Assessment for Learning: the practical implications

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Assessment for Learningthe practical
implications

• A contribution from Ruth Sutton
• March 2008

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My task and intent

• My task to offer you ideas to stimulate
  reflection and conversation, and then respond to
  your questions
• I will review the key points of what we know
  from 20 years of research about Assessment for
  Learning, and explore the practical implications
  for teaching
• The conversations that follow will be guided to
• encourage you to see how many of the AFL
  strategies you are already using, and
• how you might adopt more

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My intent whats the point?

• My intent is to keep things simple and
  practical, while recognising that making
  assessment for learning work and last in our
  schools is not easy or quick.
• AFL challenges some of our assumptions and our
  habits around teaching and learning, and
  hard-wired habits are hard to break

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• My criteria for a successful session today are
• You are clear what Assessment for Learning is
  really about, and why its worth pursuing
• You have reflected on your own current teaching
  and found some connections between what you
  already do, or have at least thought about, and
  the strategies Im suggesting
• Youve decided to change one thing for
  yourself, or preferably with some of your
  colleagues, and understand that it may take a
  while before you feel fully confident about a
  different way of planning, or questioning, or
  marking and providing feedback. Whichever area
  you choose to focus on, it will mean involving
  your students, intentionally and thoughtfully.

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OK then!

• Lets get going
• back to basics

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Assessment 2 Key Purposes

• Assessment of learning
• Checks learning to date
• Audience beyond the classroom
• Periodic
• Uses numbers, scores and grades
• Criterion/standards referenced
• No need to involve the learner

• Assessment for learning
• Suggests next learning
• Audience is teachers and learners
• Continual conversation and marking
• Specific feedback, using words
• Self-referenced, ipsative
• Must involve the learner the person most able
  to improve learning

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Why bother making this distinction?

• The word assessment has been used in our
  language to mean judgement, and we need to
  re-capture its original meaning which was much
  more about feedback than about measurement
• Many of us, and most children, parents and
  community members still react to assessment
  with anxiety
• So we need to be clear what kind of assessment
  were talking about, and how the two purposes
  differ from each other

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The importance of purpose

• Many teachers spend many hours each week marking
  students work
• Whats the purpose of marking? Is it for
  grading (the left hand column) or for
  improvement (on the right)?
• If its for improvement, we may need to think
  again about why and how we mark, to make sure
  that we dont waste our own time
• We also need to think again about how much and
  how often we grade for reporting. The purpose
  of reporting should be improvement if not, why
  do we do so much of it?

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Actually maybe we should avoid the word
assessment altogether

• What else could we call Assessment for Learning
  to clarify its real purpose?
• The Winnipeg Inner City project was entitled
  Feedback for Learning

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The research base

• We need a sound research base before we embark on
  something so important, and think about changing
  some of the fundamentals of teaching
• AFL research spans 25 years, from the 1970s to
  now, and right across the planet
• The basic principles are widely understood, but
  they are not so widely acted upon
• Lets look at a good summary of the principles

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The AFL Big 5 Principles (UK Assessment
Reform Group, 1999)

• The provision of effective feedback to students
• The active involvement of students in their own
  learning
• Adjusting teaching to take account of the results
  of assessment
• Recognition of the profound influence assessment
  has on the motivation and self-esteem of
  students, both of which are crucial influences on
  learning
• The need for students to be able to assess
  themselves and understand how to improve

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Lets take these principles one at a time and
unpick the practical implications

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The provision of effective feedback

• To understand what effective means, we have to
  remember that the purpose of AFL is improvement,
  not measurement, so effective feedback must be
  aimed at that
• Take a minute think and talk about the kind of
  feedback youve had over the years that most
  helped you make your work or performance better

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Heres what the experts say effective feedback
should be

• Specific
• Connected to clear criteria
• Timely received and acted upon as soon as
  possible
• Indicative of next steps
• Followed through
• Descriptive rather than evaluative

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Whats the difference between descriptive, and
evaluative?

