the process and formative aspects of an audit.
The overarching goals encompass quality enhancement and aligning the school with global best practices.
The academic audit is focused on key areas which are the hallmark of school excellence. These include:

  1. School’s Top Management’s Leadership and Commitment

  2. Long term planning/ Strategy

  3. Training (for Academic and non-academic staff)

  4. School Academic Leadership

  5. Non Academic Support and Systems

  6. School Infrastructure

  7. Academic and non-academic Human Resource Management

  8. Top Management Vision

  9. Continuous and Comprehensive Assessment and Improvement

  10. Academic Pedagogy

Academic Audits are meant to lead to School Improvement/Enhancement Plans (SEPs) for the school itself and serve as a ready reckoner for the parent community, society and other institutions.
It is important for school managements as it will lead to brand building and internal school accountability. These twin purposes help to define the school. All interested stakeholders can know about your school at the local, national and international level.
With reverse brain drain happening at an unprecedented pace it is essential that people’s perception about the school is also backed with evidence to demonstrate the quality of the institution. Parents proposing to know about the school, even if thousands of miles away can have easy access to the unique strengths of the institution.
Ed-fIRST, for its Academic Audit uses a set of rigorously researched protocols and processes to help institutions reflect, position and peg their own systems. It is transparent and self-regulatory.

For instance if we conduct a study of Continuous Professional Development of teachers in ‘Schools of Excellence’, we will be addressing the following areas.

ï‚® Leadership
ï‚® Learning and Pedagogy
ï‚® Modern Assessment Practices
ï‚® Action Research
ï‚® Technology Blended Learning
ï‚® Innovative practices with evidence

Objectives of ‘Whole School Assessment’ – an ongoing process of Quality Assurance:
• Provides opportunity for self reflection
• Reassures all stakeholders (students’ parents teachers, community) about quality of institution and creates positive image.
• Helps management to focus on the quality assurance processes with regard to the domains specified.
• Results and reports provided help the schools to benchmark their own practices against researched standards, protocols and processes.
• Excellent tool for self assessment leading to school development
We seek to serve schools, teachers, heads, students, parents and the larger community. Our endeavour is to bring happiness to schools, joy in learning, a smile on every teacher’s and child’s face.

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Q.10 – Why do we need an Academic Audit? (School Excellence Audit)

We believe that School Excellence comes from a voluntary desire to achieve quality assurance. In an environment driven by academic excellence, quality assurance is a tool for driving student learning and continuous improvement leading to excellence.

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Q.11 – How does an academic audit help?
Academic Audits are meant to lead to School Improvement/Enhance Plans (SEPs) for the school itself and serve as a ready reckoner for the parent community, society and other institutions.

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Q.12 – How does the Academic Audit Manual help?
This Manual lays down the process of School Quality Enhancement through a step by step approach which is based on internal reflection and external validation.

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Q.13 – How can Ed-fIRST help?
Ed-fIRST, for its Academic Audit uses a set of rigorously researched protocols and processes to help institutions reflect, position and peg their own systems. It is transparent and self-regulatory.
Ed-fIRST is working to establish and maintain high standards for school excellence in India.
Objectives of SA – an ongoing process of Quality Assurance
1. Provides opportunity for self reflection
2. Reassures all stakeholders (students’ parents teachers, community) about quality of institution
3. Helps management to focus on the quality assurance processes with regard to the domains specified.
4. Results and reports provided help the schools to benchmark their prospective against researched standards, protocols and processes.

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Q. 14 – What does Ed-fIRST offer under Research and Innovation?

The objective of the Research and Innovation division include:

• To carry out action research individually or with other teachers
• To research into effective test development
• To help schools use student performance date for monitoring, feedback and further progress
• To research on school leadership, quality and excellence through collaborative teams
• To prepare schools for whole School Assessment and Academic Audit
• To engage in Continuous Professional Development of teachers
• To facilitate Bespoke Assessment in focused areas
• To research on the best strategies to improve performance in students drawn from the most vulnerable and marginalized groups of society.
• To develop, conduct and interpret surveys for schools.
• To conduct qualitative and quantitative research on issues related to school education
• To use inputs provided by research as evidence for advising schools to excel and innovate

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Q.15 – What is the Objectives of Technology Enabled Learning and Assessment programs?
• To develop e-assessment strategies where tools of technology are used for formative assessment.
• To use technology to determine evidence of assessment.
• To narrow down on technological tools which can best help to capture evidence of student learning.
• To use the social media platform for informal student assessment.
• To design and use e-Portfolios, learning management systems and interactive video conferencing

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Q. 16 – What are the objectives of Curricular Reform and Pedagogy program?
• To identify what students should know, understand and apply (be able to do) i.e. Knowledge Skills and Abilities (KSA)
• To use blended learning to plan learning experiences that address transfer of learning making meaning and acquisition
• To develop essential questions to relate curricular goals to the real world

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