Assessment for Learning – INSET, March 4, 2009

Art, Drama, Media, Music



How can creative subjects record good practice and evidence of Assessment for Learning?







Our starting point



This INSET IS NOT…


What are our objectives




What is Assessment for Learning?

Black & Wiliam, Inside the Black Box.


Supporting Theory/Research

‘…assessment becomes “formative assessment” when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the needs.’ (2)


‘the giving of marks and the grading functions are over-emphasised, while the giving of useful advice and the learning function are under-emphasised.’ (6)


‘Teachers’ feedback to pupils often seems to serve social and managerial functions, often at the expense of the learning functions.’ (6)


‘Pupils who encounter difficulties and poor results are led to believe that they lack ability, and this belief leads them to attribute their difficulties to a defect in themselves about which they cannot do a great deal. So they “retire hurt”, avoid investing effort in learning which could only lead to disappointment and try to build up their self-esteem in other ways. Whilst the high-achievers can do well in such a culture, the overall result is to enhance the frequency and the extent of under-achievement.’ (9)


‘many pupils…have become accustomed to receiving classroom teaching as an arbitrary sequence of exercises with no overarching rationale.’ (10)


Good practice:


Feedback for students should have three elements: ‘the desired goal, the evidence about their present position, and some understanding of a way to close the gap between the two’. (10)


‘tasks have to be justified in terms of the learning aims that they serve’


‘Pupils should be encouraged to set questions.’


‘tasks can only work well if opportunities for pupils to communicate their evolving understanding are built into the planning’ (10)


‘self-assessment by pupils, far from being a luxury, is in fact an essential component of formative assessment.’


Good ideas for students could include:


The importance of interaction – ‘dialogics’


‘Opportunities for pupils to express their understanding should be designed into any piece of teaching, for this will initiate the interaction whereby formative assessment aids learning….Discussions, in which pupils are led to talk about their understanding in their own ways, are important aids to improved knowledge and understanding. Dialogue with the teacher provides the opportunity for the teacher to respond to and re-orient the pupil’s thinking.’ Robin Alexander (2003)


‘a purposeful and productive dialogue where questions, answers, feedback (and feedforward) progressively build into coherent and expanding chains of enquiry and understanding.’


Children, we now know, need to talk, and to experience a rich diet of spoken language, in order to think and to learn. Reading, writing and number may be acknowledged curriculum ‘basics’, but talk is arguably the true foundation of learning.

(Robin Alexander, 2004)


Dialogics is designed to tackle

  1. the lack of ‘talk which challenges students to think for themselves’

  2. ‘the dominance of closed questions’

  3. ‘ubiquitous and unspecific praise rather than constructive feedback to inform future learning’

  4. ‘rarity of autonomous pupil-led discussion and problem solving (2006)

  5. initiate-respond-feedback


Dialogic talk ‘requires teachers to relinquish control in favour of a shared model of talking’.


Exploratory talk, according to Neil Mercer (2000) is where pupils engage critically but constructively with each other’s ideas


Curious - asking questions

Collaborative - learning from others

Critical - giving reasons

Creative - thinking new ideas

Caring - relating to others


The importance of good questioning


‘giving pupils time to respond, asking them to discuss their thinking in pairs or in small groups so that a respondent is speaking on behalf of others, giving a choice between possible answers and asking them to vote on options, asking them all to write down an answer and then reading out a selected few, and so on…The dialogue between pupils and a teacher should be thoughtful, reflective, focused to evoke and explore undertstanding, and conducted so that all pupils have an opportunity to think and to express their ideas’ (12)


giving time to explore answers together

no hands

make use of ‘wrong answers’


‘The teachers also shift in their role, from presenters of content to leaders of an exploration and development of ideas in which all pupils are involved.’ (7)


Good practice:


The importance of follow-up


‘rewriting/reworking pieces of work…’


‘opportunities for pupils to follow up comments should be planned as part of the overall learning process.’ (9)


Revision – pupils should be engaged in a reflective review of the work they have done to enable them to plan their revision effectively.’ (14)


Shifting the emphasis in the classroom


‘learning cannot be done for the pupil; it has to be done by the pupil.’ (15)


‘sharing responsibility for the class’s learning with the class…’ (22)


‘empowering pupils to become active learners, taking responsibility for their own learning.’ (22)



1. Reflecting on the purposes/intentions behind our assessment policies


Purpose






Evidence

Communicating Assessment Outcomes







Making use of outcomes….follow-up







2. Grades vs Comments


The evidence from research is that students ignore comments when they have a grade to look at. Wiliam & Black point to evidence that suggests: ‘pupils ignore comments when marks are also given.’ (8)

However, it is important for students to know where they are working.

Should we use Grades as a shorthand way of saying where students are and how they need to improve (ie referring them to a mark scheme) or should we limit our use of grades and instead aim to use language/targets/how-to-improve comments in language that students can easily understand.


3. What do we do? Our good practice.

- When? How? What works? How do we know?






































4. What can we ‘formalise’? How easy is it for us to ‘codify’ this in a way that enables:



What use could we make of scaffold-prompt sheets for peer/self-assessment (see App 6, 6b)


5. Technology


How could technology help?


Keeping records of comments not just grades can be hugely time-consuming….and surely it is more logical for students to keep and have access to records.



‘Visualisers’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4fpOf6zUOQ



7. Recording our interventions.


What is important?


What we want to avoid

-unnecessary additional lists/records/documents that don’t benefit students


What options are there for students logging our conversations with them? What options are there for keeping a log of progress?


What principles can we commit to in terms of written feedback (see Appendix)


How could we access this to monitor progress and start assessing progress….rather than simply repeat advice/comments that we have already shared.


How can we chart students progressions through the various levels etc to create maximum impact and avoid overloading them (and us) with too much jargon etc.


8. Next steps:





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