NIACE Annual Disability Conference

London: 29 September 2008

3rd Tomlinson Memorial Lecture: Assessment for learning: why it matters for all students

Dylan WiliamInstitute of Education, University of London

www.dylanwiliam.net

Raising achievement matters…For individuals Improved control over one’s life Increased lifetime salary Improved healthLonger life

For society Improved ‘pro-social’ behaviour (e.g., participation in democracy)Lower criminal justice costsLower health-care costs Increased economic growth

Which of the following categories of skill is disappearing from the work-place most rapidly?

1. Routine manual

2. Non-routine manual

3. Routine cognitive

4. Complex communication

5. Expert thinking/problem-solving

…but what is learned matters too…

Autor, Levy & Murnane, 2003

…more now than ever

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1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

Dropout

HS Diploma

Some College

BA/BSc

Prof Degree

There is only one 21st century skill

So the model that says learn while you’re at school, while you’re young, the skills that you will apply during your lifetime is no longer tenable. The skills that you can learn when you’re at school will not be applicable. They will be obsolete by the time you get into the workplace and need them, except for one skill. The one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to learn. It is the skill of being able not to give the right answer to questions about what you were taught in school, but to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they’re faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared. (Papert, 1998)

Preparation for future learning (PFL)Cannot be taught in isolation from other learning

Students still need the basic skills of literacy, numeracy, concepts and facts

Learning power is developed primarily through pedagogy, not curriculum

We have to change the way teachers teach, not what they teach

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Teachers make a differenceStudents taught by the

best teacher in a group of 50 learn in 6 months what students taught by the average teacher take a year to learn

For students taught by the least effective teacher in a group of 50, the same learning will take two years

…but more for some than others

Achievement gaps

Disadvantaged background (mother’s education)

Poor behavior

Teacher’s provision of instructional support

High No (good)Average No (good)Low Yes (bad)

High Yes (bad)Average Yes (bad)Low Yes (bad)

Teacher’s provision of emotional support

High Yes (bad)Average Yes (bad)Low Yes (bad)

High No (good)Average Yes (bad)Low Yes (bad)

Impact of teacher quality on student outcomes (Hamre & Pianta, 2005))

20-25%Total “explained” difference

<5%Further professional qualifications (MA, NBPTS)

10-15%Pedagogical content knowledge

<5%Advanced content matter knowledge

The ‘dark matter’ of teacher qualityTeachers make a differenceBut what makes the difference in teachers?

Learning power environmentsKey concept:Teachers do not create learningLearners create learning

Teaching is the engineering of effective learning environments

Key features of learning power environments:Create student engagement (pedagogies of engagement)Well-regulated (pedagogies of contingency)

Why pedagogies of engagement?Intelligence is partly inheritedSo what?

Intelligence is partly environmentalEnvironment creates intelligence Intelligence creates environment

Learning environmentsHigh cognitive demand InclusiveObligatory

Motivation: cause or effect?

competence

challenge

Flow

apathyboredom

relaxation

arousal

anxiety

worry control

high

low

low high

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

How do students make sense of this?Attribution (Dweck, 2000)Personalization (internal v external)Permanence (stable v unstable)Essential that students attribute both failures and success to internal,

unstable causes. (It’s down to you, and you can do something about it.)

Views of ‘ability’Fixed (IQ) Incremental (untapped potential)Essential that teachers inculcate in their students a view that ‘ability’ is

incremental rather than fixed(by working, you’re getting smarter)

Prediction is hard, especially about the future…

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≤3 3.3 3.7 4 >4

Average KS2 score

Progression from KS2 to GCSE

A*

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

U

Source: Autumn package (2001), DfES

Why pedagogies of contingency?Several major reviews of the research…Natriello (1987)Crooks (1988)Kluger & DeNisi (1996)Black & Wiliam (1998)Nyquist (2003)

… all find consistent, substantial effects

The AfL hi-jack continues…Long-cycleSpan: across units, termsLength: four weeks to one year

Medium-cycleSpan: within and between teaching unitsLength: one to four weeks

Short-cycleSpan: within and between lessonsLength:

day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours

Unpacking formative assessmentKey processesEstablishing where the learners are in their learningEstablishing where they are goingWorking out how to get there

