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31st October 2011

Assessment for Learning

in Practice

Alison Smith & Amanda Lightfoot Larks Hill Junior & Infant School

Pontefract Education Trust

INSET day

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Today’s programme:

What is Assessment for Learning?

What is good Assessment for Learning?

Some examples of A4L.

Comment only marking.

Peer marking.

Questioning and group work.

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What is Assessment for

Learning?

“The process teachers and learners use to

decide:

where learners are in their learning

where they need to go

how best to get there.”

Paul Black Co-author of “Inside the Black Box.”, “Working inside the

Black Box.” and “ Assessment for Learning: Putting it into Practice.”

Why Assessment for Learning?

Raises attainment and ensures maximum

progression

Engages children

Children become active learners in their lessons

It recognises the achievements of all children

Assessment for learning takes account of how

children learn (VAK)

Assessment for learning motivates learners

Promotes good behaviour

Is a vehicle for evaluative and next steps learning.

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So is Assessment for Learning

just another fashionable phrase

or…

Something we do already to different

degrees but which we can use to

improve our pupils’ learning and maybe

even help us to work smarter not

harder?

Classroom techniques

Sharing objectives

Success Criteria

Modelling (share levelled work/ask the children to level)

Questioning techniques

Classroom environments –learning walls

Photos/visual aids

Plenaries and mini-plenaries

Marking – comment based,. With responses

Self and peer assessment

Target setting and ‘next steps’ learning.

Share your objective, it should be evident

throughout the lesson so children can refer

back to it, especially during a plenary.

A whole school approach e.g. L.I or

W.A.L.T

The learning objective should be

precise and measureable

For example an UFS objective maybe:

To be able to count reliably a set of

random objects to 10

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Success Criteria

Are a brilliant way of breaking the children’s

learning objectives into steps

•Count one by one

•Move each one as you count

•Put them in a line

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Your first task:

Today it’s Katie’s Birthday.

She’s baked some cookies. We’d like to know what you think.

What would the Objective be?

Please take one....

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Criteria:

Taste:

Appearance:

Texture:

Now…..

What if I said that

Katie was only

four years old?....

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New criteria:

What would change

in your judgement?

Taste:

Appearance:

Texture:

What would you do

to improve them?

What would her

next steps for

learning be?

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Target setting

There is little value in simply setting targets.

Paul Black, one of the current experts in the field says that target setting doesn’t necessarily raise standards. It is what we do to help them attain their targets which counts:

According to research there a 4 things which help us do this:

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Formative assessment

Comment-only marking, with responses

Peer marking

Questioning and dialogue in class.

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Questioning enables

us to get pupils to do

more of the thinking

and makes the

learning process more

transparent for them.

Why use effective questioning? to assess what pupils know, understand and

can do

Is 13 odd or even?

‘Err...Yes, I think so’ or ‘No it’s not.’

Why is 13 an odd number?

Effective questioning

Techniques.

Analysing pupil responses to reveal their

misconceptions

‘its got a 1 in it’

‘it ends in 3’ ‘because the units digit is 3 and odd

numbers have a units digit of 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9’ It’s an odd number because when you divide

13 by 2 there is one left over’

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Give everyone a chance

to think.

Hands down!

Lollipop sticks

Mini white boards.

Pick a number / loto.

Beanbags/ball

Numbered seats.

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Promote Group Work

Discussing answers to

encourage learning e.g.

Table Talk or Talking

partners.

Re-explaining = rethinking,

revisiting, reprocessing, re-

presenting and re-enforcing

learning and understanding

Marking

Creating a teacher/pupil dialogue in

books has been an invaluable resource

for assessment for our learners.

This dialogue is a very powerful tool and

the responses can be surprising.

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STOP! Do you really need to correct

EVERY mistake in pupils’

books?

Do you re-mark tasks which

pupils have marked under

your instruction in class?

Must you really correct all

the mistakes in a task with

more than one focus?

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Did you need to phone a friend for the

answers to those? The answer to them all is-

NO

Correcting repeated mistakes.

Checking through tasks group-marked in

class.

Short answered tasks.

Focused marking.

Patch marking -‘flag pole’

Remember the adage, “Work smarter not

harder”. Mark fewer, more relevant tasks

but mark them “smarter.”

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Comment-only marking – see book marks

Use of purple pen for general marking

High-lighting objectives or key words etc. in ‘Yippee Yellow’

Where a learning objective has not been met this is highlighted using ‘Green for Growth’ –learners are then given an opportunity to respond/correct misconceptions.

For a positive response

Highlight a correction/area of error

VF Verbal Feedback

TP Team Point

X These are appropriate, but avoid pages of them

In green pen Learners have the opportunity to respond to marking

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Peer marking Peer marking and self-assessment have

an essential role

Key elements are: Using criteria to forward their own

learning.

Engaging and involving pupils in their learning.

Demonstrating examples of good work. ( Did I hear someone say “modelling?)

Modelling

At the start of the

lesson show a piece of

pupils’ work on the IWB.

This could be a test,

question, or photo

Use levelled work to

show the children the

differences between a

level 4 and 5 response

for instance

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Peer marking in practice.

Pupils are regularly involved in the

peer marking of tasks.

This can save valuable time but,

even more important, when

correctly led it can reinforce

learning.

Self assessment

Encourage the

children to write their

own comments about

the work- this is

brilliant as part of the

plenary.

What would you do

differently?

For example: Two

Stars and a wish.

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Plenary: AfL needs to be integrated into our planning and is

not just a “ bolt-on”.

Questioning and dialogue should be implicit.

It involves sharing objectives and setting success criteria with pupils, so they can recognise the standards they are aiming for.

It enables pupils to take responsibility for their learning through the use of peer and self-assessment.

It provides feedback which offers specific advice on what needs to be done to improve.

It provides pupils with the opportunity to improve by acting on the feedback given.

It relies on and reinforces the belief that every learner can maximise their progress

Useful websites

AfL Northern Ireland:

http://www.neelb.org.uk/teachers/cass/ddgp-elearning/assessment-for-learning/support-materials/

Everything on this one is great!

Geoff Barton:

http://www.geoffbarton.co.uk/teacher-resources.php