Formative assessment: an important teaching tool for any subject

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Formative Assessment The tutor-student partnership that delivers results

A guide for tutors and parents

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Contents

1. Introduction

2. What you already know about formative assessment

3. What’s new about formative assessment?

4. Why does formative assessment matter?

5. Three learner questions that drive formative assessment

6. How teachers can answer these questions

7. Shared learning goals – the hub of formative assessment

8. The teaching skills that bring the learning partnership to life

9. How formative assessment makes students better learners

10. The way forward – formative assessment and technology

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Introduction

What does assessment mean to you? For most people assessment is all about tests or exams that measure learning and competency. This approach, where the evaluation is the end product, is known as summative assessment.

But formative assessment is different. It is a dynamic collaboration between teacher and student designed to improve learning, not audit it. It is assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning.

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Assessment for learning is driven by 3 learner questions

Where am I going?

– What do I need to learn?

Where am I now?

– What do I know now in relation to what I need to learn?

How do I get there?

– How do I bridge the gap between what I know now and what I need to learn?

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4 ways in which teachers use assessment to help students

• Tell students where they’re going by sharing learning objectives • Assess what students understand now - supported by skilful questions • Decide what to do next - based on the assessment • Give feedback so students know how to improve.

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This presentation

In this presentation we discover how formative assessment can do more than help students achieve course or syllabus goals. That when teachers role model great questioning and feedback skills, over time students can become independent learners of any subject who know how to learn, not just what to learn.

We also see how technology complements what great teachers do

naturally. And how in this digital age it allows teachers to create learning experiences that reflect students’ daily lives and the reality of their future.

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Formative assessment – in your experience

If you were asked to name your top three learning experiences, what would they be? When were you most engaged and most confident in developing your understanding and applying new skills? Think widely. Take your pick from driving lessons, learning a language to conquering a maths topic.

Choose one of your top three learning experiences and then answer ‘yes’ or

‘no’ to these questions.

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Questions to ask about your own learning experiences

• Did you know what you wanted to achieve? Were you clear about your learning goal?

• Did someone observe you to see what you were doing well and not so well?

• And in response: • Did they explain things differently or demonstrate the skill in another

way? Did they give you a new activity to help you understand, develop your skill and get it right?

• Did they give you feedback on what you did well and how to reach the objective, so you felt motivated to keep trying?

• Did they ask stimulating questions to challenge your assumptions or help you reframe your thinking?

• Did they provide clear, achievable steps to help you move towards your learning goal?

• Did you have the chance to think about their feedback, ask questions and then together plan how to implement the steps?

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If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions then your positive learning experience was in fact a blend of teaching and assessment that together embrace the principles of formative assessment.

So if you answered ‘yes’ it means you’ve experienced the benefits of assessment for learning. And you know first-hand how the process works for learners.

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‘Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel’ —Socrates

This process of gathering evidence to inform what to teach next in order to improve learning has been around since the time of Socrates. The European Guilds of the Middle-Ages onwards also practised this continuous feedback approach to learning and skills development.

But the partnership approach between teacher and student was eroded with

the rise of one-way teaching approaches – ‘chalk and talk’ lessons and university lectures for example - where teachers imparted knowledge to passive students.

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Recent history

It is only in the last 40 or so years that the inclusion of formative assessment principles in our classrooms has shifted the balance back towards a learning partnership between teacher and student.

This shift hasn’t happened over night. Michael Scriven coined the term

‘formative’ in the late 1960s and while others built on and refined the principles it wasn’t until Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam’s 1998 influential book ‘Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment’ that these ideas started to really take hold and become part of day-to-day classroom practice.

So as history demonstrates formative assessment is not one of the many educational reforms that come and go. Its principles are rooted in how we’ve always learnt best and in what research now tells us about how people learn.

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Definition

If we bring together all the questions you answered about your positive learning experience we could come up with a definition like this:

Formative assessment is an active learning process where teacher and

students gather evidence of progress with the intention of improving learning outcomes.

Most books on formative assessment include at least two or three definitions

along these lines, with variations to emphasise the theme of a particular chapter for example.

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These types of definitions are helpful in capturing the overall process but they don’t always reflect the wider outcomes. So let’s take a broader look at what defines formative assessment in terms of why it matters; why should we care?

It matters because its benefits reach further than improving learning

outcomes for a particular syllabus or programme. Over time, assessment for learning also develops the students themselves – it promotes a positive attitude to learning and develops skilled learners of any subject area.

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What formative assessment delivers

• Confident, engaged learners

• Students who are motivated to learn

• Students who know how to learn, not just what to learn.

