Learning and assessing (in and)
out of the classroom
John MacBeath and Sue Swaffield
AAIA National Conference
15 September 2010
Newcastle
Learning and assessing (in and)
out of the classroom
How can we use what we know
about learning and assessment
to support learning
(in and)
outside the classroom?
• Things we know about learning
• Key points about assessment
• Applying what we know to learning
outside the classroom
• Thinking about assessment issues
• Implications for us individually and
as an organisation
Input Discussion Notemaking - Plenary Groups
What’s the difference
between learning
in and out
of the classroom?
Connect Extend Challenge
A Visible Thinking Routine from David Perkins
Connect
How does this connect with
what I already know?
Extend
How does this extend my
thinking?
Challenge What challenges my thinking?
What is still challenging?
What do I want to challenge?
Children: the new commodities
We no longer look at children as children with
all their quirks, idiosyncrasies, and all the
things that make them unique human beings.
We see them as grade enhancers and grade
detractors. Will they add value or lower our
scores?
(David Berliner, AERA, 2006)
A world of learning
A paradox: Education is par
excellence about long term
development of people and society
but dominated by short-term
thinking and decision-making
(OECD, 2008)
7 things we know about learning
1. Cognitive conflict (Piaget)
2. Leverage (Dewey) and Bandwidth (Qvortrup)
3. Mediated by emotional centres (Damasio)
4. Attention to the learning moment (Perkins)
5. Learning by teaching (Bruner)
6. A social activity (Vygotsky)
7. Context is critical (Gardner)
7 things we know about learning
1. Cognitive conflict (Piaget)
2. Leverage (Dewey) and Bandwidth (Qvortrup)
3. Mediated by emotional centres (Damasio)
4. Attention to the learning moment (Perkins)
5. Learning by teaching (Bruner)
6. A social activity (Vygotsky)
7. Context is critical (Gardner)
Broad and narrow bandings
A broad bandwidth allows a high volume of
intellectual and emotional traffic to flow from
person to person
A narrow band requires careful tuning to find
the right wavelength so as to meet the
expectations, readiness and engagement of
the recipient
Leverage
Without insight into the psychological
structure and activities of the individual, the
educative process will, therefore, be
haphazard and arbitrary. If it chances to
coincide with the child’s activity it will get a
leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction,
or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature.
(Dewey, 1897, My Pedagogic Creed, The
School Journal, Volume LIV, Number 3).
The KFD
principle
Feeling
Feeling
Knowing
Doing
Doing
ANXIETY
FLOW
BOREDOM
APATHY
The learning moment
The “learning moment” is that precise instant
when an educational opportunity naturally
presents itself in an interesting manner and in
context, so that knowledge can be built upon
and expanded through conversation or more
discovery.
Recognizing the Learning Moment: Making the Most of Natural Learning Opportunities
http://www.suite101.com/content/recognizing-the-learning-momenta39285#ixzz0yjwdbbP0
Catching the learning moment
It’s the spontaneity that’s gone. I mean if it
had snowed we used to run to the window
and we’d stop and do some creative poetry.
That’s gone now because everything is very
much structured now, very planned and that’s
a shame.
(in Galton and MacBeath, Teachers under
Pressure, 2008)
Learning by teaching
“I teach my teddy
what I’m learning in
class. He is now the
smartest teddy in the
street.”
And she is now the
smartest girl in the
class
Learning is a social activity
Conceptual growth comes from the
negotiation of meaning, the sharing of
multiple perspectives and the changing
of our internal representations through
collaborative learning
(David Merrill, 1991)
tasks/
problems
familiar
unfamiliar
novel
problems in
familiar
contexts
unfamiliar
problems in
unfamiliar
contexts
familiar
problems in
familiar
contexts
familiar
problems in
novel
contexts
contexts/situations
Making thinking visible
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Is thinking visible here?
Are pupils explaining things to one another?
Are they offering creative ideas?
Are they using the language of thinking?
Am I?
Are students debating interpretations?
How is assessment enhancing thinking/feeling?
Is this an environment conducive to learning?
7 key points about assessment
1. Assessment serving and supporting learning
2. Fitness for purpose
3. Assessing prior and current learning
4. Approaches to Assessment for Learning
5. Roles and Relationships
6. Validity
7. Principles and pointers for authentic AfL
Who? When?
Organisations
School leaders
Other pupils
Parents
Teacher
Pupil
1. Assessment serving and supporting learning
Who? When?
Organisations
School leaders
Other pupils
Parents
Teacher
Pupil
Now
Soon
Later
1. Assessment serving and supporting learning
Never
Who? When?
Organisations
Here be
dragons
School leaders
Other pupils
Parents
Teacher
Pupil
Now
Soon
Later
1. Assessment serving and supporting learning
Never
Assessment for / as / of Learning
Different purposes
Different methods
Some harmonious
Some incompatible
Learning as process
or product?
Assessment of Learning
2. Fitness for purpose
Learning what and
learning how
Starting from where you are
Capitalising on previous learning
Keeping on track
Valuing the unexpected
Ascertain what the
learner already
knows and teach
accordingly
(Ausubel, 1968)
“Within your
extended grasp”
(Ruth Sutton)
The waste of not knowing
what your students know
(Sue Swaffield!)
3. Assessing prior and current learning
“Is this New York?”
(Dylan Wiliam)
No, it’s Boston
“Hurrah!”
