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    Assessment For Learning Assessment As Learning Changing Practices Means Changing Beliefs

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    The document discusses assessment for learning and assessment as learning. It defines assessment for learning as using formative assessment to promote student achievement by focusing on important subjects, giving students practice, and guiding further instruction. Assessment as learning emphasizes using assessment to develop student metacognition so students can self-monitor their learning. While some teachers say they do these, their practices may not fully reflect the principles. Incorporating these assessment approaches requires teachers to fundamentally shift their thinking about the purpose of assessment and nature of learning. The primary aim is formative - to contribute to student learning - rather than summative grading. Both require teachers to adapt their practices and develop new skills focused on using evidence to continually adapt instruction to meet student learning goals

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    Assessment For Learning Assessment As Learning Changing Practices Means Changing Beliefs

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    Jordan Zimmerman
    98 views5 pages
    The document discusses assessment for learning and assessment as learning. It defines assessment for learning as using formative assessment to promote student achievement by focusing on important subjects, giving students practice, and guiding further instruction. Assessment as learning emphasizes using assessment to develop student metacognition so students can self-monitor their learning. While some teachers say they do these, their practices may not fully reflect the principles. Incorporating these assessment approaches requires teachers to fundamentally shift their thinking about the purpose of assessment and nature of learning. The primary aim is formative - to contribute to student learning - rather than summative grading. Both require teachers to adapt their practices and develop new skills focused on using evidence to continually adapt instruction to meet student learning goals

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    Assessment For Learning; Assessment As Learning Changing Practices Means Changing Beliefs

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    The document discusses assessment for learning and assessment as learning. It defines assessment for learning as using formative assessment to promote student achievement by focusing on important subjects, giving students practice, and guiding further instruction. Assessment as learning emphasizes using assessment to develop student metacognition so students can self-monitor their learning. While some teachers say they do these, their practices may not fully reflect the principles. Incorporating these assessment approaches requires teachers to fundamentally shift their thinking about the purpose of assessment and nature of learning. The primary aim is formative - to contribute to student learning - rather than summative grading. Both require teachers to adapt their practices and develop new skills focused on using evidence to continually adapt instruction to meet student learning goals

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    98 views5 pages

    Assessment For Learning Assessment As Learning Changing Practices Means Changing Beliefs

    Uploaded by

    Jordan Zimmerman
    The document discusses assessment for learning and assessment as learning. It defines assessment for learning as using formative assessment to promote student achievement by focusing on important subjects, giving students practice, and guiding further instruction. Assessment as learning emphasizes using assessment to develop student metacognition so students can self-monitor their learning. While some teachers say they do these, their practices may not fully reflect the principles. Incorporating these assessment approaches requires teachers to fundamentally shift their thinking about the purpose of assessment and nature of learning. The primary aim is formative - to contribute to student learning - rather than summative grading. Both require teachers to adapt their practices and develop new skills focused on using evidence to continually adapt instruction to meet student learning goals

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    Assessment and Learning Issue 2

    Assessment For Learning; Assessment As Learning:


    Changing Practices Means Changing Beliefs

    Lorna M. Earl
    Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
    and The University of Auckland

    As in many countries around the world, Hong Kong educational leaders are
    reviewing and rethinking its assessment practices. They are exploring on-line
    assessment platforms as well as building teachers’ assessment literacy and
    working to enhance the feedback provided to teachers and students in the
    teaching, learning and assessment cycle. Assessment for learning and
    assessment as learning are new concepts that have entered the conversation. As
    with any new ideas, there is some confusion and multiple interpretations of
    what these phrases mean and what they look like in practice. In this short
    article, I hope to clear some of the confusion and provide some insights about
    how assessment for and assessment as learning work in classrooms.

    The idea of assessment for learning arose out of a 1998 landmark research
    paper by Black and Wiliam in which they synthesized over 250 studies linking
    assessment and learning and found that the intentional use of assessment in the
    classroom to promote learning improved student achievement. 1 This
    meta-analysis supported previous research showing that classroom assessment
    had both short- and long-term effects on learning.2

    In the short term, it showed that classroom assessment could:

     focus attention on important aspects of the subject;

    1 Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom
    assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 80 (2).

    2 Crooks, T. (1988). The impact of classroom evaluation practices on students. Review of


    Educational Research, 58(4), 438-481.
    1
    評估與學習 第2期

     give students opportunities to practice skills and consolidate learning;

     guide further instructional or learning activities.

    In the medium and long term, assessment held the possibility of:

     influencing students’ motivation as learners and their perceptions of


    their capabilities;

     communicating and reinforcing teaching goals, including performance


    criteria and desired standards of performance;

     influencing students’ choice of and development of learning strategies,


    skills, and study patterns;

     influencing students’ subsequent choice of courses, activities, and


    careers.

    Since that time, it has become obvious that assessment can be a powerful
    catalyst for learning.

