Using assessment to improve learning: why, what and how?

1. Using assessment to improve learning:why, what and how? Dylan Wiliam Institute of Education Cambridge Assessment Network seminar on Assessment for Learning: Cambridge, UK; September 2006

2. Overview of presentation • Why raising achievement is important • Why investing in teachers is the answer • Why assessment for learning should be the focus • How we can put this into practice Confidential & Proprietary

3. Raising achievement matters • For individuals • Increased lifetime salary • Improved health • For society • Lower criminal justice costs • Lower health-care costs • Increased economic growth Confidential & Proprietary

4. Where’s the solution? • Structure • Small schools • Big schools • Alignment • Curriculum reform • Textbook replacement • Governance • Specialist schools • Vouchers • Technology Confidential & Proprietary

5. It’s the classroom • Variability at the classroom level is up to 4 times greater than at school level • It’s not class size • It’s not the between-class grouping strategy • It’s not the within-class grouping strategy • It’s the teacher Confidential & Proprietary

6. Teacher quality: • A labour force issue with 2 solutions • Replace existing teachers with better ones? • No evidence that more pay brings in better teachers • No evidence that there are better teachers out there deterred by certification requirements • Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers • The “love the one you’re with” strategy • It can be done • We know how to do it, but at scale? Quickly? Sustainably? Confidential & Proprietary

7. Learning power environments • Key concept: • Teachers do not create learning • Learners create learning • Teaching as engineering learning environments • Key features: • Create student engagement (pedagogies of engagement) • Well-regulated (pedagogies of contingency) Confidential & Proprietary

8. Why pedagogies of engagement? • Intelligence is partly inherited • So what? • Intelligence is partly environmental • Environment creates intelligence • Intelligence creates environment • Learning environments • High cognitive demand • Inclusive • Obligatory Confidential & Proprietary

9. Motivation: cause or effect? high arousal Flow anxiety challenge control worry relaxation apathy boredom low low competence high (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) Confidential & Proprietary

10. Why pedagogies of contingency? • Several major reviews of the research • Natriello (1987) • Crooks (1988) • Kluger & DeNisi (1996) • Black & Wiliam (1998) • Nyquist (2003) • All find consistent, substantial effects Confidential & Proprietary

11. Cost/effect comparisons Confidential & Proprietary

12. Five key strategies… • Clarifying and understanding learning intentions and criteria for success • Engineering effective classroom discussions that elicit evidence of learning • Providing feedback that moves learners forward • Activating students as instructional resources for each other • Activating students as the owners of their own learning Confidential & Proprietary

13. …and one big idea • Use evidence about learning to adapt instruction to meet student needs Confidential & Proprietary

14. Keeping Learning on Track (KLT) • A pilot guides a plane or boat toward its destination by planning a route, taking constant readings and making careful adjustments in response to wind, currents, weather, etc. • A KLT teacher does the same: • Plans a carefully chosen (possibly differentiated) route ahead of time (in essence building the track) • Takes readings along the way • Changes course as conditions dictate Confidential & Proprietary

15. Formative assessment & Assessment for Learning 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 Confidential & Proprietary

16. Types of formative assessment • Long-cycle • Focus: across units, terms • Length: four weeks to one year • Medium-cycle • Focus: within and between teaching units • Length: one to four weeks • Short-cycle • Focus: within and between lessons • Length: • day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours • minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours Confidential & Proprietary

17. Putting it into practice

18. A model for teacher learning • Content (what we want teachers to change) • Evidence • Ideas (strategies and techniques) • Process (how to go about change) • Choice • Flexibility • Small steps • Accountability • Support Confidential & Proprietary

19. Content: strategies and techniques • Distinction between strategies and techniques • Strategies define the territory of AfL (no brainers) • Teachers are responsible for choice of techniques • Allows for customization/ caters for local context • Creates ownership • Shares responsibility • Key requirements of techniques • embodiment of deep cognitive/affective principles • relevance • feasibility • acceptability Confidential & Proprietary

20. Design and intervention Our design process cognitive/affective insights synergy/ comprehensiveness set ofcomponents Teachers’ implementation process set of components synergy/ comprehensiveness cognitive/affective insights Confidential & Proprietary

21. Techniques for embeddingthe strategies in practice

22. Questioning in Science What can we do to preserve the ozone layer? • Reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by cars and factories • Reduce the greenhouse effect • Stop cutting down the rainforests • Limit the numbers of cars that can be used when the level of ozone is high • Properly dispose of air-conditioners and fridges Confidential & Proprietary

23. Questioning in English Which of these is a good thesis statement? • The typical TV show has 9 violent incidents • There is a lot of violence on TV • The amount of violence on TV should be reduced • Some programs are more violent than others • Violence is included in programs to boost ratings • Violence on TV is interesting • I don’t like the violence on TV • The essay I am going to write is about violence on TV Confidential & Proprietary

25. Practical techniques • Feedback • Not giving complete solutions • Three-fourths-of-the-way-through-a-unit test • Sharing learning intentions • Annotated examples of different standards to ‘flesh out’ assessment rubrics (e.g. lab reports) • Opportunities for students to design their own tests • Students as owners of their own learning • Red/green discs • Students as instructional resources for one another • Pre-flight checklist Confidential & Proprietary

26. Putting it into practice

27. Why research hasn’t changed teaching • The nature of expertise in teaching • Aristotle’s main intellectual virtues • Episteme: knowledge of universal truths • Techne: ability to make things • Phronesis: practical wisdom • What works is not the right question • Everything works somewhere • Nothing works everywhere • What’s interesting is “under what conditions” does this work? • Teaching is mainly a matter of phronesis, not episteme Confidential & Proprietary

28. Knowledge ‘transfer’ After Nonaka & Tageuchi, 1995 Confidential & Proprietary

29. Supporting Teachers and Schools to Change through Teacher Learning Communities

30. Implementing AfL requires changing teacher habits • Teachers “know” most of this already • So the problem is not a lack of knowledge • It’s a lack of understanding what it means to do AfL • That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t work • Experience alone is not enough—if it were, then the most experienced teachers would be the best teachers—we know that’s not true (Hanushek, 2005) • People need to reflect on their experiences in systematic ways that build their accessible knowledge base, learn from mistakes, etc. (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999) Confidential & Proprietary

31. That’s what TLCs are for: • TLCs contradict teacher isolation • TLCs reprofessionalize teaching by valuing teacher expertise • TLCs deprivatize teaching so that teachers’ strengths and struggles become known • TLCs offer a steady source of support for struggling teachers • They grow expertise by providing a regular space, time, and structure for that kind of systematic reflecting on practice • They facilitate sharing of untapped expertise residing in individual teachers • They build the collective knowledge base in a school Confidential & Proprietary

32. The synergy • Content: assessment for learning • Process: teacher learning communities • Components of a model • Initial workshops • Support for TLC leaders • Monthly TLC meetings • Peer observations • ‘Drip-feed’ resources • Web-site • Writings • New ideas Confidential & Proprietary

33. Summary • Raising achievement is important • Raising achievement requires improving teacher quality • Improving teacher quality requires teacher professional development • To be effective, teacher professional development must address • What teachers do in the classroom • How teachers change what they do in the classroom • AfL + TLCs • A point of (uniquely?) high leverage • A “Trojan Horse” into wider issues of pedagogy, psychology, and curriculum Confidential & Proprietary

34. Questions?Comments? Confidential & Proprietary