• Descriptive
• Facts, not judgements
• Explicitly related to clear shared criteria
• Usually in words
• Includes specific next steps

• Evaluative
• Judgements, without specific detail
• General and overall, rather than relating to
  specific criteria
• Usually numbers (scores, grades) but can be words
  too, eg. Good job
• Provides general goals, eg Pay attention to
  punctuation but not specific advice

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Sounds easy, but

• Most of the feedback we received as school
  learners ourselves was evaluative, so thats
  what were used to
• Much of the feedback we provide to our students
  is evaluative, so thats what were used to
• Much of the feedback our students receive is
  evaluative so thats what theyre used to
• Much of what is expected of us by school,
  district and provincial systems is evaluative
  information
• Providing descriptive feedback takes more
  thought, and probably more time, so why should we
  change?

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Why should we change to descriptive feedback?

• Because it enables more students to improve their
  work faster, and achieve more
• Because it makes more students think more about
  their learning, and take greater responsibility
  for improvement
• Because, after the initial struggle to change our
  habits, we can do a better job by working
  differently, not working harder

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AFL Principle 2The active involvement of
students in their own learning

• These words were chosen with care it could have
  said, The active involvement of students in
  their own assessment, but it didnt
• The message is, AFL works best where the students
  are encouraged to be involved in the learning
  process, from the start
• This starts with the teacher checking what
  students already know, what they dont know, and
  their misconceptions, and then adjusting their
  teaching accordingly
• It has huge implications for teachers planning
  we need to plan for learning, not for coverage!

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AFL Principle 3Adjusting teaching to take
account of the results of assessment

• Another implication for planning.now we want
  teachers to check, as they go along, for
  students understanding, and be flexible enough
  to adapt their teaching to meet the learners
  needs, not just plough on regardless, driven by
  coverage of the programme

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How do we check as we go along?

• Many teachers already use simple techniques to
  check whats happening in students heads
• Thumbs up/down/sideways to indicate
• levels of grasp
• Asking a key question and using students
  
• answers as a guide
• traffic lights shown by students to
• communicate easily how theyre feeling
  
• about the learning
• What matters is that the students are expected
  to reflect and respond honestly, and the teacher
  is able to act upon their responses

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Planning for Learning or Planning for Coverage?

• Its a big issue, and one to discuss when we
  break for conversation

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AFL Principle 4Recognition of the profound
effect assessment has on the motivation and
self-esteem of students, both of which are
powerful influences on learning

• What does it look like and feel like in a
  classroom where students motivation and their
  self-respect as learners are treated as powerful
  influences on learning?
• How about this..

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The well-motivated classroom

• Students prior knowledge and experience are
  identified and respected in designing what we
  teach
• Students varied learning styles are incorporated
  into deciding how we teach
• Students are encouraged to understand the
  criteria that will be used to judge their work
• Students are offered an opportunity to improve
  their work after feedback, just once or as much
  as the teacher believes is manageable and useful
• Students support their peers, and expect to be
  supported by them
• Teachers have high expectations of their students

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Where does intrinsic motivation come from?
Self efficacy Believing in yourself as a learner
Effective Feedback and the chance to act upon it
Locus of control Having some control over
factors that influence your success
Intrinsic Motivation
Achievement
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We are all learners!

• What we know about intrinsic motivation applies
  to us as well.

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AFL Principle 5The need for students to be
able to assess themselves and to understand how
to improve

• Here again, the wording is deliberateour job
  is to make sure that students are able and
  willing to assess themselves
• If weve paid attention to the previous four
  principles, this one should take care of itself

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Practical implications of AFL Principle 5

• Teachers need to coach students to become
  effective in critique and correction of their own
  and each others work
• Students may have trouble separating feedback
  from friendship first they need to learn the
  skills of applying criteria to work, before
  looking at the work of people they know
• Its essential that students understand the
  criteria theyre using
• Co-construction of criteria is a great place to
  start the teacher uses her subject expertise to
  guide students towards the criteria that need to
  be applied, but the wording of the criteria is
  provided by the students
• Exemplars of work are more useful to students
  than words on their own to illuminate and
  illustrate the criteria they are expected to use

