Assessment for Learning

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Assessment for Learning
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What is it?

• Seeking evidence to help us see
• Where the pupil is
• The best route to where the pupil needs to be
• What to do next

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Or

• 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
• Assessment for Learning 10 Principles, Assessment
  Reform Group, 2002

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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.
• Black, P and Williams, D. (1998)

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AfL Gets To The Heart Of Good Teaching By

• Helping teachers help pupils to take the next
  steps in their learning
• Helping pupils help each other to take the next
  steps in their learning
• Helping pupils help themselves to take the next
  steps in their learning

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AfL Is Founded on 10 Principles

• Assessment for Learning
• Is part of effective planning
• Focuses on how pupils learn
• Is central to classroom practice
• Is a key professional skill
• Is sensitive and constructive

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AfL Is Founded on 10 Principles

• Assessment for Learning
• Fosters motivation
• Promotes understanding of goals and criteria
• Helps learners know how to improve
• Develops the capacity for self (and peer)
  assessment
• Recognises all educational achievement

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Key Characteristics of AfL

• Assessment for Learning
• Is embedded in a view of teaching and learning in
  which it is an essential part
• Involves sharing learning goals with pupils
• Aims to help pupils to know and to recognise the
  standards they are aiming for
• Involves pupils in peer and self assessment

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Key Characteristics of AfL

• 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

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The Hard Part is the For Learning Part

• You have to know
• The value of the work you are looking at (ie
  recognise the learning it represents)
• Where the pupil should be (ie a sense of the
  expected standard)
• How to get there (ie a map of progression)
  (Critical)
• How to adapt the teaching program for the pupils
  learning needs (ie a teaching strategy)

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Fine Words

• Assessment for Learning is helpful because
• It offers useful feedback
• It defines the next steps in learning
• It is more motivating than assessment that occurs
  at the end of a unit of work
• It provides a deeper understanding of where the
  pupil is at
• It makes sure that we look closely at each
  pupils learning needs
• It belongs in the classroom with teachers and
  pupils

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What Evidence?

• Pre unit assessment such as
• Pre-tests or focus groups designed to determined
  where the learner is at
• Immediate on the hoof assessment, such as
• Exchanges such as answering questions
• Listening in to the quality of group discussion
• Short term assessment, such as
• Marking homework
• Coursework pieces
• ICT presentations

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What Evidence?

• Periodic assessment, such as
• End-of-unit assignment
• Folder evaluation
• Summative assessments, such as
• End of previous year tests
• Standardised assessments

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AfL Focuses On

• Feedback and marking practices
• Questioning strategies
• Pupil target-setting
• Self and peer assessment
• Lessons designed for making and using assessments
• The use of lesson objectives and assessment
  criteria with pupils how the grades are
  allocated
• The use of plenaries, reflection times and key
  points in lessons

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Arent We Doing That Already?

• Some staff but not all
• Some elements but not all
• Some practices but not linked to theory
• (eg not marking to the criteria that has been
  established)

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Useful Tools

• For pupils
• Personal target cards
• Pupilspeak descriptors of assessment criteria
• Samples of successful work
• For teachers
• Group guided time to attend to (or pre-empt)
  common problems
• Sharing with pupils the topic game plan as well
  as the lesson objectives

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A Special Dividend

• AfL reaches the less-engaged who say they need
• To see the point
• To feel involved and interested
• To get some attention
• To have live goals

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The Bear Traps

• Overpromising
• Overstretching
• Going fuzzy on assessment
• Doing the assessment but not using it
• Finding time to address pupil targets
• Setting up extra or unmanageable systems
• Tokenism/Leaving it to the enthusiasts
• Securing the quality, validity and reliability of
  assessment

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So, Is This Personalised Learning?

• Yes
• Its tailored
• Its sensitive to individual pupil learning needs
• Its NOT
• An impossibly individualised curriculum
• Soft on standards

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Questions and Issues

• Is it an alternative to tests?
• Is it going to be a workload issue?
• Will it break the photocopier / bankrupt the
  budget / finish off the staff?

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Further Information

• www.cms.curriculum.edu.au/assessment
• www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
• www.aaia.org.uk/assessment.htm