In 1999, the ARG produced a paper focused on developments in assessment practices in schools. There was a feeling that assessment had been largely overlooked while thinking and practice in relation to teaching and learning had made some moves forward.
Assessment for learning = “the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there” (ARG, 2002).
The ARG offered 10 principles for what it called Assessment for Learning (AfL):
1. AfL is part of effective planning
2. Focuses on how pupils learn
3. Is central to classroom practice
4. Is a key professional skill
5. Is sensitive and constructive
6. Fosters motivation
7. Promotes understanding of goals and criteria
8. Helps learners know how to improve
9. Develop the capacity for self (and peer) assessment
10. Recognises all educational achievement
There’s nothing really earth-shattering here. The paper is quite old, and it is my experience and the experience of those who still teach in schools that this view of assessment has been very much embedded in school practice for around a decade. For example, school observation of lessons for performance management purposes will look for examples of students being made aware of their current level of performance, what their developmental goals for a lesson are, and the criteria by which they can judge whether they have been met or not.
Because of this, I’ve reflected on the application of the contents of this document with reference to some of the work-based training courses for family support practitioners that I facilitate.
In the paper, the ARG state that research offers us 5 areas where assessment promotes learning:
ARG also gives us five barriers to implementation of assessment of this nature in schools included:
· A tendency to assess quantity and presentation over quality of learning
· Marking tends to lower the self-esteem of learners and is lacking in specific advice for improvement
· Feedback serves social and managerial processes rather than helping learning
· Teachers not knowing enough about individual learners’ needs
· There’s a strong emphasis on comparing learners, which risks demoralising them
As I said, I’ve been thinking about my own role in facilitating a course in a couple of months’ time. ARG conceptualises the role of the teacher within assessment as having two key functions:
1) Gathering information on students’ learning (including observing, listening, questioning and setting specific tasks), and
2) Encouraging review: getting learners to communicate their thinking, through drawings, artefacts, actions, role-play, concept mapping and writing), and discussing the meaning of words
How does this inform my forthcoming practice? I won’t know the participants until the first day of the two-day course, and therefore not a great deal about their individual needs. I won’t really know much about their context either. The training is skills-based. The training is not assessed in a formal / summative sense, so in this case, any assessment I introduce, I have the luxury over in design. I expect I’ll revisit this in future blogs on this topic (as the block run parallel to my preparation time). At the moment, I have the bullet points.
· Explore the context
· ID their development needs
· Co-construct goals
· Help them to define success criteria
· Give them practice at assessing and giving feedback
· Model effective feedback
· Recognise achievement
References:
Assessment Reform Group (ARG) (1999) Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box [online],http://assessmentreformgroup.files.wordpress.com/ 2012/ 01/ beyond_blackbox.pdf