• Learners who develop critical thinking skills

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Integrating assessment and teaching

The short answer is with a blend of teaching and assessment. Integrating assessment into teaching is crucial because, as the saying goes, the best laid plans go awry. And for teachers that means no matter how well you plan a lesson you cannot predict what your students will actually learn.

So minute-by-minute and day-by-day formative assessment provides the

opportunity to adjust the lesson plan as you go – what and how you teach - based on evidence of learners’ progress so they can achieve the learning goal.

Here’s how formative assessment works and what teachers do in response to

learners’ three questions.

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The questions teachers can help learners to answer

Where am I going?

Share learning goals/objectives and success criteria

Where am I now?

Create learning activities which generate evidence of what learners currently know/don’t know or do well/not so well in relation to the goal or objective

Ask strategic questions which help learners gauge their current understanding/skill level in relation to the learning objective

Help students accurately and honestly assess their own learning progress

Give feedback on students’ progress so they know where they are in relation to the learning goal

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The questions teachers can help learners to answer

How do I get there?

Ask strategic questions which elicit information about learners’ understanding so the teacher can decide what to do next

Enable students to ask effective questions which lead to new insights and further their understanding

Give actionable feedback designed to help close the gap between where students are now and where they need to be to achieve the learning goal.

Adjust teaching approach based on the evidence gathered to help close the gap

Help students become independent learners via self-assessment skills and the habit of reflecting on their own learning

Activate peer learning which builds independent learning, social and workplace skills

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Shared learning objectives are at the heart of assessment for learning.

Here’s how they drive the process:

The teacher collects evidence of current understanding against learning goals, and analyses student progress, towards them.

Feedback directly relates to progress towards learning goals and what students need to do to meet them.

Teachers adjust their teaching based on how best to help students reach the learning goals.

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Shared learning goals build learner independence

Shared learning goals and success criteria help learners become more independent because they provide the opportunity for students to self- assess. With clear goals and criteria they have something against which to measure what they know and can do at any point in their learning.

It’s important to share success criteria, as well as goals, because students need to know what counts as quality work. This might mean showing workings for solving maths problems or including specified criteria such as characterisation in creative writing for example.

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Student self-assessment builds independence

Show students a range of completed task examples and ask them to grade them from worst to best with reasons why.

This firstly helps students develop a deeper understanding of the goal and

success criteria. It also encourages them to think critically about whether their own work meets them; the completed examples provide a framework for learners to ask themselves, ‘what steps do I need to take so I can demonstrate the success criteria’?

They start to answer the questions ‘Where am I now’? and ‘How do I get there?’ for themselves.

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Teaching skills that bring the learning partnership to life

Strategic questioning is a dynamic exchange of question and response which helps both teacher and student establish current understanding and improve learning.

Teacher feedback enables students to actively participate in their own learning. Because at each stage of the formative assessment process – Where am I going? Where am I now? How do I get there? - they know how they’re doing and what to do next.

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Strategic questioning

Questions are the powerhouse of teacher-student interactions and conversations.

This question and response approach is a planned part of formative assessment. It’s designed to help both teacher and students measure current learning – ‘Where am I now’? – and improve learning – ‘How do I get there’?

To be clear, these are not the questions that simply ask students to recall a fact or formula. These questions are designed to get students thinking and engaged with the subject. They require students to become active partners in the learning process.

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Socratic questions

We started off by saying that the principles of formative assessment – using evidence of current learning to decide what to teach next – dates back to the time of Socrates. Famously, Socrates believed that questioning and teaching are one and the same thing; he taught by asking questions.

Here’s how skilled questioning fits the formative assessment process. The approach works for both groups of students and individual learners.

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Where am I now? - Collect evidence of current understanding in relation to the learning objective

Here are some key question types – all of which need to relate to some aspect of the learning objectives and success criteria – that the teacher might ask to establish current understanding.

Questions which: • Probe the nature of the problem, topic or subject area

• Elicit what students already know about related topics • Ask students to justify or explain their thinking

• Ask for evidence of current thinking

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How do I get there? - What do I need to do to reach the learning goal?

The Socratic questioning approach also improves learning by helping students move from their current understanding to consider new approaches that help them meet the learning goal.

The teacher asks questions which:

• Challenge assumptions to help students shift their thinking

• Help learners analyse the implications or consequence of what they are saying

• Make connections with past learning, other subjects and relevant examples to promote or broaden understanding

• Introduce alternative approaches and perspectives

• Nurture insights

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Strategic questions and Bloom’s taxonomy

Knowledge: What’s the definition of …? What 3 things do you know about …?

Comprehension: Why does ... Matter? How does this relate to ….?

Application: When would you use ….? What do you think the outcome will be?

Analysis: How does …. compare with XYZ? What evidence backs up ...?

