Religious Education and Family Life Assessment and Evaluation


Catechetical Approach and Assessment and Evaluation Religious Education and Family Life programs are concerned with:
- Catechesis or the religious and moral formation of the student.
- Knowledge and skills associated with the subject.  There is content that is to be learned, assessed, and evaluated.

The role of the teacher is to provide a learning environment that fosters faith development and the acquisition of knowledge related to the subject matter.  The teacher attributes a letter grade or percentage mark only to the knowledge and skills expectations.

The teacher provides report card comments about the religious and moral development of the student in a non-judgmental way.  Teachers are encouraged to refer to the document “Evaluation and Assessment in Religious and Family Life Education” as a guide for generating comments on the units studied term by term. For consistency and where feasible, comments will reflect the Strengths, Weaknesses and Next Steps format that is used in reporting in other subject areas.
 
The Religious and Family Education Department has indicated that the following guideline be used when reporting on Religious and Family Life Education:
Kindergarten to Grade Six – Anecdotal Comment only
Grade 7 – OAC – Percentage Grade and anecdotal comment

 Assessment and Evaluation of Religious and Family Life Education
General guidelines to be followed in Religious and Family Life Education assessment and evaluation include the following:
 

  • The ultimate purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning.

  • Assessment strategies must align themselves with student curriculum expectations. Therefore, assessment strategies must be planned alongside learning activities.

  • Strategies in assessment and evaluation must be free of bias.

  • Strategies must respect the worth and dignity of all students.

  • Assessment strategies must take into account program modifications that address students’ specific learning needs and styles of learning.

  • A variety of strategies should be employed because many of the learning expectations cannot be translated into an item on a test or a mark/grade on a report card.

Assessment and evaluation methods include the following:
 

Knowledge
- Tests
- Quizzes
- Notebook
- Teacher/text questions
- Projects
- Exhibition
- Portfolios (content)

Skill
- Demonstration
- Performance
- Open-ended questions
- Inventions
- Teacher/Peer/Expert
  Observation
- Graphs/Charts/Surveys
- Audience Response
  (Rubrics)
- Scored Performance
  (organization)

Religious and Moral Development
- Community Service
- Social Justice Projects
- Self-assessment
- Conference/Interview
  Journal