Embedding Assessment Practices
There are three key questions:
• How does all this fit with our wider aims explored in Unit 1?
• How does it help learning?
• How will we be able to show how many levels of progress have
been made?
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1
In the Bridging Unit and Unit 1, we looked
at
out of
wider
aspirations
for learners,as
And,
course,
our aspiration
many
of which
describedour
as pupils’
teachers
is towe
promote
“competencies” – combinations of
learning.
knowledge, skills and attitudes that
enable learning “to be applied with
To
assist this,
assessment
must be
confidence
in a range
of situations”.
more than attributing a number or
This
is, of course, what we have been
a level.
looking at in terms of subject assessment.
Assessment
mustaspirations
help us guide
We attain our wider
through
learning.
This is
the heart
the
way in which
weat
approach
the of
subjects
they are the ‘content’ of the
teacher–assessment.
curriculum.
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2
All of this Unit has been about teacher assessments. These are
usually carried out for formative reasons. That is, they are used
to help the teacher guide learning, give support where it is
needed and plan the next steps in learning.
These sorts of formative assessment are sometimes referred to
as “Assessment for Learning”.
The assessment specialist Dr Mark Zelman points
out that when a cook tastes the soup, that’s
formative. When the guests taste the soup,
that’s summative.
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3
Teacher assessment is most effective where is it used to
give guidance to the student about how they can
improve.
This is where a qualitative approach is more effective
than a quantitative one. (Being given 7 out of 10 for
your scotch egg in cookery – remember this actually
happened - doesn’t really help you make a better one
next time.)
This formative assessment needs to become embedded
in practice.
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4
Do you recognise this man? It’s Dylan Wiliam – a
member of the ‘Expert Panel’ whose report laid the
basis for the new national curriculum (even if it did
not develop quite as they expected!). He is author of
“Embedded formative assessment”. He also refers to
“Assessment for Learning”.
Wiliam suggests that:
“The evidence that formative assessment is a powerful lever for improving outcomes
for learners has been steadily accumulating over the last quarter of a century. Over
that time, at least 15 substantial reviews* of research, synthesizing several thousand
research studies, have documented the impact of classroom assessment practices on
students.
The general finding is that across a range of different school subjects, in different
countries, and for learners of different ages, the use of formative assessment appears
to be associated with considerable improvements in the rate of learning. ”
* the references are at the end of the unit
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5
There is more at:
www.youtube.com
/watch?v=B3HRvFs
ZHoo
Wiliam also refers to “Assessment for Learning”, pointing out that:
“The term ‘assessment for learning’ is often mistakenly attributed to Rick Stiggins
(2002), although Stiggins himself has always attributed the term to authors in the
United Kingdom. In fact, the earliest use of this term in this sense appears to be a
paper given at the annual conference of the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development (James, 1992) while three years later, the phrase was
used as the title of a book (Sutton, 1995). However, the first use of the term
“assessment for learning” in contrast to the term “assessment of learning”
appears to be Gipps & Stobart (1997), where these two terms are the titles of the
second and first chapters respectively. The distinction was brought to a wider
audience by the Assessment Reform Group in 1999 in a guide for policymakers
(Broadfoot, Daugherty, Gardner, Gipps, Harlen, James & Stobart, 1999).
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You may recall the 2002 Strategy document that made Assessment for
Learning (AfL) almost ‘official’ in England.
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7
The significant feature of AfL,
as opposed to other forms of
formative assessment, was the
involvement of the students –
or their “meta-cognitive
awareness” of the own
learning.
There is a link to a classroom
example below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/forteachers/curriculum_in_action/assessment_for_lear
ning.shtml
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8
Prof Lorna Earl of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
also values the role of the student, but has a slightly different
take of ‘Assessment AS Learning’ in which she argues that we
need to:
“reinforce the role of formative assessment by emphasising the
role of the student, not only as a contributor to assessment and
learning programmes, but as the central critical connection
between them. Students as active, engaged and critical
assessors can make sense of information, relate it to prior
knowledge and master the skills involved. This is the regulatory
process of meta-cognition.
Assessment as learning is the ultimate goal where students are
their own best assessors”
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9
But what about the third question of this section: How will we be
able to show how many levels of progress have been made?
The answer, of course, is that we shall no longer be able to do so. If
there are no levels, there can be no levels of progress.
But does that worry you? Is the only use of assessment to provide
evidence to Ofsted?
Are we not better concentrating on using assessment professionally
to promote our pupils’ learning, rather than attempting to measure
their learning for external accountability?
Isn’t this what we all come into the profession for?
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So that’s it – except for the homework!
That really is it – apart from
Yes,
right!
is curriculum
Keepyou’re
the focus
onThat
the new
national design
some quotes
and
the answers
to
homework
and
not
assessment
curriculum.
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your
subject
orhomework!
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picture
quiz.
and check the
that skills
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But
it isbeginning
only when
how the two
at the
of we
thesee
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come together in learning that we can see
you
next
time
in
Unit 3
how
to
them
in assessment.
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at disentangle
the
‘subject
content’
or ‘statutory
which willsection
look at
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andthe
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some
Please
feel
free to share
your thoughts
on
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bywhat
which
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help
practicalities
of
thecan
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the
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pupils explore this ‘content’ through
curriculum is asking for.
the skills.
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11
“Learners need endless
feedback more than
they need endless
teaching”
Grant Wiggins
Less Teaching and More Feedback
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/sept12/vol70/num01/toc.aspx
© Curriculum Foundation
“We look for employees who
can
Do you
thinkrecognise
for themselves,
this person?
work
in
She’s
teams,
not communicate
in education but
well,
is
and solve
the head
problems.
of a huge
It’s not
what
international
they know,organisation.
it’s what they
can do.”
This is what she said about
Indrawhat
K. Nooyi
they look for in
Chief Executive
employees.
Officer,
PepsiCo
Benjamin
Bloom
Mark Zelman
Lorna Earle
Laura
Greenstein
.
Dylan Wiliam
Indra Nooyi
Sheila
Valencia
ED Hirsch
Andreas
Schleicher
Brian Male
Mick Waters
Anon
In case you did not spot them – here are the
names!
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Here are the
references for Dylan
William
The case for formative assessment
The evidence that formative assessment is a powerful lever for
improving outcomes for learners has been steadily accumulating
over the last quarter of a century. Over that time, at least 15
substantial reviews of research, synthesizing several thousand
research studies, have documented the impact of classroom
assessment practices on students:
(Fuchs & Fuchs 1986; Natriello, 1987; Crooks, 1988; Bangert-Drowns,
Kulik, Kulik & Morgan, 1991; Dempster, 1991, 1992; Elshout-Mohr,
1994; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Black & Wiliam, 1998; Nyquist, 2003;
Brookhart, 2004; Allal & Lopez, 2005; Köller, 2005; Brookhart, 2007;
Wiliam, 2007; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008).
© Curriculum Foundation
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And a final thought …..
The research indicates that improving learning
through assessment depends on five, deceptively
simple, key factors:
• the provision of effective feedback to pupils;
• the active involvement of pupils in their own
learning;
• adjusting teaching to take account of the results
of assessment;
• a recognition of the profound influence
assessment has on the motivation and selfesteem of pupils, both of which are crucial
influences on learning;
• the need for pupils to be able to assess
themselves and understand how to improve.
Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1999. Assessment for Learning:
Beyond the Black Box, Assessment Reform Group,
University of Cambridge, School of Education
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