    Recent reviews of more than 4,000 research investigations show clearly


    that when [formative assessment] is well implemented in the classroom,
    it can essentially double the speed of student learning… it is clear that
    the process works, it can produce whopping gains in students’
    achievement, and it is sufficiently robust so that different teachers can
    use it in diverse ways, yet still get great results with their students. 3

    Assessment for learning shifts the emphasis from summative to formative


    assessment, from making judgments to creating descriptions that can be used in
    the service of the next stage of learning. When they are doing assessment for
    learning teachers collect a wide range of data for a different purpose – so that
    they can modify the learning work for their students. They craft assessment
    tasks that open a window on what students know and can do already and use the
    insights that come from the process to design the next steps in instruction. To do

    3 Popham, J. (2011). Formative assessment – A process, not a test. Education Week,


    February 2011. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/23/21popham.h30.html?t
    2
    Assessment and Learning Issue 2

    this, teachers use observation, worksheets, questioning in class, student-teacher


    conferences or whatever mechanism is likely to give them information that will
    be useful for their planning and their teaching. Considering student work is not
    designed to assign marks and make comparative judgments among the students
    but to highlight each student's understanding and thinking and provide students
    with feedback that will further their learning. Assessment for learning happens
    in the middle of learning, often more than once, not at the end. It is interactive,
    with teachers providing assistance as part of the assessment. It helps teachers
    provide the feedback to scaffold next steps. And it depends on teachers'
    diagnostic skills to make it work.

    When I wrote the book Assessment As Learning: Using Classroom


    Assessment to Maximize Student Learning 4 , I introduced the notion of
    assessment as learning, a subset of assessment for learning that emphasizes
    using assessment as a process of developing and supporting meta-cognition for
    students. Assessment as learning focuses on the role of the student as the critical
    connector between assessment and their own learning. Students, acting as active
    critical thinkers, make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and
    use it to construct new learning. This is the regulatory process in meta-cognition.
    It occurs when students personally monitor what they are learning and use the
    feedback from this monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations, and even
    major changes in what they understand (p. 47).

    Although many teachers would say that they do assessment for and
    assessment as learning there is considerable evidence that their assessment
    practice does not really reflect the intentions and principles that make
    assessment for and assessment as learning powerful5. I have come to believe

    4 Earl, L. (2003, 2013). Assessment as learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize


    student learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

    5 James, M., McCormick, R., Black, P., Carmichael, P., Drummond, M.J., Fox, A., MacBeath,
    J., Marshall, B., Pedder, D., Procter, R., Swaffield, S., Swann, J., and Wiliam, D. (2007).
    Improving learning how to learn – Classrooms, schools and networks. Abingdon:
    Routledge.
    3
    評估與學習 第2期

    that “conceptual change” is at the heart of professional learning if it is to go


    beyond tinkering with practice. The theories of assessment as learning
    potentially conflict with teachers’ previous conceptions of the purpose of
    assessment and even their theories of teaching. These shifts challenge some
    long-standing and deeply held beliefs about what schooling is for and why
    teachers should collect information about how students are thinking and
    learning. Because assessment as learning is a different way of thinking about
    assessment, it is unlikely that many teachers will be able to just assimilate it into
    their practice. Incorporating assessment for and assessment as learning into
    practice requires a fundamental shift in the way teachers think about the nature
    of learning and the rhythm of interactions in classrooms.

    The primary aim of assessment for and assessment as learning is not


    summative, for grading or reporting; it is formative, to contribute to students’
    learning. That means assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning and
    teachers have the responsibility for identifying aspects of learning as it is
    developing, using both informal and formal processes, so that they, and the
    students can decide what to do next to enhance the learning. Assessment as
    learning, in particular, is founded on a belief that for students to become
    self-motivating and able to bring their talents and knowledge to bear on the
    decisions and problems that make up their lives, can't just wait for the teacher
    (or politicians, or salespeople, or religious leaders) to tell them whether or not
    the answer is "right". Effective assessment empowers students to ask
    reflective questions and consider a range of strategies for learning and for acting.
    Over time, students move forward in their learning when they can use personal
    knowledge to construct meaning, have skills of self-monitoring to realize that
    they don't understand something and have ways of deciding what to do to next.

    Like their students, teachers need to examine their mental models, rethink
    their practices and develop new skills so that they are comfortable making
    moment-by-moment decisions on the basis of considered evidence and
    argument, with student learning as the goal. They need to become adaptive
    experts who use many effective strategies for teaching, learning and assessment
    but also have high levels of flexibility that allow them to innovate when
    4
    Assessment and Learning Issue 2

    routines are not enough, in order to ascertain when students are not learning,
    know where to go next, and adapt resources and strategies to assist students to
    meet worthwhile learning goals 6.

    Understanding the power of assessment for and assessment as learning and


    changing assessment practices mean hard new learning for teachers because the
    shifts require fundamental rethinking of their current beliefs and their existing
    practice. But, the results are worth it.

    Author’s e-mail: [email protected]

    6 Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to


    achievement. London, England: Routledge.
    5

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