Introduction
In the field of education, and with the revolution and globalization of information, and where the product is completely different from the products of other organizations, change is a necessary requirement for improvement.
In our work setting as educators, we feel the necessity for change in order to cope with the new requirements of 2021 vision; “ We want to be among the best countries in the world” where “ knowledgeable and innovative Emiratis will confidentially build a competitive and resilient economy”. This is the product we crave for; knowledgeable and innovative Emiratis.
Since assessment informs practice, practice can be changed by changing assessment. Currently, assessment polices in public schools are traditional. Students of different levels take the same test and the same difficulty levels of questions. Some curriculum and assessment specialists claim that these tests are differentiated in the sense that test specifications are tailored to suit the three levels of students; weak, average and high achievers . They are also tailored to cater for all levels of thinking. For example, questions that measure higher order thinking skills are 5% of the questions, whereas questions that measure low order thinking skills are 20 % of the questions.
This approach to assessing students is traditional , and it has drawbacks. Traditional assessment strategies is the other face of the coin. It leads to traditional teaching strategies that addresses the middle-level groups of students, thus hindering high level students form progressing and pulling back low level students. This also entails frustrating high level students who do not find enough motivating learning experiences, and low level students who cannot cope with information and concepts that are above their levels.
In traditional assessment, higher order thinking questions are only given to