Synthesis: How can you solve this problem? How can you combine these two ideas to …?

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How do you give feedback?

The intention of effective feedback is to improve learning and performance. And that means feedback should help students close the gap between where they are now and where they need to be to achieve the learning goal.

To do this, feedback needs to make learners think, to actively engage with their own learning so they can move forward. However, the barrier to this rational approach is that so often our response to feedback is emotional not cognitive. In fact, it’s an instinctive human reaction. Think back to the last time you received feedback. Was it positive or negative? How did it make you feel? Gutted, annoyed, quietly chuffed or maybe ecstatic?

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Negative feedback hurts

When we hear we haven’t done so well it can set off a train of negative thoughts about the:

Present – ‘I'm useless’, ‘I always get things wrong’

Past - ‘I’ve always been rubbish at maths’

Future - ‘I'll never get it right’.

We look for past examples that confirm the feedback and negatively forecast about the future to conclude that we'll never be any good at maths. And the problem with frustration and negative emotions is that they can shut down key parts of the brain required for learning.

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Positive feedback isn’t good in itself

Feeling great about how well we’ve done doesn’t lead to improved learning either. A common response to positive feedback is to congratulate ourselves on a job well done, to relax a bit. The implicit message being we can afford to exert less effort next time.

So the challenge for the teacher is to give feedback which doesn’t simply describe what the student has done well or not so well. The feedback should answer the question ‘What next?’ for the learner.

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Attributes of great feedback

• Provides actionable steps to help the learner improve and reach the learning goal

• Makes learners reflect on how to improve specific aspects of their work - a grade or mark does not achieve this.

• Focuses on how to improve regardless of student ability.

• Demands the same amount of work for each student regardless of ability. Feedback is not seen as a punishment for less able students.

• Focuses on both the work and process the student used to complete the activity

• Provides enough detail to give a clear sense of progress against the goal and criteria. But not so detailed that it overwhelms the student.

• Is given as close to when the student did the work as possible. The longer the time lapse the less motivated we feel to action it.

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Written vs. verbal feedback: written

• More permanent than verbal feedback. Learners can access it as they review and revise their work.

• Students have a record of the feedback which encourages independent learning

• Comments, symbols, underlining etc can be positioned at specific points. So learners know precisely what the feedback applies to

• Online written feedback is instant and two-way

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Written vs. verbal feedback: verbal

• Can be made as students work as part of the student-teacher dialogue

• Body language and tone of voice convey encouragement and motivate learners

• Teachers can see first-hand students’ reaction to the feedback

• Helps build the teacher-student relationship and build trust

• Helpful where the amount to say may be overwhelming as written feedback

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Feedback develops learner independence

Learners who are less reliant on the teacher are able to self-assess. Teacher feedback helps learners develop this skill because feedback and learner self-assessment are related activities.

They both:

• Compare student work against success criteria and the learning target

• Identify the next steps needed for improvement

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‘What’s next’ feedback motivates learners

• Encourages persistence - learners know what they need to do to succeed

• Fosters a sense of control - particularly when learners have a choice of strategies

• Promotes goal-directed behaviour

• Builds self-belief - learners achieve objectives by their own actions

• Energises learners – students are more motivated when they believe their tutor wants them to succeed

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Teaching students to assess themselves

Teaching self-assessment skills needs to be systematic and to refer to the goals and success criteria. We aim to teach students to:

• Use the success criteria to assess their own work. The teacher then

provides feedback on the quality of the self-assessment. • Highlight the success criteria they think applies to their own work. The

teacher highlights the criteria that apply to the student’s work and asks the student to analyse and reflect on any differences.

• Keep learning portfolios to review their learning development. Instead of simply focusing on the latest and best work, students review tasks completed over a time period against specified criteria. This approach is helpful for developing confidence. When students see progress as incremental it helps dispel the negative and self-defeating view that ability is fixed.

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Teaching students to assess themselves

Keep learning logs to develop the skill and habit of reflecting on their learning. For example, students might finish 3 of these statements:

– The most useful thing I learned was

– What I enjoyed about the lesson was

– I was surprised by

– I was interested in

– I’m still not sure about

– I’d like to know more about

– I might have learnt more if

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Peer learning

Peer learning as part of the formative assessment process also helps build independent learning skills. In itself collaborative learning is a powerful way to learn, but it also equips students with important workplace skills: listening, team working, joint problem solving, empathy and communication skills for example.

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Peer learning in groups

Students need lots of guidance to make peer learning effective and this starts with shared learning goals.

Students need lots of guidance to make peer learning effective and this starts

with shared learning goals. Group activities can encourage less confident learners to ask questions. It’s

much easier for the group to ask a question because individuals don’t have to appear stupid in front of the whole class.