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Feedback for Learning in Winnipeg2000-03 some
key lessons

• Teachers skills, confidence, thoughtfulness and
  willingness to work together are the keys to
  classroom change
• Many fine teachers are reluctant to see
  themselves as leaders
• Teachers have to believe that changing hard-wired
  habits will have a pay-off for them as well as
  their students whats in it for me is a
  legitimate question
• School leaders are the main change-agents in
  their own schools what they understand about
  AFL, and what they do and say about it, matters
• Schools need courage, confidence, good feedback
  and perseverance
• Sustainable whole-school change takes years, not
  months, to achieve

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Winnipegs Ten Steps to Heaven

• Teacher is clear about purpose and task
• Teacher knows how to state, share and show
  learning expectations
• Teacher designs and explains enabling tasks
  that enable students to learn what we want them
  to learn, not just keep them busy
• Teacher and students co-construct criteria,
  together
• Students check their work, while the task is in
  progress

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Ten Steps to Heaven Cont.

• Students say whats OK and whats not
• Students identify a next step
• Students continue, and correct work so far
• Students reflect periodically, with guidance from
  the teacher where necessary, on what theyve
  learned, and how they learned it
• 10. Students present their learning and
  achievement to an audience

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Ten steps actions help us to remember

• 1. Task (clenched fist)
• 2. Purpose (hand on heart)
• 3. Share (spread your hands)
• 4. Small steps (down the arm)
• 5. Get working (turn around)
• 6. Look and check (binoculars)
• 7. Idea for improvement (finger in air)
• 8. Take a step towards (step forward)
• 9. Look back to reflect (look over shoulder)
• 10. Present learning (raise your arms)

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Questions for discussion

• In the early years of schooling
• 1. How can children be encouraged to reflect on
  their learning, in the simplest terms and the
  most basic activities?
• 2. How does Assessment for Learning connect with
  other important goals of early learning?
• 3. What are the roadblocks we need to watch out
  for at this stage?

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Questions for discussion

• In elementary classrooms
• What are the most effective and manageable ways
  of increasing students involvement in their own
  learning?
• How can/do we incorporate AFL strategies into our
  teaching plans?
• How can/do we involve students in self and peer
  assessment? What successes and difficulties have
  we experienced?

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Questions for discussion

• In secondary classrooms
• How can/do we resolve the dilemma around planning
  for learning vs. planning for coverage? Whats
  the best first step towards this?
• How do/could we involve students in self and peer
  assessment? What successes and problems have we
  encountered in implementing self and peer
  assessment?

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Questions for discussion

• For school leaders
• What do we need to do, say and model,
  systematically and regularly, to sustain
  teachers implementation of AFL?
• 2. What evidence of AFL implementation will we
  look for across the school? (Youll need to be
  quite specific about this)

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Off-line discussion and responses

• We will leave you with your facilitators for
  25 minutes
• Discuss any or all of the suggested questions
• Decide the questions and suggestions you wish to
  email back to me.

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Planning for learningnot for coverage
But the dogs not whistling
I taught the dog to whistle!
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Teaching isnt the same as learning!

I said I taught him, I didnt say he learned it!
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Planning for coverage

• We start by looking at the requirements and
  plan to fit them all in
• This usually means teaching too much, too fast
• We know even before we start that some of the
  students wont be able to keep up
• Were frustrated by being set up to fail

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• Planning for coverage
• Content is fixed
• Timing is tight
• Inflexible
• Students questions only matter if theyre within
  the required framework
• Looks neat and tidy
• All the space is filled
• Predictable and safe

• Planning for learning
• Content is decided after checking with the
  students
• Timing is looser
• More flexible
• Students questions provide opportunities for
  teaching and leaning
• Looks messy
• Some spaces are left blank it depends what
  crops up
• Less predictable and feels riskier

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How do we plan for learning without taking too
many risks?

