Assessment for Learning
INSET Jan 09
of
for
From “Inside the Black Box” by P
Black & D William
“Assessment becomes
formative assessment when
the evidence is actually
used to adapt the teaching
and learning work to meet
the pupils’ needs.”
Reasons
• Grades
• Motivation
• Focus on improvement > greater satisfaction
• Active pupil involvement > engagement >
independent learning
Four main strands
1. Questioning
2. Feedback
3. Sharing success criteria
4. Self and peer assessment
Questioning
“Questions are the
laser of human
consciousness”
1. Questioning
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Types of question
Who answers questions and how?
Wait time (2 Wait times)
“No hands up”
Think, pair, share
Mini whiteboards
Other strategies to involve more/all pupils
2. Feedback
“Marking is usually conscientious but often fails to
offer guidance on how work can be improved. In
a significant minority of cases, marking
reinforces under-achievement and underexpectation by being too generous or
unfocused. Information about pupil performance
received by the teacher is insufficiently used to
inform subsequent work.”
General report on secondary schools – OFSTED
1996
2. Feedback
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Oral or written
Praise current achievement
Next steps
Should cause thinking to take place
Procedures to “close the gap”
Types of comments which lead to
improved learning? Questions, prompts, a
limited number?
Effects of different forms of assessment
(comments, grades and both)
Overall improvement after 2 lots of feedback
+5
+4
Change in marks
+3
+2
+1
0
-1
Grades
Comments
and grades
Comments
-2
-3
-4
-5
Butler, 1988
What they recalled
Comments group
Comment and
grade group
Failed to recall
Failed to recall
Recalled comment
(5%)
Recalled grade and
comment (23%)
Recalled grade
(53%)
Recalled comment
(84%)
“If you are going to grade or
mark a piece of work, you
are wasting your time
writing careful diagnostic
comments.”
Wiliam, 1999
Summary of formative feedback
• specific to the learning objectives
• show evidence of where pupils are now,
what they have done well
• awareness of the desired goal
• some understanding of how to “close the
gap” and how this will be demonstrated
3. Sharing success criteria
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Making learning transparent
Provide an overview – the big picture
Links between new and prior learning
Shift from what to how
Sharing learning objectives
Make EXPLICIT what is usually IMPLICIT
Share success criteria for tasks & topics
Exemplars
Learning STRATEGIES > greater independence
4. Self and peer assessment
4. Self and peer assessment
“Current thinking about learning
acknowledges that learners must
ultimately be responsible for their learning
since no-one else can do it for them. Thus
assessment for learning must involve
students, so as to provide them with
information about how well they are doing
and guide their subsequent efforts.”
Assessment Reform Group 2000
4. Self assessment
In order for pupils to assess their own
learning they need:
• information about what they need to learn
and how they will know they have been
successful
• a sound understanding of what constitutes
high quality work
• the skills and techniques to assess what
they have achieved
Peer assessment
“We remember
90% of what
we teach”
Strategies for self and peer
assessment
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Can-do lists for each topic
Target setting/pupil progress sheets
Make pupils aware of criteria in advance
Pupils develop the marking criteria (thus
taking the “secrecy” out of marking)
• Immediate feedback – all pupils involved
and thinking
• Pupils set questions
Strategies for self and peer
assessment
• Two stars and a wish?
• “Traffic lighting”
• Asking “who marked work better than their
own?”
• Pupil as “reporter”
What might we do now?
• Model good practice (with a “buddy”?)
• Collaborate
• Questioning techniques as focus for our
observations
• Plan appropriate assessment into
schemes of work
• Incremental approach
Final pause for thought
“Individual teachers can not right the wrongs
of overbearing external assessment; nor
can they always help to form whole-school
policy on assessment. However, they are
able to change some practice slowly and
effectively in their own classrooms so that,
at least, they are causing no harm through
their class assessment methods and
possibly doing a great deal of good in the
learning process.”