Assessment of and for Learning

Classroom assessment, then, is no more technical device. Teachers assess by making marks on the page or by using words. Behind whatever form they use are not just objective or quasi-objective norms and standards but also assumptions about children’s development, learning and motivation, and values relating

to matters such as self-esteem and the relative importance of ability and effort (Alexander, 2001). Assessment is a term that covers any activity in which evidence of learning is collected in a planned and systematic way, and is used to make a judgment about learning. A distinction between formative and summative (summing-up) purposes has been familiar since the 1960s although the meaning of these two terms has not been well understood. A more transparent

distinction, meaning roughly the same thing, is between assessment of learning, for grading and reporting, and assessment for learning, where the explicit purpose is to use assessment as part of teaching to promote pupils’ learning.

If the purpose is to help in decisions about how to advance learning and the judgment is about the next steps in learning and how to take them, then the assessment is formativein function, sometimes referred to as Assessment forLearning (AfL). AfL came to prominence, as a concept, after the publication in 1999 of a pamphlet with this title by the Assessment Reform Group, a small group of UK academics who have worked, since 1989, to bring evidence from research to the attention of teachers and policymakers.

If the purpose of assessment is to summarize the learning that has taken place in order to grade, certificate or record progress, then the assessment is summativein function, sometimes referred to as assessment oflearning. When summative assessment is used for making decisions that affect the status or future of students, teacher or school (that is, ‘high stakes’), the demand for reliability of measure often means the tests are used in order closely to control the nature of the information and conditions in which

it is collected.

An understanding of effective assessment of, and for, learning is integral to all ‘new approaches’ to teaching and learning. If children are seen as active learners who construct their own understanding it follows that it is necessary for both the child and the teacher to know what these understandings are in order to take, and to support, next steps in learning. The recent work of researchers has initiated significant developments in our understanding of the processes of formative assessment and how this might be used to support teaching and learning. Ideas that have developed from this work as well as the teaching and learning strategies that they underpin will be addressed in the programme.

It is also important for teachers and children to know what it is they are trying to achieve and this requires an understanding of criteria for achievement. Approaches to criterion-based assessment will therefore also be addressed within the programme.

Lecture 25

Theme: Professional Development of the Teacher. In-service training programme for the pedagogic staff of the RK (continued)

Plan

7. Using ICT in teaching and learning

8. Teaching talented and gifted children

9. Responding to age related differences in children in teaching and learning

10. The management and leadership of learning

11. Action Research

12.Lesson Study