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Assessment for Learning

Where is it Now?

Where is it Going?

Paul BlackDepartment of Education

King’s College London

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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 ?

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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 ?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Implementation: Questioning

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

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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

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Implementation: How it’s done Feedback on Written Work

Comment-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.

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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

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Implementation: How it’s done Self- 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

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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

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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 ?

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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.

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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)

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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 ?

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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TOTALS 67 215

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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 ?

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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)

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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

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Old wine in new bottles ? A theory ?

Tools

Subject Object ————> Outcomes

Rules Community Division of labor

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The Triangle

ASSESSMENT

Pedagogycurriculum

Learning

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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