(John MacBeath)
Assessment for Learning
• Questioning
• Explicit learning intentions and notions
of quality
• Feedback, and opportunities to act on
feedback
• Self-regulation
• Dialogue, including peer-assessment
4. Approaches to Assessment for Learning
Agency – Responsibility - Culture
Assessment – Assidere – To sit beside
Who can do the learning?
Pupils seeing teachers as learners
5. Roles and Relationships
Applying a crucial yet contested idea to a
complex and nebulous process
Validity
Does a test measure what it
purports to measure?
Content
Criterion (predictive & concurrent)
Construct
A property of inferences, not of a test
Consequential validity
Are conclusions warranted?
6. Validity
What should we
understand by the
notion of validity?
How does validity
relate to
Assessment for
Learning?
Assessment
for Learning
Authentic Assessment for Learning
Assessment for Learning is the process
of seeking and interpreting evidence
for use by learners and their teachers
to decide where the learners are in
their learning, where they need to go
and how best to get there (ARG, 2002)
3 imperatives
• Making learning explicit
• Promoting learning autonomy
• Focusing on learning (LHTL + Swaffield)
Effects on learner identity, self-image,
approach to learning, learning? (Swaffield)
10 principles
1. Part of planning
2. Focus on how students learn
3. Central to classroom practice
4. Key professional skill
5. Sensitive and constructive
6. Importance of learner
motivation
7. Sharing goals and criteria
8. Guidance on how to improve
9. Develops capacity for selfassessment
10.Recognises all achievement
7. Principles and pointers for authentic AfL
(ARG, 2002)
7 key points about assessment
1. Assessment serving and supporting learning
2. Fitness for purpose
3. Assessing prior and current learning
4. Approaches to Assessment for Learning
5. Roles and Relationships
6. Validity
7. Principles and pointers for authentic AfL
Use
‘Connect Extend Challenge’
to relate the points about
learning and assessment
to your own contexts,
especially situations
outside the classroom
NO, YOU WEREN’T DOWNLOADED YOU WERE
BORN
Making the connections
15
85
I learned something in school today.
I signed up for folk guitar, computer
programming, stained glass art, shoemaking
and a natural foods workshop.
I got spelling, history, arithmetic and two study
periods.
What did you learn?
I learned that what you sign up for and what you
get are two different things.
Charles Schulz: Peanuts, quoted in School is
Dead, Everett Reimer
School and not school
• Individual cognition in school versus shared cognition outside-- The
successfulness of most learning and performance in school is judged on
an individual basis rather than a group basis. The latter being more often
the case in the real world.
• Pure mentation in school versus tool manipulation outside-- When it
comes to the use of tools, "In school, the greatest premium is placed
upon 'pure thought' - what individuals can do without the external
support of books and notes, calculators, or other complex instruments in contrast to accomplishment of activities outside of school where we
have and use many tools or artifacts to accomplish a particular task.
• Symbol manipulation in school versus contextualized reasoning outside
The use and manipulation of symbols as representations of real objects
contrast with using objects themselves, as ways of solving problems in a
meaningful way
• Generalized learning in school versus situation-specific competencies
outside--"To be truly skillful outside of school, people must develop
situation-specific forms of competence. In school, learning is more
generalized, creating a situation whereby "very little can be transported
directly from school to out-of-school use
Learning in……..
Captivity
School
The Wild
Extra-curricular
activities
Peer group
activity
Homework
clubs
Study
Support
Children’s
University
Home
learning
Web surfing
Perm 20 from 42: Stoke-on-Trent
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•
•
•
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Drop-in Art Activities, across the city
Robotics Course for Families, across
the city
Scrapbooking for Families, across the
city
Grow Your Own Grub, across the city
Fun with Books, across the city
Flair for Fashion, across the city
Bust the Bin (Reduce, Re-use,
Recycle!)
Fun with Numbers, across the city
Wild about nature workshops, across
the city
Play and Rhyme Time for
Families, across the city
Flair for Fashion, across the city
Comedy Drama Workshops, Regent
Theatre & Victoria Hall
Look Good, Feel Fine, across the city
Policing for Success, Longton Police
Station, Longton
Arts and Crafts Workshop for the Whole
Family, across the city
Shadow Puppet Workshops, Regent
Theatre & Victoria Hall
Finance for Families Workshops, across
the city
Closing the Gap Sports Activities, across
the city
ICT for Families Course, across the city
Digital Activities Classes and
Workshops, across the city
Healthy Lifestyles for Families
Workshops, across the city
Nobody ever failed a museum
In a school, the student must be carefully modelled, in
terms of prerequisite knowledge and abilities, and
carefully evaluated, in order to ensure the coherent and
standardised acquisition of knowledge. In a museum, the
visitor is defined by the act of visiting – there are no previsit qualifications and no post-visit tests. Our visitors are
unknown, and, perhaps more importantly, unknowable.
In the formal system, the student is responsible for
learning. In the informal system, the institution is
responsible for creating learning opportunities. A student
can fail a school – but only the museum can fail its
visitors.
(James Bradburn, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi
in Florence)
What’s in a game?
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Giving dynamic ongoing feedback
Offering motivating learning experiences
Using meaningful profiles and reports
Trusting in the ability of the player/learner
Nurturing growth mindsets
Maximising potential for collaboration
Encouraging peer assessment
Presenting purposeful and relevant learning intentions
Ensuring that assessment is not done to learners
Giving players/learners the best chance of success