Conclusion
Open-ended tasks are an essential learning and assessment tool for the classroom. They are important for moving students away from singular answers and processes towards using a range of strategies and understanding that there can be multiple solutions. The benefit of this is that students develop higher-order thinking skills and creative solutions. Additionally, open-ended tasks cater for student diversity as they can be accessed at different levels and supported through manipulatives or images. Although open-ended tasks have limitations the benefits outweigh any negatives and problems can be overcome through scaffolding and teacher-student engagement. This open-ended task is predominantly a tool for formative assessments as it identifies development areas for students’ understanding and procedural skills which can be used to inform learning and teaching. The task does not cover all the concepts, skills and strategies relating to the achievement standard but could be used as part of a portfolio that forms the summative assessment.
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