AAIA Annual Conference 2010

AfL – A mid-life crisis?

Gordon StobartEmeritus Professor of Education, Institute of

Education, University of LondonProfessor of Education, University of Bristol

g.stobart@ioe.ac.uk

Assessment for Learning

Assessment for Learning is 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. Assessment Reform Group (2002)

Quality AfL keeps learning principles central – the spirit – ‘high organisation based on ideas’.

AfL: Taking stock after 10+ years

• Wide international recognition • Importance of informal classroom assessment• Focus on learners and learning• Embedded in policy – UK and beyond – with

varying degrees of fidelity• England’s policy appropriation problematic

Where’s Nelly? How will assessment policy change?

DEFINING LEARNING

‘A significant change in capability or understanding’This excludes: the acquisition of further information when it does not contribute to such changes. Michael Eraut

Deep Learning Approach Surface Learning Approach

An intention to develop personal understanding

An intention to be able to reproduce content as required

Active interaction with content, particularly relating new ideas to

previous knowledge and experience

Passive acceptance of ideas and information

Linking ideas together using integrating principles

Lack of recognition of guiding principles and patterns

Relating evidence to conclusions Focusing learning on assessment requirementsWynne Harlen & Mary James

Developing assessment for lifelong learning – its double duty

Assessment activities ‘have to focus on the immediate task and on implications for equipping students for lifelong learning in an unknown future...they must attend to both the process and substantive content domain’ (Boud, 2002).

Aligning assessment and learning

What forms of classroom assessment will help effective classroom learning?

i. Builds on what we know – assessment that finds out where learners are in their learning (questioning, dialogue, analysis of what is known, of mistakes and misconceptions)

ii. Makes meaning - ‘makes sense’- makes clear the learning intentions, recognises success (modelling; exemplars)

iii. Is active and social – learners take part in their own assessment; importance of classroom interaction (feedback); development of autonomous learners.

Two English lessons: activitiesLetter Year 8 Lesson A: pre-twentieth century short storyTeacher models criteria to be used for peer assessment by asking

pupils to correct technical errors in text prepared by teacherPupils correct textTeacher checks answers with whole classPupils correct each others’ work Spirit Year 8 Lesson B: pre-twentieth century poemClass draw up list of criteria guided by teacherTeacher and classroom assistant perform poemPupils asked to critique performancePupils rehearse performancePupils peer assess poems based on criteriaPupils perform poems based on criteria

Spirit or letter? Learning intentions and success criteria

The school policy is that every lesson has a measurable outcome and that these should be measurable within the lesson by both the teacher and the student.

Lesson on Richard III with Y9. The students watched a scene from a film version of the play, the teacher then explained the key events.

The learning outcomes were:I will be able to identify the key events in the meeting between Richard and Lady Anne (level 4)I will be able to identify the techniques Richard uses to persuade Lady Anne (level 5)I will be able to identify how Richard uses emotive vocabulary to persuade Lady Anne (level 6) (McKeown)

Spirit or letter? The AfL StrategyGood assessment for learning makes:• an accurate assessment – knowing what the standards are,

judging pupils’ work correctly, and making accurate assessments linked to National Curriculum levels;

• a reliable assessment – ensuring that judgements are consistent and based on a range of evidence;

School self-evaluation – most developed phase enhancing:• A shared understanding of AfL continues to become ever

more insightful• All staff and pupils reflect critically about the ways of working

and ‘think outside the box’ if necessary i.e. flex & change through learning from others to take intelligent informed risks

...and APP?• The main purpose of APP is to standardise

teachers’ assessment – the ‘periodic’ use of assessment. A legitimate summative purpose

• Its AfL claims are more problematic:‘The pilot is underpinned by robust assessment for learning, with teachers rigorously monitoring all pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics throughout the year, using APP assessment criteria’ (AfL Strategy)

Signs of a mid-life crisis?

When processes become ritualised (learning objectives)

When the quantitative replaces the qualitative (where the learners are in their learning = tracking)

When practices are used but not understood (feedback)

When learner autonomy becomes procedural autonomy rather than personal autonomy

Back to fundamentals : The role of learning intentions and success criteria (1)

Clear learning intentions- the teacher is clear about what is being learned (progression in learning)- what we will be learning rather than what we will be doing- ‘tuning in’ – setting the scene (why we are learning this), explaining the situation, linking to what is known, unfamiliar words & phrases explained - cognitive challenge: a problem to be solved: ‘The teacher presents the pupils with a situation which they cannot tackle with their existing cognitive structure ‘ (Standards Site)

Back to fundamentals: Learning intentions and success criteria (2)

Negotiate. AfL is best served when there is dialogue about what is being learned, why it’s being learned and what successful learning would look like.

Apply the Goldilocks principle. Learning intentions have to be not too general, not too detailed (‘criteria compliance’) but ‘just right’.

Adjust the timing. Beginning every lesson with them is dulling & unproductive. Role of ‘cognitive challenge’, surprises and problem solving?

...and how best to get there. Feedback

‘Provides information which allows the learner to close the gap between current and desired performance’

It is most effective when:• It is effectively timed;• It is clearly linked to the learning intention;• The learner understands the success criteria/standard;• It focuses on the TASK rather than the learner (self/ego);• It gives cues at appropriate levels on how to bridge the

gap: the task/process/self-regulation loop;• It offers strategies rather than solutions; • It challenges, requires action, and is achievable.

Failing the Double Duty: Grades rather than knowledge or skills

In the process of qualification…the pupil is concerned not with mastery, but with being certified as having mastered. The knowledge that he gains, he gains not for its own sake and not for constant use in a real life situation – but for the once-for-all purpose of reproducing it in an examination.

The Diploma Disease Ronald Dore 1997

Hanson’s fabricating process of testsBecause tests act as gatekeepers to many educational and training programs…the likelihood that someone will be able to do something, as determined by the tests, becomes more important than one’s actually doing it.

Strengthening assessment’s double dutyHow can we improve test dependability?1. Make explicit the purpose and learning demand.

It is the aims of the course, rather than its content, that should determine the purpose and form of its assessment. Learning demand taxonomies – Bloom, SOLO

2. Keep it as authentic as possibleProduce a ‘systemically valid’ test:One that induces in the education system curricular and instructional changes that foster the development of the cognitive skills that the test is designed to measure. (Frederiksen and Collins 1989, p.27)

Dependability: The one- handed clock

Learning for Life

Focus on the double duty of assessment, in which assessment activities ‘have to focus on the immediate task and on implications for equipping students for lifelong learning in an unknown future...they must attend to both the process and substantive content domain’ (Boud,2002).