Teacher Skill 06:
Using assessment for
learning
Teacher Skill 06:
Using assessment for learning
OBJECTIVES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What is (AfL)?
Why bother with AfL?
How do I use AfL?
Challenges in bringing in AfL
What are the possibilities in using AfL?
1. What is (AfL)?
“Inside the black box”
Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam.
Assessment for Learning is also called formative
assessment.
Here “assessment” refers to all those activities
undertaken by teachers, and by their students in
assessing themselves, which provide information to be
used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning
activities in which they are engaged.
Such assessment becomes “formative assessment”
when the evidence is actually used to adapt the
teaching work to meet the needs.
1. What is (AfL)?
There are several purposes to formative assessment:
• to provide feedback for teachers to modify
subsequent learning activities and experiences;
• to identify and remediate group or individual
deficiencies;
• to move focus away from achieving grades and
onto learning processes, in order to increase self
efficacy and reduce the negative impact of extrinsic
motivation;
• to improve students' metacognitive awareness of
how they learn.
Wikipedia
• "frequent, ongoing assessment allows both for
http://en.wikipedia.org/
fine-tuning of instruction and student focus on
wiki/Formative_assessm
progress."
ent
2. Why bother with AfL?
1. Because of the results it produces.
Research studies show that formative assessment
produces significant, and often substantial,
learning gains.
Also studies show that improved formative
assessment helps the (so-called) low attainers
(and students with learning disabilities) more than
the rest, and so reduces the spread of attainment
whilst also raising it overall.
2. Why bother with AfL?
2. Because of the impact on self-esteem.
Pupils who encounter difficulties and poor results
are led to believe that they lack ability, and this
belief leads them to attribute their difficulties to a
defect in themselves about which they cannot do
a great deal.
Feedback to any pupil should be about the
particular qualities of his or her work, with
advice on what he or she can do to improve, and
should avoid comparisons with other pupils.
3. How do I use AfL?
1. Self-assessment by pupils
Self-assessment by pupils, far from being a luxury, is in
fact an essential component of formative assessment.
For formative assessment to be productive, pupils
should be trained in self-assessment so that they can
understand the main purposes of their learning and
thereby grasp what they need to do to achieve.
3. How do I use AfL?
2. Opportunities for pupils to express their
understanding should be designed into any piece of
teaching, for this will initiate the interaction whereby
formative assessment aids learning.
3. How do I use AfL?
3. To begin at the beginning, the choice of tasks for
class and homework is important. Tasks have to be
justified in terms of the learning aims that they serve,
and they can only work well if opportunities for pupils
to communicate their evolving understanding are built
into the planning.
3. How do I use AfL?
4. Asking effective questions
3. What are the details of AfL?
5. Effective testing
4. Challenges in bringing in AfL
(And Q1)
1. Shifting beliefs in a school concerning:
1.
2.
3.
What effective teaching is
The purpose of giving feedback
The managerial imperative
4. Challenges in bringing in AfL
2. Some pupils will resist attempts to change
accustomed routines, for any such change is
threatening, and emphasis on the challenge to
think for yourself (and not just work harder) can
be disturbing to many.
4. Challenges in bringing in AfL
3. Giving it the time needed.
4. Challenges in bringing in AfL
4. Changing teacher beliefs
1. The nature of each teacher's beliefs
about learning.
2. The beliefs that teachers hold about the
potential to learn of all of their pupils.
The evolution of effective teaching
Opportunities for pupils to express their
understanding should be designed into any piece
of teaching, for this will initiate the interaction
whereby formative assessment aids learning.
The dialogue between pupils and a teacher
should be thoughtful, reflective, focused to evoke
and explore understanding, and conducted so
that all pupils have an opportunity to think and
to express their ideas.
Benefits of AfL for Teachers
Benefits of Formative Assessments for Teachers (Boston, 2002)
1. Teachers are able to determine what standards students already know
and to what degree.
2. Teachers can decide what minor modifications or major changes in
instruction they need to make so that all students can succeed in
upcoming instruction and on subsequent assessments.
3. Teachers can create appropriate lessons and activities for groups of
learners or individual students.
4. Teachers can inform students about their current progress in order to
help them set goals for improvement.
Benefits of AfL for Students
Benefits of Formative Assessments for Students
1.
2.
3.
4.
Students are more motivated to learn.
Students take responsibility for their own learning.
Students can become users of assessment alongside the teacher.
Students learn valuable lifelong skills such as self-evaluation, selfassessment, and goal setting.
5. Student achievement can improve.
5. What are the possibilities in using AfL?
(And Q2)
The Assessment Reform Group has set out 10 principles for formative
assessment. These are that assessment for learning should:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
be part of effective planning of teaching and learning
focus on how students learn
be recognised as central to classroom practice
be regarded as a key professional skill for teachers
be sensitive and constructive because any assessment has an
emotional impact
6. take account of the importance of learner motivation
7. promote commitment to learning goals and a shared understanding of
the criteria by which they are assessed
8. enable learners to receive constructive guidance about how to improve
9. develop learners’ capacity for self-assessment so that they can become
reflective and self-managing
10. recognise the full range of achievements of all learners
Activity 1
The thumb exercise
Plenary
What action will you now take based on what you have learnt from Teacher
Skill 6?