We recently hosted a webinar on leveraging research to enhance assessment practice, and two outstanding educators joined us. You can watch the webinar on demand here.
Get to know our educators
Casey Robinson, principal of Saint Maria Goretti Primary School in Inglewood, has been in her role for five years, and has also been acting as the education officer at Toowoomba Catholic Schools during term one of 2025. Casey works with schools across the region in curriculum and pedagogy and is passionate about supporting teachers to build the confidence and skills necessary to implement evidence-based teaching practices.
Our second participant was Scott Woolcock, assistant principal at Gilgai Plains Primary School. Scott brings 13 years of experience in education and currently leads work in data literacy and continuous improvement, ensuring every student reaches their full potential through targeted assessment and feedback practices.
What was discussed?
Together, Casey and Scott discussed how designing assessments can work with cognitive load theory. They also explored interleaving practice, taking a close look at daily reviews and how to use them, while examining how to use assessment and a feedback cycle to foster a growth mindset.
Unpacking the science of learning, they explored how the best learning happens when content is presented in smaller sequential steps with minimal distractions. This means reducing extraneous load, such as confusing instructions or unnecessary visual clutter, so students can focus on deeper thinking and understanding.
What does extraneous load mean?
Extraneous load refers to the fluff bits that can get in the way of what we really need to be focusing on. So when it comes to assessment, it’s important to design ones that don’t get in the way of the learning. That means designing assessments that are valid and curriculum-aligned.
Another thing to think about is if it’s an accessible assessment task or a learning task. Ensure there are no barriers getting in the way of learning. Clear and concise language helps. In order to cater for cognitive load, everything needs to be very simple. No pretty fonts, nothing that doesn’t serve a purpose. Another thing is explicit teaching, which means making sure we have clear examples of what a really good outcome or product looks like, to help navigate how to get there. Also, visual aids and numbering steps can help.
The evolution of teaching
Our pedagogy as educators has evolved and changed. We used to use clip art books, but now we know to keep things really simple.
Researching the science of learning and cognitive load theory has changed how we do things. At Essential Assessment, we’ve created focused tasks that support clarity and scaffolded thinking, to work with these developments.
It’s important that we’re not overstimulating students and that we use lesson structures to gradually build responsibility. That means reducing the cognitive load, to help give students better outcomes.
Doctor. Carl Hendrix emphasised that memory is the residue of thought and that effective learning environments must include regular opportunities for retrieval and spaced practice. Dylan Williams, similarly, argues that retention is less about how something is taught and more about how often it is recalled over time. So it’s about mixing practice to strengthen memory and adaptability. When paired with a daily review concept, this approach helps move learning from the short term into long-term understanding.
How can Essential Assessment help?
Make sure you give some thought to your assessment timelines. Blocking time for a daily review before a post assessment can show you what students retain and as long-term memory. While the data is vital to tracking student progress, it also validates the value in working this way when it shows what needs to be put into the daily review, etc.
For Scott, implementing practices aligned with the science of learning meant that the retrieval practice became integral. For instance, when it comes to spelling, their syntax work, what they’re doing in their fluency, it’s all combined. Students are retrieving, which is linked to the concept of interleaving, and with interleaving, it’s important to see things like spelling, phonics and vocabulary as one thing.
“I did a little model lesson in the prep one classroom this morning, and the activity was around syntax, sentence structure and making sense of parts of speech. But what I did is I embedded the vocab that we’ve been working on, the tier two vocab, in the quality literature, and there were also some listening comprehension-type questions involved,” said Scott.
That’s just an example of how you can interleave, to get students to retrieve what you’ve already taught them.
The cycle of learning
Learning through cycles ensures we build on prior knowledge and go from simple to more complex tasks. It particularly helps people who need up to 500 repetitions. The data will capture this, so you can pivot accordingly in classrooms, and use tools like assessments to motivate students, not just measure learning.
Carol Dweck’s work on the growth mindset reminds us that student belief plays a powerful role in learning. When students understand that intelligence is not fixed and that feedback is a tool for growth, their persistence and engagement generally improves.
It becomes the responsibility of everyone in the school to create an assessment and feedback culture. That means it isn’t just teachers and staff who value feedback. Students also need to know why. Why are we assessing this, and what are we going to do with that assessment?
If they are told this will help them become a better learner, that builds motivation. While assessment literacy can be complex, it’s important to work on a student’s ability to become a reflective learner. A good start is by reflecting on yourself as an educator and modelling that self-assessment to students. Putting in processes where students are encouraged to self-assess or peer-assess is also vital. If students know what success looks like, they can always refer back to that.
Other actions include not just throwing a test in their direction, but also communicating why they are being tested. Explaining that you want to see where they’re at and what they’ve learned so that you’re better equipped to help them. It’s continuous improvement. With everything we do, lies a reason behind it. Why are we doing this?
Supporting growth through assessment
When it comes to assessment, it’s really important for our students to know the why. Why are we assessing this? We refrain from the word ‘test’. It’s an assessment. We’re there to work together, we’re assessing you to know what you know and what you’ve learned. This helps a teacher recognise what they’ve done well and what they need for the next stage of your learning journey.
Having strong assessment protocols in place and data behind the scenes makes it easier to plan lessons appropriately. We also have a resource available to download, which summarises the six proven research-informed strategies that drive student growth, including explicit instruction, reducing cognitive load, and interleaving with daily review. It’s available for you to utilise back at school or share within your community.
Let’s continue with our professional curiosity and commitment to ensuring every learner is supported in a way that works for them. We don’t just want them asking what was taught, but knowing what was learnt and striving for what’s next.
