Development of the Singapore Prototype Classroom Assessment Tasks: Innovative Tools for Improving Student Learning and Performance

This paper describes the development of the Singapore prototype classroom assessment tasks in English, Mathematics, Science, Chinese Language, Malay Language, and Tamil Language as well as the use of authentic intellectual standards and scoring rubrics for evaluating the quality of assessment tasks and related students’ work. The authors will provide a brief background to and the rationale for the development of standards for assessing the quality of classroom assessment tasks and related students’ work across subject areas at Primary grade levels in Singapore schools. This will be followed by in-depth discussions of the alignment of the prototype assessment tasks with the authentic intellectual standards; the training of teachers in crafting high authentic intellectual assessment tasks; the implementation of the assessment tasks in the day-today classroom teaching, learning, and assessment; the construction of the scoring rubrics and exemplars; the moderation procedures for teachers to evaluate the quality of students’ work in response to the authentic intellectual assessment tasks; and the strategies in empowering teachers to build professional learning communities within and between schools. Findings and implications of the prototype classroom assessment tasks on teachers’ pedagogical and assessment practices as well as on student learning and performance will also be discussed.