And talking things through with peers can in itself make students more confident about asking questions.

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Peer feedback

Peer feedback is a key element of peer learning, but it is not an abdication of teaching responsibilities. It is a valid teaching approach with clear benefits for students who both give and receive feedback.

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Benefits for students giving feedback

• The process of explaining something deepens understanding; you never really fully understand something until you have to teach it. Articulating how a process works or what something means, requires you to fully engage with all aspects of the problem or subject area. You can’t just skim over areas you only more or less understand.

• Students competent in a subject develop the ability to communicate what they know. This is not the same as simply knowing or understanding and is an important skill. Scientists for example have to communicate their findings or research to peers.

• Engaging with the learning objectives and success criteria in the context of someone else’s work makes you think about them in a different way. And without the emotion involved in your own work so you can be more objective about the process.

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Benefits for students receiving feedback

• Explanations may be easier to understand as peers, particularly young people, explain things in a shared language

• Learners are often less afraid to ask a peer to slow down or go over something again. They tend to be more direct and clearer about their needs than they are with a teacher

• Learners are also less likely to pretend they understand. Students tell the teacher they understand - when they don’t - because they don’t want to: • Appear foolish in front of the teacher or the whole class • Take up the teacher’s time when it seems that everyone else

understands

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Some ideas for peer assessment

Homework help board

– Students write problems/questions from last night’s homework on the board. Student who thinks they can is encouraged to find their peer and provide help.

Two stars and a wish

– A peer gives feedback on a student’s work: two things that were good and one suggestion for improvement. They write them on post its so they can be removed if the student doesn’t find them helpful.

– The teacher then anonymously shares some feedback examples and asks students to vote on whether it was helpful and how it could be improved. This approach develops learners' feedback skills.

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Technology and formative assessment: a selection of tools

Videos with the facility for teachers to embed questions that check understanding, for example

Interactive white board apps

Assessment tools with learner feedback, recommended learning resources and analytics of results for the teacher

Quizzes, exercises and games that students can play on their smart phones, laptops or tablets

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Technology and formative assessment: a selection of tools

Tools where teachers can see answers to and feedback on questions in real time

Feedback polls where teachers can see results in real time

Virtual notice boards with sticky notes so students can write questions or comments about their learning at any stage of the learning process

Collaborative tools which students and teachers can use in and outside the classroom. Students can add their thoughts and answers to the whiteboard

Documents that allow students to collaborate in real time using laptops and tablets

Tools that stimulate visual thinking

Mind mapping tools which reveal student thinking and learning approaches

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Technology and formative assessment: an example

Here’s a real-life example which shows how technology can counteract the problem of students’ saying they understand, when actually they don’t.

During a lesson on binary numbers the students said they all understood and were ready to move on. To test this, the teacher set a problem using an online assessment tool. Students entered their answers which appeared on the teacher’s screen alongside their names. To her surprise, although everyone had said they understood, only two students got the answer right. This immediately and very quickly gave her an accurate answer to ‘where am I now?’ for the whole class.

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Technology: Benefits for teachers

Provides quick, real-time assessment of what learners know so teachers can accurately adjust teaching within the lesson time.

Quickly and accurately identifies learning gaps. This helps supply teachers or tutors with frequent new students optimise teaching time.

Makes it easier to give differentiated feedback to a large class. Teachers can quickly see who needs help with what.

Addresses the need for differentiation - teachers can assign different online activities within the same subject area to different students.

Saves time for teachers in both marking and giving feedback on common errors. They can spend time on what matters – adjusting teaching to meet individual and class needs

Provides detailed analytics so the teacher has an overview of the whole classes’ understanding. A teacher can easily identify key areas that may need reviewing.

Provides timely feedback for large classes. Students don’t have to wait for teachers to hand mark - delayed feedback makes us less motivated to act on it.

Helps teachers create effective peer learning activities. It’s easy to accurately identify students with similar or different levels of understanding and then group them to suit the aim of the activity.

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Technology: Benefits for learners

Students can see results immediately – they can monitor their own learning and have the opportunity to identify gaps for themselves.

Learners get immediate feedback designed to help them identify what to do next. They don’t always have to wait for teacher input.

Chat /IM tools allow students, who are reluctant to put up their hands, to let the teacher know they don’t understand.

Games based activities encourage active participation because they are motivating and fun

Students are used to co-operating in many online gaming environments. And collaborating on line fits the way they live their lives.

Online team activities mean students can work out problems as a group. A shared learning goal encourages pupils to work collaboratively and develops social and workplace skills.

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Formative Assessment The tutor-student partnership that delivers results

A guide for tutors and parents For more information, visit http://www.obrussa.com