EPC 2903 Teaching Practice Booklet

Task 1: Diagnostic Assessment Interview

 For this task, you will need to arrange to interview your MST at a time convenient to her.
The focus of this task is to understand:
- what diagnostic assessment has taken place this school year in your class,
- who developed the diagnostic assessment (teachers, school management, ADEC/MOE,
etc.),
- how the diagnostic assessment was carried out,
- what the purpose of that diagnostic assessment was/is, and
- what decisions the teacher made as a result of the diagnostic assessment.
 You need to prepare a minimum of 10 questions prior to the interview. You may add
additional questions during the interview based on your teachers responses, i.e. to clarify
answers or garner further information.
 You will need to record your teacher’s responses – use the strategy that works best for you.
If you are using a voice recording device, you MUST inform your MST.
 The interview must be typed and included in your Portfolio.
 You may develop your own questions specific to your context, however the following may
give you some ideas.

Example Interview Questions

1. What diagnostic assessment has taken place this semester? Students take a weekly assessment
in spelling, phonics, grammar, comprehension and vocabulary.
2. When did this occur? The spelling tests are every Tuesday and the other tests are every
Thursday.
3. What types of assessments were conducted? (written, oral, practical, etc.) During the term
students have taken written test, listening, and oral.
4. Who developed these assessments? The lead teacher of grade 4 develops the assessment.
5. Who conducted the assessments? (classroom teacher, Arabic teacher, classroom assistant, etc.)
The English teacher conducts the assessment.
6. Were the assessments completed by students individually? All tests are completed by students
individually.
7. What information did you hope to get from the assessments? The information usually tells us if
the student has reached the level we require or if the student needs to be retaught the lesson.
8. What decisions did you make based on the assessments? If the majority of the students failed,
the test the teacher will re-teach the lesson and have another test to check if the students got
the grasp of the lesson.
9. How did you group your students? (same/different academic levels, friendship groups, similar
interests, etc.) Students are grouped by level - above-intermediate and below. Students taking
tests have two sometimes three different version of the same test depending on the level.
10. Do the groups change for different learning subjects/topics? Sometimes the groups change
depending on the given assessment. For example, if the student was strong in vocabulary but
weak in writing the test given to the student will change.
EPC 2903 Teaching Practice Booklet

After the Task - Reflection

Reflect on the interview and the information gained about diagnostic assessment from your
MST. Consider how/why you would implement diagnostic assessment in a UAE primary
classroom in the future. Explain how this practice will affect student learning in a primary class.

- Diagnostic assessment is very important to be used in a UAE primary

classroom by do weekly assessment in all skills such as, spelling, grammar,
vocabulary and so on also, text them individually and that will help to know
the students level so, the teacher can help the students to move to another level
also, can see if the students understand the lesson of they need to re-teach the
lesson so, that will improve the students learning because those assessments
and text’s will help the students to assess their understanding and as much as
they do they will learn.