Narrative Assessment: Identity and equity for disabled students

Abstract

Narrative assessment is learner centred, credit based, and illustrates learning and achievement within authentic contexts. It offers new insights into the way in which ability and disability are socially constructed. For teachers, the process of assessing in this manner is enabling them to ‘see’ students, the curriculum, assessment, and their pedagogy with different eyes. They are finding new pathways to personalise assessment and learning for diverse students. This paper will describe a project whereby Education Plus, University of Canterbury and the Ministry of Education have been working with teacher-writers to develop exemplars of learning for students with high to very high learning needs developing curriculum exemplars using narrative assessment in a range of primary and secondary school settings. This approach links closely to the vision, principles and values of The New Zealand Curriculum and focuses on strengthening learners’ key competencies within the context of the learning areas and effective teacher pedagogy. The New Zealand Curriculum states that the national curriculum is for all students and we argue that a narrative assessment approach supports inclusion.