Reviewing ‘Inside the Black Box’ –
Assessment for Learning in English Schools
A.M. Cooke, Exchange Teacher, 2003.
During my teacher exchange assignment to Passmores Comprehensive school in
Harlow, Essex, England in 2003, I became aware of an initiative called Assessment
for Learning’. My first introduction to this concept was as part of an ongoing inservice activity which was part of the Key Stage 3 (KS3 - years 7 to 9) Foundation
Subjects Strategy from the Department for Education and Science (UK). This package
is being implemented in all high schools in England. It contained a lot more as well,
being rather similar to the Quality Education document in NSW.
Later, I was very fortunate to attend a lecture given by Professor Paul Black, leader of
a team from the Department of Education and Professional Studies, King’s College,
London, who have developed the concept. Their booklet “Working inside the black
box: Assessment for learning in the classroom” has been used as a basis for this
article.
My initial reactions were somewhat sceptical but as I personally practised some of the
suggested approaches, I was quite surprised by some of the obvious benefits and the
manner in which my attention was much more closely focussed onto the needs of my
students.
“Assessment for learning involves gathering and interpreting evidence about students’
learning; and both learners and their teachers using that evidence to decide where
students are in their learning, where they are going and how to take the next steps”. In
a broad statement, it involves formative assessment rather than summative
assessment. – where are the students now which then leads to what needs to be done
rather than just finding out what the students know.
The KS3 workshop documents elaborate on these basic ideas in a useful way, by
stating that assessment for learning
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is embedded in a view of teaching and learning of which it is an essential part;
involves sharing learning goals with pupils;
aims to help pupils to know and recognise the standards they are aiming for;
involves pupils in [peer and] self-assessment;
provides feedback which leads to pupils recognising their next steps and how
to take them;
involves both teacher and pupils reviewing and reflecting on assessment data
[information].
In the booklet, “Working Inside the Black Box” it is suggested that the matters, listed
above, can be accessed by considering four general areas –
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questioning.
feedback through marking.
peer-assessment and self-assessment.
the formative use of summative tests.
We shall look at these points individually.
Questioning
This is a critical skill for teachers because it is the most
common form of interaction between teacher and pupil. It is also the most immediate
and accessible way for a teacher to assess learning and is an element of virtually every
type and model of lesson. Moreover, it is a key step to providing appropriate
challenges for all pupils and, as a consequence, greatly influences the progress
students will make.
Again the KS3 documents state that effective questioning
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reinforces and revisits the learning objectives;
shows connections between previous and new learning;
includes ‘staging’ questions to draw pupils towards key understanding or to
increase the level of challenge in a lesson as it proceeds;
involves all pupils;
engages pupils in thinking for themselves;
promotes justification and reasoning;
creates an atmosphere of trust where pupils’ opinions and ideas are valued;
encourages pupils to ask as well as to ‘receive’ questions;
encourages pupils to listen and respond to each other as well as to the teacher.
To make sure that effective questions are being posed, it is very important to avoid the
obvious traps such as asking too many closed questions or asking pupils questions to
which they can respond with a simple yes or no answer. Care must be taken to limit
the number of short-answer, recall-based questions as well as trying not to start too
many questions with the same stem.
It is much more effective to eliminate ‘show hands’ responses to questions and
actually ask students to respond individually. This does allow the teacher to ‘tailor’
questions to an individual student’s ability, thus potentially involving all in the
classroom activity. It also highlights the need to involve the whole class and not to
focus on a small number of pupils.
Teachers must ensure that they do deal effectively with incorrect answers or
misconceptions. It is also too easy to pursue an irrelevant line of questioning or to
make the sequence of questions too rigid. At times, it has to be considered that
another strategy should be used instead of questioning.
A major shortcoming with most teachers, when questioning, is to allow far too little
time for students to respond before asking another student or providing the answer
themselves. Research by the ‘black box’ group, revealed that the great majority of
teachers allowed less than one second for a student response when a wait time of
several seconds would be more appropriate.
Feedback Through Marking
Marking is an essential part of all
teaching. How effective that is will depend on several issues. As with oral questioning,
written or practical tasks should encourage students to develop and show
understanding of the key features of facts and skills they have learnt. If a task is set
for learning then the marking should encourage that learning.
To simply give a mark, grade or a comment like ‘well done John’ will rarely engage
the students’ interest or encourage them to improve their work. In fact the ’black box’
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group found that grades most often had a negative effect on students. A more positive
response was found with students when the teacher’s feedback was more constructive.
Comments should identify what has been done well and also what needs
improvement. Some suggestions to how improvements could be made are also
essential.
Strategies also need to be in place to allow the students to follow up on the suggested
improvements to ensure they become relevant in the continuing learning process.
Peer-assessment and Self-assessment
Both of these processes
can be very valuable in extending students ability to learn and can secure aims that are
unlikely to be met in other ways. It is first essential for the teacher to be very clear in
establishing the criteria for evaluating the work and that the overall aims of the
activity be well known to all students.
Self-assessment can be a powerful aid to a student controlling their own progress
towards meeting the outcomes expected. In doing so, students essentially become
independent learners. However, it is incumbent on the teacher to help students to
develop the required skills for self-assessment and to provide opportunities to practice
those skills.
Peer assessment compliments self-assessment by allowing students to access
information from another source other than the teacher. Quite often students will more
readily accept criticism of their work from their peers rather than from a teacher.
Similarly, they will be often more relaxed asking certain questions of their peers as
well. Of course, peer assessment relies on a high degree of collaboration in the
classroom and it is necessary to encourage a cooperative environment and to develop
the skills needed to achieve that end.
The Formative Use of Summative Tests
Students often see
themselves as victims in tests and any initiative that changes this perception to that of
being beneficiaries would be very welcome. Formative and summative tests are so
different in purpose but there are many opportunities to improve learning by also
looking at the summative test results in a non-grading way.
After an examination is completed and marked, it is important that students look
beyond the mark and review their performance and focus on areas that need their
attention. Suitable revision activity can then be identified. Peer group working is often
a suitable means of tackling this activity.
A number of activities can be followed here but one useful method is the’ traffic
light’ method – labelling question in red, yellow or green to indicate the level of
concern the student feels. A similar technique can be used to preview past papers and
flag concerns. This can then be used as a basis for revision for an upcoming test.
Peer marking is a very valuable initiative in making pupils aware of the requirements
of different questions. Of course, this must include longer response questions and
hence needs an understanding of the assessment process being used. In a similar vein,
students could be encouraged to actually prepare marking schemes for questions or to
even prepare questions on their own. To set questions requires a good knowledge of
the topic and in doing so, will lead to an increase in that knowledge.
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Assessment for learning presents teachers with a very powerful tool to
improve learning in their classrooms. It does require constant attention to and review
of learning activities and a need for teachers to make changes to their role, as
required. It raises the expectation that students and teachers will work together to raise
the standard of everyone’s learning. In doing so, students become more involved in
the learning activities and in fact take responsibility for their own learning.
References
Black, P et al (2002). Inside the black box: Assessment for learning in the classroom.
London: Department of Educational and Professional Studies, King’s College.
Department of Education and Science (UK) (2003). KS3 Foundations Subjects
Strategy, notes and presentations.
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