Assessment for Learning Where is it Now? Where is it Going?

1. Assessment for LearningWhere is it Now?Where is it Going? Paul Black Department of Education King’s College London

2. Hitting the Headlines • 1998 Black & Wiliam 74-page review article : Evidence. • 1998 Inside the Black Box. 20-page booklet. ~ 50 000 sold. • 1999 - 2001 KMOFAP work: teachers invent the practice. • 2002 King’s team: Working Inside the Black Box 24 page booklet~ 45 000 sold. • 2002 KS3 DfES initiative stresses Assessment for Learning. • 2003 King’s team: Assessment for Learning book 2 reprints. WHY : what did we do right ?

3. Where is it now ? • The Revival : It’s worth doing • Implementation : How it’s done • Hitting the headlines • Others can do it too – or can they ? • Old wine in new bottles ? • Why it matters ?

4. The Revival: It’s worth doing • Experimental and control groups, pre-and post-tests, numerical data on learning gains • About 30 studies found • All show gains: effect sizes 0.4 to 0.7 • Sometimes “low attainers” show largest gains • Variety of approaches to formative • Lack detail – they don’t ( can’t ?) tell you what to do

5. The Revival: It’s worth doing • Research review of Black & Wiliam • Many rigorous studies show that standards are raised by formative assessment. • The positive effect is greater as the range of the formative feedback is expanded. • King’s project work with schools • Standards were raised • Teachers happy about the way they had changed

6. Implementation: How it’s done • An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information to be used as feedback, by teachers, and by their students, in assessing themselves and each other, to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. • Feedback is two-way • Student to teacher • Teacher to student • Feedback can be • oral or written • short term or medium term

7. Implementation: How it’s done • The main strategies • Questioning and dialogue • Oral feedback • Comment only marking • Feedback on written work • Self- and peer-assessment • Developing group discussion • Formative use of tests

8. I’d become dissatisfied with the closed Q&A style that my unthinking teaching had fallen into, and I would frequently be lazy in my acceptance of right answers and sometimes even tacit complicity with a class to make sure none of us had to work too hard … They and I knew that if the Q&A wasn’t going smoothly, I’d change the question, answer it myself or only seek answers from the ‘brighter students’. There must have been times (still are?) where an outside observer would see my lessons as a small discussion group surrounded by many sleepy onlookers. James, Two Bishops School Implementation: Questioning

9. Changes in Questioning • Teachers role : move from presentation to exploration of students’ ideas, involving them in the exploration • Students role : more active, realising that learning depends on readiness to express and discuss, not on spotting right answers • Teachers spend more effort on framing questions to explore issues critical to development of students’ understanding

10. Implementation: How it’s doneFeedback on Written WorkComment-only marking • Previously I would have marked the work and graded it and made a comment. The pupils only saw the mark and/or credit. After a credit they lost the motive to improve. Now they get a credit after we have gone over the work so they have an incentive to understand the work Rose, Brownfields School.

11. Changes in Marking • Teachers changed their view of the role of written work in promoting learning • Teachers were challenged to compose comments on written work which address the learning needs of the individual and reflect key aspects of the subject • Teachers had to give more attention to differentiation in feedback • Students changed their view of the role of written work as part of their learning

12. Implementation: How it’s doneSelf- and Peer-Assessment • Criteria must be understood by students so they can apply them : modelling exercises are needed where these are abstract • Students must be taught to collaborate in peer-assessment, for this helps develop objectivity for self-assessment and is of intrinsic value • Students should be taught to assess their progress as they proceed keeping the aims and criteria in mind - so as to become independent learners • Peer- and self- assessment develop students as learners in a unique way

13. Peer marking • We regularly do peer marking—I find this very helpful indeed. A lot of misconceptions come to the fore and we then discuss these as we are going over the homework. I then go over the peer marking and talk to pupils individually as I go round the room. Rose, Brownfields School • The kids are not skilled in what I am trying to get them to do. I think the process is more effective long term. If you invest time in it, it will pay off big dividends, this process of getting the students to be more independent in the way that they learn and taking the responsibility themselves. Tom, Riverside School

14. Hitting the Headlines • 1998 Black & Wiliam 74-page review article : Evidence. • 1998 Inside the Black Box. 20-page booklet. ~ 50 000 sold. • 1999 - 2001 KMOFAP work: teachers invent the practice. • 2002 King’s team: Working Inside the Black Box 24 page booklet~ 45 000 sold. • 2002 KS3 DfES initiative stresses Assessment for Learning. • 2003 King’s team: Assessment for Learning book 2 reprints. WHY : what did we do right ?