ParticipantsTeachersPeersLearners

Aspects of formative assessment

Where the learner is going

Where the learner is How to get there

TeacherClarify and share

learning intentions

Engineering effective discussions, tasks and

activities that elicit evidence of learning

Providing feedback that moves learners

forward

PeerUnderstand and share learning

intentions

Activating students as learningresources for one another

LearnerUnderstand

learning intentionsActivating students as owners

of their own learning

Five “key strategies”…Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentionscurriculum philosophy

Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learningclassroom discourse, interactive whole-class teaching

Providing feedback that moves learners forward feedback

Activating students as learning resources for one another collaborative learning, reciprocal teaching, peer-assessment

Activating students as owners of their own learningmetacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment

(Wiliam & Thompson, 2007)

…and one big ideaUse evidence about learning to adapt teaching and learning to meet student needs

Practical techniques: eliciting evidenceKey idea: questioning shouldcause thinkingprovide data that informs teachingGetting away from I-R-Ebasketball rather than serial table-tennis ‘No hands up’ (except to ask a question)class polls to review current attitudes towards an issue ‘Hot Seat’ questioningAll-student response systemsABCD cards, Mini white-boards, Exit passes

Practical techniques: feedbackKey idea: feedback should

cause thinking provide guidance on how to improve

Comment-only marking

Focused marking

Explicit reference to scoring guides and mark schemes

Suggestions on how to improve Not giving complete solutions

Re-timing assessment (eg three-quarters-of-the-way-through-a-unit test)

Practical techniques: sharing learning intentionsExplaining learning intentions at start of lesson/unitLearning intentionsSuccess criteriaIntentions/criteria in students’ languagePosters of key words to talk about learninge.g., describe, explain, evaluatePlanning/writing framesAnnotated examples of different standards to ‘flesh out’ mark schemes (e.g. lab reports)Opportunities for students to design their own mark-schemes and tests

Practical techniques: activating studentsStudents assessing their own/peers’ work with scoring guideswith exemplars“two stars and a wish”

Training students to pose questions/identifying group weaknesses

Self-assessment of understandingTraffic lightsRed/green discs

End-of-lesson students’ review

Putting it into practice

Implementing AfL requires changing teacher habitsTeachers “know” most of this already

So the problem is not a lack of knowledge

It’s a lack of understanding what it means to do AfL

That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t work

Experience alone is not enough—if it were, then the most experienced teachers would be the best teachers—we know that’s not true (Hanushek, 2005; Day, 2006)

People need to reflect on their experiences in systematic ways that build their accessible knowledge base, learn from mistakes, etc. (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999)

Teacher learning takes timeTo put new knowledge to work, to make it meaningful and accessible when you need it, requires practice.A teacher doesn’t come at this as a blank slate. Not only do teachers have their current habits and ways of teaching—

they’ve lived inside the old culture of classrooms all their lives: every teacher started out as a student!

New knowledge doesn’t just have to get learned and practiced, it has to go up against long-established, familiar, comfortable ways of doing things that may not be as effective, but fit within everyone’s expectations of how a classroom should work.

It takes time and practice to undo old habits and become graceful at new ones. Thus… Professional development must be sustained over time

A model for teacher learningContent, then process

Content (what we want teachers to change)Evidence Ideas (strategies and techniques)Process (how to go about change)ChoiceFlexibilitySmall stepsAccountabilitySupport

Design and interventionOur design process

Teachers’ implementation process

cognitive/affectiveinsights

synergy/comprehensiveness

set ofcomponents

set ofcomponents

synergy/comprehensiveness

cognitive/affectiveinsights

SummaryLearning power is developed more by how—than by what—we teach

Teaching is the engineering of effective learning environments

Effective learning environments involvePedagogies of engagementPedagogies of contingency

Personalisation Mass customization (rather than mass production or individualisation)

Diversity A valuable teaching resource (rather than a challenge to be minimized)

Assessment is the bridge between teaching and learning, and thus the central process of teaching (as opposed to lecturing).