Assessment Professional Learning Module 3: Assessment FOR Learning

1. Assessment Professional LearningModule 3: Assessment FOR Learning

2. Assessment FOR learning Assessment AS Learning Assessment OF learning

3. Assessment OF learning: occurs when teachers use evidence of student learning to make judgements on student achievement against goals and standards. Assessment AS learning: occurs when students reflect on and monitor their progress to inform their future learning goals. AssessmentFORlearning:occurs when teachers use inferences about student progress to inform their teaching.

4. Assessment FOR learning: occurs when teachers use inferences about student progress to inform their teaching. It is frequent, formal or informal (e.g. quality questioning, anecdotal notes, written comments), embedded in teaching and provides clear and timely feedback that helps students in their learning progression. It has a summative use, providing evidence that informs, or shapes, short term planning for learning.

5. Assessment FOR learning “makes a significant difference to … [students’] progress - in their ability to be confident, critical learners, to achieve more than ever before and in raising their self-esteem. In a world of continuing pressure, it is good to know that we are making a real difference…” (Shirley Clarke 2001, p. 139)

6. The most important purpose of classroom assessment is to improve student learning.The learner is at the centre.

7. The teacher’s role is to: • make arrangements to gain evidence on students’ learning progression • provide timely feedback • modify the learning and teaching program in light of the assessment evidence.

8. Gaining evidence FOR learning can happen in these four ways:

9. Means of gaining evidence of students’ learning • Ask quality questions that probe students’ understandings and help them think in different ways about their learning. • Observe and recordstudent actions and learning progression to modify teaching plans. • Listen towhat students have to say (and hear the message). • Closely watch individual students who differ from the majority, who signal to you when it is time to try something different.

10. Means of giving feedback to students • Have aconversation (formal or informal) about the quality of the students’ work. • Give written feedback - this can be detailed and focused on what the student can do to improve. • Talk with students about your analysis of their individual learning progression against the Standards at an interim point (i.e. not at the end).

11. Quality questions • Wait time more than 3 seconds (Count if need be: one thousand, two thousand, three thousand). Produces extended responses and students are less concerned with being “right” and more concerned with ideas. • Ask, pause, use a name to direct Ensures all are attending to the question - and thinking … • Open-ended Where hypotheticals, possibilities and creative responses are encouraged • Challenging Beyond remember and ‘understand’ (in a simplistic way) • Distributed evenly Around the room - no “hands up” (allows some to disengage)

12. A checklist for good feedback … “ 1. clear and unambiguous; 2. specific; 3. supportive, formative and developmental; 4. timely; 5. understood; 6. delivered in an appropriate environment” (Jonathan Tummons, 2005, p. 76).

13. Annotations on student work.What do you write? • Question mark • Circling • Underlining or sidebars • Ticks and crosses • ^ caret (omission) • Spelling or grammar corrections • Written comments Are all of these helpful for students’ learning?

14. Common types of written feedback • Regulatory instructions e.g. use Australian spelling conventions • Advisory comments e.g. you could elaborate the conditions here • Descriptive observation e.g. you have used 3 web sources in this report • Rhetorical questions e.g. how does this relate to X’s ideas? PLUS…

15. Common types of written feedback • Direct criticism e.g. you needed to draw on other people’s ideas here • Praise e.g. your introduction is clearly written and sets the tone well • Correctness (it is right - or wrong) e.g. you have misunderstood the key idea here. (types from Catherine Haines 2004)

16. Consider: • Legibility Can students read your feedback? Can they understand your meaning? • Importance Are you giving feedback on the highest priority aspects of the work? • Quality Are your comments constructive, written politely, and with suggestions to help students’ learning?

17. Consider • Quantity Is there a manageable amount for students to absorb and act upon? • Timing How often? How timely? • Style What types of comments are helpful for students’ learning and which are unhelpful (even destructive)?

18. Comments without grades Giving grades or marks was found by the Black et al study (2003) to distract students from the formative feedback. One teacher in their study noted: “at no time during the first 15 months of comment-only marking did any students ask me why they no longer received grades … I found this amazing” (p. 45) The students were focused on improving their work through heeding the comments, and no longer needed the mark as a measure of their work quality.

19. Using available evidence FOR learning? • What evidence (data) is available to you about students’ learning? • What is accessible and useable? • How can you select the best evidence to use to prepare your teaching plans FOR the purpose of improving students’ learning?

20. Gaining evidence to plan teaching and give feedback isAssessment FOR learning Assessment AS Learning Assessment OF learning