• Find out about prior learning
• We may find that we dont need to teach some
  stuff
• We may discover misconceptions that will need to
  be corrected before students can learn what we
  plan to teach them
• Students will feel that the teaching is more
  tailored to their needs, and are more likely to
  engage with it

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Be selective, and prioritise

• Decide which bits of what you want to teach are
  essential they support future learning and cant
  be omitted or rushed
• Discuss these choices with others we need to be
  sure, and we need to share ways of getting these
  bits across to our students
• Highlight these aspects so you can see how they
  are spaced out across the programme

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• Discuss and decide which bits are important
  this means you believe they support current and
  future learning
• You are confident in these areas and know that
  you do a good job with them
• Your students usually enjoy this work and
  benefit from it
• Mark these bits in a different colour

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• Look at whats left
• You now have to decide which bits are
  expendable, which means that you will not plan
  to teach them to all your students.
• You may have resources to help students learn
  these bits, which can be offered to those
  students who want, need, or could benefit from
  them, but not be part of your class teaching
  programme

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Minimising the risk

• Dont go beyond 10 of the given curriculum as
  expendable. This may mean going back and tweaking
  your plans to include some bits that should not
  be left out
• Make these decisions collectively wherever
  possible, pooling your expertise about the
  subject area to share the responsibility and
  ideas
• Decide how you are going to deal with the
  expendable bits

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The expendable bits

• Dont throw these bits away, just park them at
  the edge of your plans, accessible if you have
  the time and need to include them
• Develop resources to enable some students to
  learn these bits without direct whole-class
  instruction
• If the pace of learning speeds up (which it
  might) then you can cover the expendable bits
  with more of the students
• Keep your focus on learning rather than teaching
  the quality of students learning, motivation and
  confidence is more likely to increase their
  performance than the quantity of your teaching

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Co-construction of success criteria

• Students can engage successfully in self- and
  peer-assessment only if they properly understand
  the criteria that will determine the success of
  their work
• For this understanding to be achieved, the
  following pre-conditions are important.

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Pre-conditions for successful self and peer
assessment

• Teachers need to consider the distinction and
  connection between what they want students to DO,
  and what they want them to LEARN
• Both activities and the learning expectations
  will have to be explained to the students. This
  is not easy as much of it will be abstract, and
  teachers will need to think about, plan and share
  their strategies for these explanations, taking
  account of students different starting points
  and learning styles

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Co-constructing the success criteria

• Students find it useful, where possible, to see
  exemplars of the expected work, rather than
  descriptions of the expectations in words
• From a range of exemplars, provided the teacher,
  the students are encouraged to identify the
  characteristics of successful work, and the range
  of quality for each, or some, of these
  characteristics
• The teacher will guide the students as much as
  he/she feels necessary, trying to ensure that the
  final wording of the success criteria is arrived
  at by the students themselves
• The teacher and students together then test out
  the criteria by applying them to some work, and
  amend where necessary

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Separating feedback from relationship

• Many students find it difficult initially to
  provide objective and accurate feedback to their
  peers, because of their over-riding concern for
  relationship. They will need practice with
  neutral work to develop the skill of critique,
  before tackling peer assessment
• Teachers may also coach their students in
  providing effective feedback
• Once the students are clear about the criteria,
  and have practised the skills of both critique
  and feedback, they are ready for self and peer
  assessment

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Investing in the quality of self-critique and
self-correction

• Children do not usually emerge from the womb able
  and willing to critique and correct their own
  learning. This is school taught and learned as an
  essential part of their education. This skill
  will serve learners well throughout their
  learning lives, within and beyond school.
• Once this skill is well-developed, it will
  enhance student learning and allow the teacher to
  involve students in the continual process of
  classroom assessment that would otherwise fall to
  the teachers alone. Its a win-win investment for
  both partners in the process.

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How do we change the hard-wired habits of
teaching?

