What makes an assessment for learning

Similarly, any member of teaching staff will be engage at some point in assessment related work. For some of you, assessment takes up a considerable proportion of your workload, and for students it can be a significant determinant of what, when and how they learn.

Getting assessment 'right' is therefore essential, both for your students and for you. Well-designed assessment can encourage active learning especially when the assessment delivery is innovative and engaging. Discussing the ways in which you're assessing with your students can also help to ensure that the aims and goals of your assessments are clear. Utilising assessment that makes use of technology, such as the use of online discussion forums or electronic submission of work, can teach students and perhaps your colleagues new skills.

So, what is AfL and why is it important? What does it involve? What is AfL? Where did AfL come from and why is it important?

In , they published their findings in an important booklet for practitioners Inside The Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment and in it they showed that: formative assessment is at the heart of effective teaching formative assessment has a strong positive effect on achievement improving formative assessment raises standards. What are the key principles of AfL? The key underlying principles of AfL which are used to guide classroom practice are as follows: Communicate confidence that every learner can improve Above all, AfL must be underpinned by the utmost confidence that every student can improve.

Empower learners to take an active part in their own learning The AfL process can unlock the approaches used by students and help them to become more aware of what they are learning and how they are learning it.

What does this mean for teaching and learning? As teachers we can: Collect information about individual learners to better understand their needs We can do this in a variety of ways such as finding out what they already know, noticing who answers questions, circulating and observing learners during activities, taking feedback on how interesting or difficult they found the topic or tasks, etc.

Adjust our teaching in response to our observations or assessment results A central part of teaching and learning is reflecting on how successful the lesson and learning was and judging whether the topic needs to be reviewed, or re-taught using a different approach or activity. Share learning objectives with learners Learners need to know the lesson objectives. Use questioning Questioning helps us identify and correct misunderstandings and gaps in knowledge. Give specific and useful feedback Learners need specific feedback in the form of comments rather than grades if they are to improve.

Introduce peer feedback Students learn how to give each other advice about their work using success criteria. Summary In this video, teacher trainer James Woodworth discusses some of the benefits of using AFL strategies in the classroom.

This includes formal testing. However, a teacher will use a variety of formal and informal assessment activities throughout the learning process. Information from these assessment activities is used to adapt teaching and learning approaches, which leads to improvements in learner outcomes. This will naturally involve some talking and, therefore, some noise. However, the teacher remains in control. The teacher decides when to let the class talk and when to ask them to be quiet.

The more learners engage with, and think deeply about, the success criteria, the more they are able to give useful feedback to their peers. Assessment for learning gives teachers more information throughout the year. One of the results of an AFL approach is that it helps students to do better in summative assessment. The two are linked and both inform future learning. For example, through self-assessment learners can identify what they need help with and then discuss this with their teacher.

However, research suggests that learners will often just read the grade and ignore the comments. Where teachers want to give a grade, it is often more effective for learners to read feedback and comments first, and then edit their work before they see a grade.

AFL mainly focuses on the use of informal formative assessment to improve learning. Although teachers and learners can also learn from their work in formal summative test papers, this is not the main emphasis of AFL. Training and time Introducing AFL into a school or classroom takes time.

It sometimes requires additional professional training, and it changes to the ways that teachers interact with their learners. Fear of change Teachers and learners may fear that the changes required in their classroom practice will not help them. High-achieving and diligent learners may find it hard to look for faults and mistakes in their work and thinking. They may feel that they do not want to show any sign of weakness or failure.

Getting it right Giving feedback to learners about their work can have a negative effect as well as positive. A teacher must choose their words carefully when giving feedback. If the teacher gives the impression that only the teachers can provide the right answer, learners will find it hard to be independent.

Culture Sometimes teachers are judged solely on their ability to get good results in high-stakes summative assessments. Teachers may feel that they do not have time to do activities that do not seem directly linked to final examination grades. However, using feedback to modify instruction and help learners to better understand assessment objectives will improve exam results.

In this thought-provoking article , Carol Dweck discusses the effect of praise on learners. AFL emphasises the creation of a learner-centred classroom with a supportive atmosphere, where students are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them.

We are going to look at five approaches or strategies that you can use in a lesson or programme of study. Questioning Questions are a quick and important way of finding out what your learner understands about a subject. You can use this information to plan their teaching. There are two main types of question: closed and open. A closed question requires a short answer, such as remembering a fact. The answer is usually right or wrong. This immediately gives you feedback about who understands, who does not, and therefore what the next steps in the learning might be.

A good strategy to use if a learner gets the answer wrong is to make this into a positive event. This knowledge will help you to see what material your learners need to spend extra time on to make sure that they all understand. Open questions need longer answers, and often require the learner to provide an opinion. Explain how this relates to the study of voltage, current and resistance in a simple electric circuit.

If you discuss ideas with your learners, you can get a clearer view of what understanding your learners have about a topic, and put right any misunderstandings. Reflection Watch the video of a teacher talking about how he uses questioning. Do you use any of these techniques in your own classroom?

This video shows good use of closed questioning. How would you adapt this for your own classroom? Feedback Feedback is the process in which learners come together with their teachers to discuss where they are in their learning, where they want to be in their learning, and how they are going to get there. It usually involves looking at a particular piece of work done by the learner. The aims and objectives of any assignment must be clearly understood by both the teacher and the learner. Feedback might involve marking.

If you do want to add a grade, give this later on, so that the learners read the comments before they receive the grade. Effective feedback depends on task-focused comments, rather than ego-focused comments. They might also be scared of trying something they find difficult in case they lose their high place. Weak learners can feel as if there is nothing they can do to get better. You should aim to provide feedback to each learner that praises task-focused aspects of their work, but also contains targets about how to improve their learning.

Now, can you think how you can make the description of the main character more striking? What might you have done differently?

In this video, Dylan Wiliam explains why task-focused feedback is more effective than ego-focused feedback. Assessments have become integral to today's teaching, learning, and data-driven decision-making efforts. Within the world of assessments, there are two paramount ideologies at work: assessments for learning and assessments of learning. Both forms of assessments serve a distinct and powerful purpose, and it's important to understand how they play off one another and ultimately enhance instruction, intervention, and student achievement.

Benchmark assessments are examples of assessments of learning, where students are assessed three times per year for universal screening early identification. According to the Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon, this provides educators with ongoing feedback and allows them to:.