SEMINAR ON

ASSESSMENT

Practices for the Classroom

GOOD EDUCATION PRACTICES

1. Maximizes student/faculty contact.2. Develops student cooperation.3. Uses active learning techniques.4. Gives feedback promptly.5. Emphasizes time on task.6. Communicates high expectations.7. Respects learners’ diversity.

Principles of Learning

Learning requires the active participation of the student.

People learn in a variety of ways and at different rates.

Learning is both an individual and a group process.

Learning is most effective when students reflect on the process of learning and set goals for improvement.

The word ‘assess’ comes from the Latin verb ‘assidere’ meaning ‘to sit with’.

In assessment one is supposed to sit with the learner. This implies it is something we do ‘with’ and ‘for’ students and not ‘to’ students (Green, 1999).

What is Assessment?

Assessment in education is the process of gathering, interpreting, recording, and using information about pupils’ responses to an educational task. (Harlen, Gipps, Broadfoot, Nuttal,1992)

Why assess students?Why assess students?• To gather evidence of student learning• To inform instruction• To motivate students and increase student

achievement

1. Teachers value and believe in students.2. Sharing learning goals with the students.3. Involving students in self-assessment.4. Providing feedback that helps students

recognize their next steps and how to take them.

5. Being confident that every student can improve.

6. Providing students with examples of what we expect from them.

Values and Attitudes about Assessment

3 types of Assessment • Assessment FOR Learning

– Formative Assessment– Informs students and teachers

• Assessment AS Learning– Student’s Metacognition

• Assessment OF Learning– Summative/Final/Official Assessment– Evaluation of students by teachers

What Is Assessment for Learning?

Assessment for learning occurs throughout the learning process. It is designed to make each student’s understanding visible, so that teachers can decide what they can do to help students progress. Students learn in individual and idiosyncratic ways, yet, at the same time, there are predictable patterns of connections and preconceptions that some students may experience as they move along the continuum fromemergent to proficient.

In assessment for learning, teachers use assessment as an investigative tool to find out as much as they can about what their students know and can do, and what confusions, preconceptions, or gaps they might have.

The wide variety of information that teachers collect about their students’learning processes provides the basis for determining what they need todo next to move student learning forward. It provides the basis forproviding descriptive feedback for students and deciding on groupings,instructional strategies, and resources.

What Is Assessment as Learning?

Assessment as learning focusses on students and emphasizes assessment as a process of metacognition (knowledge of one’s own thought processes) for students.

Assessment as learning emerges from the idea that learning is not just a matter of transferring ideas from someone who is knowledgeable to someone who is not, but is an active process of cognitive restructuring that occurs when individuals interact with new ideas.

Within this view of learning, students are the critical connectors between assessment and learning. For students to be actively engaged in creating their own understanding, they must learn to be critical assessors who make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and use it for new learning.

This is the regulatory process in metacognition; that is, students become adept at personally monitoring what they are learning, and use what they discover from the monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations, and even major changes in their thinking.

What Is Assessment of Learning?

Assessment of learning refers to strategies designed to confirm what students know, demonstrate whether or not they have met curriculum outcomes or the goals of their individualized programs, or to certify proficiency and make decisions about students’ future programs or placements.

It is designed to provide evidence of achievement to parents, other educators, the students themselves, and sometimes to outside groups (e.g., employers, other educational institutions).

Assessment of learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ futures. It is important, then, that the underlying logic and measurement of assessment of learning be credible and defensible.

If we think of our children as plants …

Summative assessment of the plants is the process of

simply measuring them. It might be interesting to

compare and analyze measurements but, in themselves,

these do not affect the growth of the plants.

Formative assessment, on the other hand, is the

equivalent of feeding and watering the plants appropriate

to their needs - directly affecting their growth.

The Garden Analogy

Factors Inhibiting Assessment

A tendency for teachers to assess quantity and presentation of work rather than quality of learning.

Greater attention given to marking and grading, much of it tending to lower self esteem of students, rather than providing advice for improvement.

A strong emphasis on comparing students with each other, which demoralizes the less successful learners.

Shifts in AssessmentShifts in AssessmentFrom assessing to learn what students do not know

From using results to calculate grades

From end-of-term assessments by teachers

From judgmental feedback that may harm student motivation

To assessing to learn what students understand

To using results to inform instruction

To students engaged in ongoing assessment of their work and others

To descriptive feedback that empowers and motivates students

Why these shifts in assessment?Why these shifts in assessment?

A change in the mission of schools:

A shift from a focus on sorting and ranking students to a focus on leaving no child behind.

A strong research base:

Evidence of the substantial impact on student achievement

Self-Evaluation

Where would you place your assessment practice on the

following continuum?

The main focus is on:

Quantity of work/Presentation Quality of learning

Marking/Grading

Comparing students

Advice for improvement

Identifying individual

progress

Implications for classroom practice Share learning goals with students.

Involve students in self-assessment.

Provide feedback that helps students recognize their next steps and how to take them.

Be confident that every student can improve.

Assessment AS Learning.

Develops students’:• skills of metacognition• critical thinking skills• communication and interpersonal skills

Assessment Evaluation (various sources, but especially Dan Apple 1998)

Reflective: Internally Defined Criteria/Goals

Prescriptive:External-ly Imposed Standards

Diagnostic: Identify Areas for Improvement

Judgmental: Arrive at an Overall Grade/Score

Flexible: Adjust As Problems Are Clarified

Fixed: To Reward Success, Punish Failure

Absolute: Strive for Ideal Outcomes

Comparative: Divide Better from Worse

Coöperative: Learn from Each Other

Competitive: Beat Each Other Out

Summary of Differences

Dimension of Difference Assessment Evaluation

Timing Formative Summative

Focus of MeasurementProcess-Oriented

Product-Oriented

Relationship Between Administrator and Recipient

Reflective Prescriptive

Findings, Uses Thereof Diagnostic Judgmental

Ongoing Modifiability of Criteria, Measures Thereof

Flexible Fixed

Standards of Measurement Absolute Comparative

Relation Between Objects of A/E

Coöperative Competitive

Five Keys to

Quality Assessment

Identify the

Purpose

Clarify the

Targets

UseSoundDesign

InvolveStudents

ProvideEffectiveFeedback

Where Am I Going?

Where Am I Now?

How Do I Close the

Gap?

How to Answer the Three Guiding Questions

Seven Strategies of Formative Assessment

Where am I Where am I going?going?

1. Provide a clear and understandable version of the learning targets.

2. Use examples of strong and weak work.

Where am I Where am I now?now?

3. Offer regular descriptive feedback.

4. Teach students to self-assess and set goals.

How can I How can I close the close the gap?gap?

5. Design lessons to focus on one aspect of quality at a time.

6. Teach students focused revision.

7. Engage students in self-reflection and let them document and share their learning.

GENERALIZATION:

Formative Assessment

- Formal and informal processes teachers and students use to gather evidence for the purpose of improving learning.

Summative Assessment

- Assessments that provide evidence of student achievement for the purpose of making a judgment about student competence or program effectiveness.

Promotion and Retention

The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer.

Alice Wellington Rollins