Assessment for Learning in Religious Education

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Assessment for LearninginReligious Education
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(No Transcript)
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Sometimes we put the cart before the
horse We assume that if we teach what the
students need to know for the exam that they
will follow us obediently into the great world of
learning and success
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We destroy the disinterested love of learning in
children, which is so strong when they are small,
by encouraging and compelling them to work for
petty and contemptible rewards gold stars, or
papers marked 100 and tacked to the wall, or As
on report cardsfor the ignoble satisfaction of
feeling that they are better than someone elseWe
kill not only their curiosity, but their feeling
that it is a good and admirable thing to be
curious, so that by the age of ten most of them
will not ask questions, and will show a good deal
of scorn for the few who do John Holt, How
Children Fail
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Assessment of Learning
Assessment for Learning End of unit / term
Focus
Developmental Learning Focus Summative
assessment Formative
assessment
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• What is Formative assessment?
• An integral part of teaching and learning
• Involves sharing learning goals with students
• Helps students know the standards they are
  aiming for share success criteria with them
• Positive feedback based on success criteria
• Involves students in the assessment of their own
  learning

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Summative v Formative Assessment

• Summative
• Exam focus
• Marks grades
• Teacher controls information
• Learners told of their achievements
• Occurs after learning
• Focuses on past what students learned and
  remembered

• Formative
• Students learn how to learn
• Comment only marking
• Success criteria shared with learner
• Guides and shapes next stages of learning
• Intrinsic part of learning
• Focuses on future next stage of learning process

It doesnt have to be either / or. Both are
valuable and complementary
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• Formative assessment pays particular attention
  to
• Assessing homework tasks, tests etc
• AND
• Providing constructive feedback to students on
  their work, with suggestions for improvements

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Homework

• Give clear criteria for successful completion of
  homework and the standards aspired to what is
  considered excellent, very good, good, fair etc
• Set homework at the start of class
• Give some time at the end of class to begin
  homework
• From time to time use anonymous student
  exemplars to illustrate standards and to explore
  how an answer could be improved upon
• Ensure you have regular procedures for recording
  homework and reviewing students progress

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Written tests

• Teach subject-specific revision strategies and
  study skills
• Test students on their understanding of the key
  prompts in the Glossary of Terms on p130 of the
  LCRE Guidelines for RE
• Feedback on written tests should be positive and
  constructive
• Identify the strengths of the students work
• Identify the areas for improvement
• Identify strategies for improving the work

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Self Assessment

• Encourage self assessment and active involvement
  of students in their own learning
• Target setting
• Indicate learning aims and outcomes at the start
  of class
• Negotiation of variety of approaches
• Self-assessment
• Self-correction
• Peer assessment
• Group work and self evaluation

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How can we apply this to our teaching of
R.E.?
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• A few examples
• State the learning intention / goal for the
  week What do we want students to know /
  understand by Friday?
• State the learning intention for the class
  period. Write it up on the board. Students can
  take note of it.
• Introduce success criteria. How will we know if
  we have successfully learned? The LCRE Outcomes
  in the right hand column of each page of the
  syllabus will provide the basis for the success
  criteria.
• Remember that you can access the Outcomes for
  each section of the LCRE syllabus on our website
  www.ress.ie

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Learning Goal for the week (Section F 1.1
Issues of Justice Peace What students should
learn over the next week) Students will be
familiar with the basic principles and methods of
social analysis Learning Goal for the class
period (What students should learn over the
next 40 minutes) Students will understand the
differences between economic, cultural, social
and political structures within social
analysis Success criteria (Outcomes) Students
should be able to identify the most significant
economic, political, cultural and social
structures within their own situation that
influence the availability and allocation of
resources
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Homework assignment Explain how the most
significant economic, political, cultural and
social structures contribute towards one
particular social problem LCRE Guidelines
p136 Learning outcomes for this question are
found on p61 of the syllabus
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Using comment only marking for homework feedback
Student work (see handout) Social analysis
involves exploring the profound influences of
political, cultural, social and economic systems
on issues and societal problems such as poverty
and homelessness. There is no one single cause
of poverty in Ireland. The political background
to poverty is that politicians dont care about
poor people because they dont vote. As a result
they dont give them enough in benefits to have
an adequate standard of living with their
families. Instead the money goes towards the
rich and tax incentives for property developers
who have a lot of clout with the politicians, as
we can see with the tribunals. The gap between
the rich and the poor gets wider, as the rich
look down on the poor. This causes social
tensions in the community, with inadequate
facilities in healthcare, education, childcare
and things like playgrounds having the greatest
affect on poor families. As a result they take
it out on the rich and create vandalism, graffiti
and drug problems. The cultural side of this is
that different people in the community have
different standards and values. Teenagers who
feel that the government doesnt care about them
may have low self esteem and underachieve in
school. The only place they feel valued is when
they go out drinking with their friends and
causing fights. They often pick on the most
vulnerable members of the community. Like the
immigrants. There may be an underlying element
of racial tension against Eastern Europeans and
Muslims because it looks like they are coming
here taking our jobs and keeping Irish people
unemployed since they work for less. This shows
that poverty is a complex problem with many
underlying causes merging together to complicate
the problem.
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Using comment only marking on homework assignments
How might you go about marking this students
homework assignment using comment only
marking? Discuss in pairs Jot down a few
suggestions Feedback to group
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One possibility

• This is a good piece of work, Laura. It shows a
  good level of understanding of the complex nature
  of the causes of poverty. Well done.
• Your work is well presented and clear to the
  reader
• You have correctly identified the fact that
  political, social, cultural and economic factors
  contribute to poverty
• You have shown the general links between the
  above four factors
• You have included each of the four factors in
  your answer and gave attention to all four in
  your answer this was very good indeed!
• In order to improve your work further, you could
  work on the following
• Try to avoid generalisations (e.g. in lines 3 and
  4 you state that politicians dont care about
  poor people because they dont vote. You would
  need evidence to back up such a statement. You
  could instead suggest that there is a commonly
  held perception in society, and particularly
  among people affected by poverty, that poverty is
  not a key political concern of the current
  government - and develop this point further.
• What other generalisations in your answer could
  be amended?
• Overall, a good answer with some very good points
  of social analysis.

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• Teachers sample reflection on the standard of
  this assignment
• This was a good to very good answer,
  demonstrating a good level of understanding of
  the structures causing poverty. It would merit a
  good level of success since the criteria for
  success were all met
• For a higher performance, the student could have
  avoided generalisations and depersonalised the
  issue
• She could also have gone into more detail about
  the political structures which contribute to
  poverty
• I have let her know the merits of her work, the
  standard she has reached and some ways in which
  she could improve her performance next time

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Finally
You have to walk before you can run! Try
implementing one or two aspects of AfL and
monitor your progress
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• Some resources on AfL
• www.ncca.ie
• www.itscotland.com/assess
• www.assessment-reform-group.org.uk
• www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education
• www.pskintl.org/kappan/kbla9810.htm (Inside the
  Black Box Raising Standards through Assessment,
  Black and Williams)