Assessment of and for learning

Assessment for and of learning.

Zhidekhanova Sandugash, a teacher of English,

secondary school-gymnasium №21 with trilingual education

Today the educational system in Kazakhstan is presented by three languages: Kazakh, Russian and English.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev once again emphasized the importance of trilingual education in schools.

  “As you know I have already spoken in favour of trilingualism. Any Kazakh student must be able to speak three languages: Kazakh as state language, Russian as language for everyday communication and English. Ability to speak more foreign languages is a plus,” President told school pupils on 3 September during an interactive lesson.

At school we always check and assess students knowledge. Here I want to use the quotation of Stiggins.R: “you can enhance or destroy students` desire to succeed in school more quickly and permanently through your use of assessment than with any other tools you have at your disposal.”

Firstly let’s stop at the meaning of the word ‘assessment’ and its importance.

1. Formative and summative

2. Making observations:

3. Interpreting the evidence

4. Making judgments that can be used for decisions about actions.

A distinction between formative and summative assessment has been familiar since the 1960salthough the meaning of these two terms has not been well understood. Both forms of assessment are necessary in any education system. Assessment of learning is necessary for grading and reporting and assessment for learning is a necessary part of the teaching process which promotes pupils` learning. If the purpose of assessment is to summarize the learning that has taken place in order to grade, certificate or record progress, then the assessment is summative in function, sometimes referred to as assessment of learning. When summative assessment is used for making decisions that affect the status of future of students, teacher or school (that is “high stakes”), the demand for reliability of measure often means the tests are used in order closely to control the nature of the information and conditions in which it is collected. If the purpose is to help in decisions how to advance learning and the judgement is about the next steps in learning and how to take them, then the assessment is formative in function, sometimes referred to as Assessment for Learning (AfL).

The nature of assessment.

It is no accident that the word “assessment” comes from a Latin word meaning “to sit beside” because a central feature of assessment is the close observation of what one person says or does by another, or, in the case of self-assessment, reflection on one`s own knowledge, understanding or behavior. This is true of the whole spectrum of assessments, from formal tests and examinations to informal assessments made by teachers in their classrooms many hundred times each day. Although the form that assessments take may be very different – some may be pencil and paper tests whilst others may be based on questioning in normal classroom interactions – all assessments have some common characteristics.

They all involve:

i)Making observations:

ii) interpreting the evidence

iii) making judgments that can be used for decisions about actions.

i) observation

In order to carry out assessment, it is necessary to find out what pupils know and can do or the difficulties they are experiencing. Observation of classroom activity, such as listening to talk, watching pupils engaged in tasks, or reviewing the products of their class work and homework, may provide the information needed, but on other occasions it may be necessary to elicit the information needed in a very deliberate and specific way. A task or test might serve this purpose but a carefully chosen oral question can be just as effective. Pupils responses to tasks or questions then need to be interpreted. In other words, the assessor needs to work out what the evidence means.

ii) interpretation.

Interpretations are made with reference to what is of interest such as specific skills, attitudes or different kinds of knowledge. These are often referred to as criteria and relate to learning goals or objectives. Usually observations as part of assessment are made with these criteria in mind, i.e. formulated beforehand, but sometimes teachers observe unplanned interactions or outcomes and apply criteria retrospectively. Interpretations can describe or attempt to explain a behavior, or they can infer from a behavior, e.g. what a child says, that something is going on inside a child`s head e.g. thinking. For this reason interpretations are sometimes called inferences.

iii) Judgement

On the basis of these interpretations of evidence, judgments are made. These involve of evaluations. It is at this point that the assessment process looks rather different according to the different purposes it is expected to serve and the uses to which the information will be put.

Assessment of learning

In contrast to assessment for learning, the main purpose of assessment of learning is to sum up what a pupil has learned at a given point. As such it is not designed to contribute directly to future learning although high-stakes testing can have a powerful negative impact (Assessment Reform Group,2002b). In assessment of learning judgement will explicitly compare a pupil`s performance with an agreed standard or with the standards achieved by a group of pupils of, say, the same age. The judgement may then be in the form of “has/hasn`t” met the standard or more usually, on a scale represented as scores or levels. These are symbolic shorthand for the criteria and standards that underpin them. Representation in this concise, b ut sometimes cryptic, way is convenient when there is a need to report to other people such as parents, receiving teachers at transition points, and managers interested in monitoring the system at school, local and national level. Reporting, selection amd monitoring are therefore prominent uses of this kind of assessment information.

Assessment for learning.

In Afl, observations, interpretations and criteria may be similar to those employed in assessment of learning, but the nature of judgement and decisions that flow from them will be different. In essence, Afl focuses on what is revealed about where children are in their learning, especially the nature of, and reasons for, the strengths and weaknesses they exhibit. Afl judgements are therefore concerned with what they might do to move forward. The Assessment Reform Group (2002) gave this definition of 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.

One significant element of this definition is the emphasis on learners` use of evidence. This draws attention to the fact that teachers are not the only assessors. Pupils can be involved in peer- and self-assessment and, even when teachers are heavily involved pupils need to be actively engaged. Only learners can do the learning so they need to act upon information and feedback if their learning is to improve. This requires them to have understanding but also the motivation and will to act. The implications for teaching and learning practices are profound and far-reaching.

The formative use of summative data.

Scores and levels, especially when aggregated across groups of pupils, are often referred to as “data” although any information, systematically collected, can be referred to in this way. Aggregated summative data are useful for identifying patterns of performance and alerting teachers to groups that are performing above or below expectations. International studies such as the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) purport to collect data from purport to collect data from participating countries into how far students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills essential for full participation in society. However, it is important to find out more about how data are collected and test out any inferences being drawn.

Schools also collect data to try to discover the reasons for these patterns in order to plan what to do. Similarly, at the level of the individual pupil, summative judgements are helpful in indicating levels of achievement and, by implication, the next levels that need to be aimed for if learners are to make progress. However, scores and levels need to be studied more deeply to reveal the evidence and criteria they refer to if they are to make any contribution to helping pupils. For example, telling a child that he has achieved a particular grade will not help him to know what to do to achieve a better, although exploring with him the features of his work that led to this judgement, and explaining aspects of it that he might improve, could help him to know what to do to make progress. In this context the summative judgement (in number form) is stripped away and the teacher goes back to the evidence (observation and interpretation) on which it was made. She then makes a formative judgement (in words) about what the evidence says about where the learners is, where he needs to go, and how he might best get there.

By changing the nature of the judgement, assessments designed originally for summative purposes may be converted into assessment for learning. However, not having been designed to elicit evidence that will contribute directly to learning, they may be less suited to that purpose than assessments designed with AfL in mind. External tests are even more problematic than summative teacher assessments, because teachers rarely have access to enough of the evidence on which scores and levels are based, although analyses of common errors can be useful.

References

Black, P. & Wiliam, D (1998). Assessment and Classroom Learning. Assessment in Education 5(1) pp. 7-71.

Cooper, Damian. (2006). Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to Improve Learning. Toronto, ON: Thomson Nelson.

Allerson, G and W. Grabe. 1986. Reading assessment. In teaching second language reading for academic purposes;