When teachers stand in front of their class of 30 students, they face the challenge of teaching children with a variety of levels of skills and knowledge.
The simple option would be to teach to the middle of the class. But this could leave some students falling behind while others are not being challenged enough.
The other option is to check where each student is at in their learning using a quick assessment task so that the teacher can make a decision of what and how to teach next.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has published a new resource to help teachers in this important step in their teaching, known as formative assessment.
ACARA chief executive Stephen Gniel said it was one way the authority could support teachers who were crying out for help with their ever-growing workloads.
"These are tools that allow teachers to really identify what the diverse needs of that group might be in front of them, where some students might need more teaching, more support in terms of that learning, but also where students have got it and can just move on," Mr Gniel said.
"Good teachers are constantly doing this all the time. So we just want to make that as accessible as possible to all our teachers, including those teachers that are new to the profession, those that are continuing to learn, those very experienced teachers. We can always improve practice within the teaching profession."
Sacred Heart Primary School in Pearce has been an early adopter of the new resources.
The teachers had a day of professional learning in term 2 using ACARA's videos and resources on formative assessment. Now it's embedded in the classrooms and has given teachers more confidence in how to collect and use evidence.
Assistant principal Anna Williams said the tool allowed teachers to design a suitable assessment task using a selector tool taking into account the teacher's aim, the timing of the task and evidence they wanted to collect.
"We got very excited when we saw that ACARA had offered this incredibly practical support for teachers, and built time into our strategic plan to make sure we prioritised it," Ms Williams said.
Year 2 teacher Simonne Evenden said the tool helped educators to gain deeper insights into students' thinking.
"I think it's quite easy to fall back on things you've always done," she said
"I love looking at graphic organisers for year 2, and I like asking them to draw diagrams and label things as well, and [draw] concept maps... Open questions are really good ones because, again, we don't just want a tick and flick.
"We want something a bit deeper so that we can see their reasoning skills and some of these concept maps and open questions allow us to look at that more."
Tiana Nguyen has been teaching at Sacred Heart Primary School while finishing her degree at Australian Catholic University. Some of her work samples have been used on the ACARA website as an example for other teachers.
"I think especially as a new educator, the tool is helpful for helping me think outside the box," Ms Nguyen said.
"It's easy to fall back on checklists and the things you know. But using all of these new tools that ACARA has allows us to access learning in different ways."
Mr Gniel was a product of the ACT public school system and then went on to be a teacher and principal at schools all over the territory, from Gordon Primary to Macgregor Primary.
Now in an influential role in Australian education, he wants to make sure teachers have support in the places that will make the most impact on student learning.
"I know that the ACT has a real focus on those foundational skills of literacy and numeracy, and formative assessment allows you to maximise the teaching time with students so that you're teaching to the point of need."