15. Learning Principles Cognitive • • Start from a learner’s existing understanding. • • Involve the learner actively in the learning process. • • Help the learner to understand the learning aims and the criteria of quality, so enabling self- and peer-assessment. • • Support and guide social learning, i.e. learning through discussion.

16. Learning PrinciplesMotivation and Self-esteem • Those given feedback as marks are likely to see it as a way to compare themselves with others (ego-involvement), those given only comments see it as helping them to improve (task-involvement): the latter group out-perform the former. • (Butler, 1987). • Feedback given as rewards or grades enhances ego- rather than task-involvement. • With ego-involvement, both high and low attainers are reluctant to take risks and react badly to new challenges, and failures simply damage self-esteem • With task-involvement, learners believe that they can improve by their own effort, are willing to take on new challenges and to learn from failure. (see “Self-Theories” by Carol Dweck, 2000)

17. Where is it going ? • The Revival : It’s worth doing • Implementation : How it’s done • Hitting the headlines • Others can do it too – or can they ? • Old wine in new bottles ? • Why it matters ?

18. Dialogue : Example A • T: Look carefully. Where have you seen something like this? You might have seen something like it before. What is it involved with? It’s got a special name . . (3 go hands up - teacher selects one of these) • T: Yes . . . . Jay? • Jay: In electricity sir. • T: That’s right. We can use these in electric circuits. Anyone know what it is called? This word here helps. Can you read what it says? Carolyn? • Carolyn: Amps • T: And what is this instrument that measures in amps? • Pause of 2 seconds. No hands go up • T: No? No one? Well it’s an ammeter because it measures in Amps. What’s it called Jamie? • Jamie : A clock sir

19. Dialogue : Example B • T: Why do you think these plants have grown differently ? • Pairs discuss for 4 minutes. Teacher takes no part.Class noisy. • T: Okay. Ideas? • Half the class put hands up. T waits 3 secs. Few more hands up. • T: Monica - your group? Pair? • Monica: That one’s grown bigger because it was on the window. • T: On the window? Mmm. What do you think Jamie ? • Jamie: We thought that . . . • T: You thought . . . .? • Jamie: That the big’un had eaten up more light. • T: I think I know what Monica and Jamie are getting at, but can anyone put the ideas together? Window - Light - Plants? • Many hands go up. T. chooses a child who has not put up his hand.

20. Typical dialogues ? • Clearly, if classroom talk is to make a meaningful contribution to children’s learning and understanding, it must move beyond the acting out of such congitively restricting rituals. Robin Alexander Towards Dialogic Teaching 2004 p.9 . • . . . in normal human life, communicative activity and individual thinking have a continuous , dynamic influence on each other. • . . .language provides us with a means for thinking together, for jointly creating knowledge and understanding. Neil Mercer Words and Minds. 2000 Ch.1.

21. Mercer at al. Indicator words used by pupils • Word Pre-intervention Post-intervention • because 13 50 • I think 35 120 • would 18 39 • could 1 6 • ____________________________________________________ • TOTALS 67 215

22. Where is it going ? • The Revival : It’s worth doing • Implementation : How it’s done • Hitting the headlines • Others can do it too – or can they ? • Old wine in new bottles ? • Why it matters ?

23. Changing the teacher’s role • There was a definite transition at some point, from focusing on what I was putting into the process, to what the students were contributing. It became obvious that one way to make a significant sustainable change was to get the students doing more of the thinking. I then began to search for ways to make the learning process more transparent to the students. Indeed, I now spend my time looking for ways to get students to take responsibility for their learning and at the same time making the learning more collaborative. • (Tom, Riverside School)

24. Changing the pupil’s role • “… a number of pupils … are content to ‘get by’… Every teacher who wants to practice formative assessment must reconstruct the habits acquired by his pupils.” • P.Perrenoud (Geneva) 1991

25. Old wine in new bottles ? A theory ?

26. The Triangle Pedagogy curriculum Learning ASSESSMENT

27. Why it matters The moral enterprise • To ask of other human beings that they accept and memorise what the science teacher says, without any concern for the meaning and justification of what is said, is to treat those human beings with disrespect and is to show insufficient care for their welfare. • It treats them with a disrespect, because students exist on a moral par with their teachers, and therefore have a right to expect from their teachers’ reasons for what the teachers wish them to believe. • It shows insufficient care for the welfare of students, because possessing beliefs that one is unable to justify is poor currency when one needs beliefs that can reliably guide action. • S. Norris (Alberta), 1997 in Science Education