Title: Improving the learning of numeracy through formative assessment
1Improving the learning of numeracy through
formative assessment
- Dylan Wiliam
- National Numeracy Conference
- Edinburgh, March 2009
- www.dylanwiliam.net
2Raising achievement matters
- Which of the following categories of skill is
disappearing from the work-place most rapidly? - Routine manual
- Non-routine manual
- Routine cognitive
- Complex communication
- Expert thinking/problem-solving
3but what is learned matters too
Autor, Levy Murnane, 2003
4The only 21st century skill
- So the model that says learn while youre at
school, while youre young, the skills that you
will apply during your lifetime is no longer
tenable. The skills that you can learn when
youre at school will not be applicable. They
will be obsolete by the time you get into the
workplace and need them, except for one skill.
The one really competitive skill is the skill of
being able to learn. It is the skill of being
able not to give the right answer to questions
about what you were taught in school, but to make
the right response to situations that are outside
the scope of what you were taught in school. We
need to produce people who know how to act when
theyre faced with situations for which they were
not specifically prepared. - (Papert, 1998)
5Formative assessment
Assessment for learning is any assessment for
which the first priority in its design and
practice is to serve the purpose of promoting
pupils learning. It thus differs from assessment
designed primarily to serve the purposes of
accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying
competence. An assessment activity can help
learning if it provides information to be used as
feedback, by teachers, and by their pupils, in
assessing themselves and each other, to modify
the teaching and learning activities in which
they are engaged. Such assessment becomes
formative assessment when the evidence is
actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet
learning needs. (Black et al., 2002)
6Types of formative assessment
- Long-cycle
- Span across units, terms
- Length four weeks to one year
- Medium-cycle
- Span within and between teaching units
- Length one to four weeks
- Short-cycle
- Span within and between lessons
- Length
- day-by-day 24 to 48 hours
- minute-by-minute 5 seconds to 2 hours
7Unpacking formative assessment
- Key processes
- Establishing where the learners are in their
learning - Establishing where they are going
- Working out how to get there
- Participants
- Teachers
- Peers
- Learners
8Aspects of formative assessment
Where the learner is going Where the learner is How to get there
Teacher Clarify and share learning intentions Engineering effective discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Peer Understand and share learning intentions Activating students as learning resources for one another Activating students as learning resources for one another
Learner Understand learning intentions Activating students as ownersof their own learning Activating students as ownersof their own learning
9Five key strategies
- Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning
intentions - curriculum philosophy (goals and horizons)
- Engineering effective classroom discussions,
tasks and activities that elicit evidence of
learning - classroom discourse, interactive whole-class
teaching - Providing feedback that moves learners forward
- feedback
- Activating students as learning resources for one
another - collaborative learning, reciprocal teaching,
peer-assessment - Activating students as owners of their own
learning - metacognition, motivation, interest, attribution,
self-assessment
(Wiliam Thompson, 2007)
10and one big idea
- Use evidence about learning to adapt teaching and
learning to meet student needs
11Keeping Learning on Track (KLT)
- A pilot guides a plane or boat toward its
destination by taking constant readings and
making careful adjustments in response to wind,
currents, weather, etc. - A good teacher does the same
- Plans a carefully chosen route ahead of time (in
essence building the track) - Takes readings along the way
- Changes course as conditions dictate
12Eliciting evidence of student achievement
13Kinds of questions Israel
Which fraction is the smallest?
Success rate 88
Which fraction is the largest?
Success rate 46 39 chose (b)
Vinner, PME conference, Lahti, Finland, 1997
14Draw an upside-down triangle
15Misconceptions
3a 24 a b 16
16Questioning in maths discussion
- Look at the following sequence
- 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, .
- Which is the best rule to describe the sequence?
- n 4
- 3 n
- 4n - 1
- 4n 3
17Eliciting evidence
- Key idea questioning should
- cause thinking
- provide data that informs teaching
- Improving teacher questioning
- generating questions with colleagues
- closed v open
- low-order v high-order
- appropriate wait-time
- Getting away from I-R-E
- basketball rather than serial table-tennis
- No hands up (except to ask a question)
- class polls to review current attitudes towards
an issue - Hot Seat questioning
- All-student response systems
- ABCD cards, Mini white-boards, Exit passes
18Questioning in maths diagnosis
- In which of these right-angled triangles is a2
b2 c2 ?
19(No Transcript)
20Lines of symmetry
C
A
B
F
D
E
21Constructing hinge-point questions
22Discriminate incorrect cognitive rules
- Version 1 (Hart, 1981)
- If ef 8, then efg
- 9
- 12
- 15
- 8g
- Version 2
- If fg 8, then fgh
- 9
- 12
- 15
- 16
- 8h
23Discriminate correct cognitive rules
What is the area of this trapezium?
a
h
b
242A (a b) x h A (a b) x h
A h x (a b)
25Discriminate between incorrect and correct
cognitive rules
- Version 1
- There are two flights per day from Newtown to
Oldtown. The first flight leaves Newtown each day
at 920 and arrives in Oldtown at 1055. The
second flight from Newtown leaves at 215. At
what time does the second flight arrive in
Oldtown? Show your work.
- Version 2
- There are two flights per day from Newtown to
Oldtown. The first flight leaves Newtown each day
at 905 and arrives in Oldtown at 1055. The
second flight from Newtown leaves at 215. At
what time does the second flight arrive in
Oldtown? Show your work.
26Correct
Incorrect
27Over- and under-generalization
In which of the following diagrams, is one
quarter of the area shaded?
B
C
D
A
28Diagnostic item medians
- What is the median for the following data set?
- 38 74 22 44 96 22
19 53 - 22
- 38 and 44
- 41
- 46
- 70
- 77
- This data set has no median
29Diagnostic item means
- What can you say about the means of the following
two data sets? - Set 1 10 12 13 15
- Set 2 10 12 13 15 0
- The two sets have the same mean.
- The two sets have different means.
- It depends on whether you choose to count the
zero.
30Diagnostic item diagonals
Which of the shapes below contains a dotted line
that is also a diagonal?
31Hinge-point questions
- A hinge question is based on the important
concept in a lesson that is critical for students
to understand before you move on in the lesson. - Design requirements
- Every student must respond to the question within
two minutes. - You must be able to collect and interpret the
responses from all students in 30 seconds - Priorities (in order)
- In no case should correct and incorrect cognitive
rules map ontp the correct option - Each incorrect option response (distractor)
should interpret a single cognitive rule - Correct option responses (keys) should interpret
a single cognitive rule
32Practical techniques feedback
- Key idea feedback should
- cause thinking
- provide guidance on how to improve
- Comment-only grading
- Focused grading
- Explicit reference to rubrics
- Suggestions on how to improve
- Not giving complete solutions
- Re-timing assessment
- (eg three-quarters-of-the-way-through-a-unit test)
33Practical techniques sharing learning intentions
- Explaining learning intentions at start of
lesson/unit - Learning intentions
- Success criteria
- Intentions/criteria in students language
- Posters of key words to talk about learning
- eg describe, explain, evaluate
- Planning/writing frames
- Annotated examples of different standards to
flesh out assessment rubrics (e.g. reports of
mathematical investigations) - Opportunities for students to design their own
tests
34Students owning their learning and as learning
resources
- Students assessing their own/peers work
- with rubrics
- with exemplars
- two stars and a wish
- Training students to pose questions/identifying
group weaknesses - Self-assessment of understanding
- Traffic lights
- Red/green discs
- End-of-lesson students review