• Assessment for Learning is not about adding
  something on to our existing teaching habits
  its about changing some of those habits for good
• The most fundamental habits of teaching are about
  teachers planning, questioning, marking and
  feedback, and the roles and behaviours we expect
  from our students

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Limbic learning

• Research on habit change begins from an
  understanding that habits are learned through the
  limbic brain the emotional centre of our brains
  - rather than the neo-cortex which we use for
  intellectual activities
• The connection between the limbic brain and our
  habits has some important consequences it will
  influence the actions we take to achieve a change
  of habit, and it may affect how comfortable or
  uncomfortable we feel as we try to break old
  habits and develop new ones
• We might be able to learn from other habit-change
  models, like Weightwatchers

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The Weightwatchers Model

• The Weightwatchers model for changing teaching
  habits involves
• - Big, important, agreed goals
• - Small steps and continual feedback
• - Perseverance
• - Collegial support and accountability
• - Recognition of success

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Professional Development to develop different
teaching habits

• If what we know about limbic learning applies
  to changing our teaching, traditional forms of
  professional development may help us to know what
  we need to do, but not to actually do it
• The best model for changing teaching is the
  action research model
• - teachers work together
• - decide an area for change
• - identify strategies that might help
• - try them out in their rooms
• - come back together to share what they did and
  what happened, try again, check the evidence of
  the impact of the new habits on learners, and on
  themselves, and refine their activities still
  further
• Changing habits is an experiential rather than an
  intellectual activity

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Early years 2nd discussion

• What next steps in early years teaching practice
  would be the most helpful in implementing
  Assessment for Learning at this stage?
• What roadblocks can we anticipate, and how might
  these be avoided, or tackled?

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Elementary years 2nd discussion

• How do we create a classroom climate which allows
  all our students to take risks in their learning,
  and to support each other in doing so?
• How will we explain the purposes, practices and
  value of Assessment for Learning to parents and
  others in the community who may see it as an
  abdication of teachers professional
  responsibility?

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Secondary years 2nd discussion

• How do we help our students to understand why it
  is essential for them to be involved in their own
  learning and accept increasing responsibility for
  it?
• How do engage our more reluctant teaching
  colleagues, to ensure that the students
  experience of AFL is more consistent across the
  school?

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School leaders 2nd discussion

• Which school systems, including planned
  professional development, will need review if AFL
  is to be woven into them?
• We are learners too how does AFL apply to us as
  well as to our teachers and our students?
• How will we explain the purposes, practices and
  value of Assessment for Learning to parents and
  others in the community who may see it as an
  abdication of teachers professional
  responsibility?

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Assessment for Learning Why bother?

• Teachers and schools are reeling under a
  continuing stream of expectations and
  accountability. Why does Assessment for Learning
  deserve our attention and commitment?
• Here are three key reasons

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The rationale

• Our students deserve opportunities to be as
  successful as possible in school decades of
  global research clearly indicate the gains to be
  made from
• clarifying expectations
• providing high-quality feedback, and
• involving the learners themselves

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• The students currently in Grade 1 graduate in
  2020 learning in the 21st century should be a
  life-long process, driven by the learners own
  ability, confidence and willingness to
  continuously challenge themselves and identify
  the next learning steps.
• Learning these skills and approaches to
  learning is not accidental or trivial. It has to
  be an intentional part of schooling and is the
  educators greatest gift to their students.

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Last, but not least..

• AFL can transform the way teachers do business,
  every day and in the long term. If it is to be
  sustained, there has to be something in it for
  the teachers themselves, beyond mere compliance
  with external requirements.
• When students are clearer about whats expected
  of them, more engaged and more focussed on their
  own learning, the teachers day is demonstrably
  more enjoyable and rewarding.

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From theory to practice

• AFL strategies are not new they have been in the
  minds and sometimes in the practice of many
  teachers for a long time
• What we now aspire to is AFL as an intentional
  and valued part of every teachers practice the
  normal way we do business
• There is much to gain for students AND teachers

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Review

• Have we completed the task?
• Have I achieved my intent?
• Do you have some practical ways forward?
• Thanks for being with us!
• Sutton.ruth_at_gmail.com
• www.ruthsutton.com
• March 2008