Assessment and Learning: The ICE Approach

Dave Hutchinson is assistant superintendent of the School District of
Mystery Lake in Thompson, Manitoba.

A number of years ago as an undergrad in the University of Regina’s
Teacher Education Program, I labored over the development of lesson
plans that paid specific attention to the psycho-motor (physical),
affective (emotional), and cognitive (intellectual) needs of the
learner. Later, as a consultant with the Department of Education in
Saskatchewan, I took great pains to focus curriculum and teacher
inservice on a fundamental understanding. Instruction and assessment are
intimately connected, so much so that assessing the learner became an
upfront consideration when planning instruction, and not an
afterthought. Sue Fostaty Young and Robert J. Wilson tend to marry these
understandings in this book, which recommends an instruction/assessment
planning formula centred on “ICE or Ideas (the building blocks of
learning); Connections (establishing and articulating the relation
between Ideas); and Extensions (learning is internalized and used in
novel ways).”

Although the human-development theory applied in this text is not new
(the notion of scaffolding learning in a manner that triggers both the
intellect and affect can be directly attributed to early 20th-century
social psychologist Lev Vygotsky), the text does have an immediate
practical value for a range of educators. Primarily intended for a
K–12 audience, the text includes a number of recommendations for
applying the ICE approach at a variety of levels. Furthermore, a
significant collection of student work is included to help exemplify the
role of ICE when planning instruction and assessment.

Assessment and Learning may be most useful as a planning aid to
students and first-year teachers, but it is also relevant to experienced
K–12 educators who are seeking strategies to improve and differentiate
instruction and assessment. It would be of particular interest to those
educators who are interested in a model that is short on theory and long
on practical suggestion and insight.