Session Outcomes
• Explain how assessment contributes to the learning
process
• Use a model of feedback to enhance student learning
• Identify a range of feedback methods to develop
assessment for learning
• Explain the benefits of peer assessment
• Evaluate a peer assessment method in a specified
practical teaching context
Big Method effects on Student Attainment from Hattie’s metaanalysis (1)
No.
Influence
Mean effect
size
2
Feedback
Students getting feedback on their work from the teacher or from
themselves (self-assessment or from peers or some other sources).
Note: some feedback has more effect than others. For example, peer
assessment is 0.63 and self-assessment is 0.54
0.81
3
Whole-class interactive teaching (direct instruction)
A specific approach to active learning in class, which is highly teacher led, but
very active for students. This involves summaries reviews and a range of
active learning methods, including questioning
0.81
4
Strategy training
Explicit teaching of subject-specific and general study and thinking skills,
integrated into the curriculum
0.80
11
Cooperative learning
0.59
Specific teaching methods such as jigsaw that give students responsibility for
learning and teaching each other
12
Challenging goals for students
0.59
Goals that students can meet through effort on their part – they should be as
specific as possible, and meaningful to the students involved
Hattie’s effect sizes
• Most innovations have an impact on attainment (averaging around
.04), but what are the most significant one’s and how do they work?
• As a baseline an effective size of 1.0 standard deviation is massive
and is typically associated:
– Advancing the learner’s achievement by one year
– Improving the rate of learning by 50%
– A two grade leap in GCSE grades
•
However, its important to balance effect size with level of difficulty of
interventions. For example, providing ‘advance organizers’, which are
summaries in advance of the teaching, has an effect size of 0.06, which is
pretty average. But they only take 3 minutes at the beginning of the lesson,
and yet reward us with almost a grader improvement in student’s
achievement.
Assessment for Learning
Assessment not only provides a means to measure students knowledge ,
understanding and skills at a given point in time, but can (and should) be used to
develop the learning process itself (formative assessment) through the provision of
quality feedback
Effective feedback is consistently related to students achievement.
It must, as Hattie (2009) states:
“...reduce discrepancies between current understandings and
performance and a learning intention or goal” (p.175)
In most basic terms, it identifies (then seeks to improve) the specific gaps in
knowledge, skills and attitudinal components that are needed for meeting desired
learning goals
Assessment, therefore, is not separate from the instructional process but an integral
part of it. As Perkins (1992) suggests, once considered thoughtfully:
“Teaching, learning, and assessment merge into one seamless enterprise.”
(p.176)
Model of Feedback
Learning
Goal
Need to reduce discrepancy between current
understanding/performance and desired learning goal
Teachers understanding students learning, helping
them to either reframe goals and/or provide guidance
on future learning options - what to do and how, etc
Will typically involve finding out any of the following:
• how well students understand task requirements
• the processes needed to understand/perform the task
• student self management of the learning process
Key Points
In summary, there is much of merit in the learning stakes for clear, concise
and timely feedback:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Clarify what good performance is (e.g., goals, criteria, standards)
Identify gaps in performance and specific learning needs
Close the gap between current and desired performance
Develop the ability for self-assessment in learning
Make appropriate modification of instructional strategies
Promote positive beliefs and self-esteem through self-perception of
mastery
Feedback methods: assessment for learning
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Peer tutoring
Peer explaining
One-minute paper
One-minute summary
Spoof assessment
Peer assessment
Self-assessment
Examples of Questions for a
One - Minute Paper
• What was the most important learning point
for you from this lesson?
– Can also use concept, idea, etc.
• What is still not clear to you from this lesson?
– Can also use “muddy”, confusing, etc
Why Students Must Learn to Assess
Students must understand the nature and qualities of good work if they are
to create it themselves. Specifically they need to know:
• The meaning of key tasks language (e.g., what does ‘describe’ and
‘evaluate’ mean)?
• The meaning of assessment criteria (e.g., “what does give evidence”,
“show your working” mean)?
• How actual tasks and criteria can be demonstrated in practice (e.g., what
are acceptable evidence formats)?
Model answers ( e.g., exemplars of work – very good > very poor; marking
scheme) are useful to provide guidance for students in developing
assessment skills
Learning Benefits of Peer Assessment
• Student come to understand the nature and form of good work
(e.g., what learning outcomes mean at the ‘performance level’, how
marks are gained and lost)
• They learn other (and often) more correct ways of approaching
tasks other than what they have been doing
• Become more reflective (metacognitive) about their own learning,
and are able to detect errors better in their own work
• Student can do more work than you can mark
• Student take more pride in their work when they know it is to be
peer assessed
• Students actually enjoy this method and develop the skills for selfassessment in the process
Assignment
• Prepare, conduct and evaluate a peer assessment activity for
a group of students you teach. This could involve any of the
peer assessment approaches outlined in the workshop
session.
• It is important that you get feedback from the students on
their learning experience