Assessment+for+Learning

Assessment for Learning

Assessment is the process of gaining information about the gap in a student/s learning. Assessment occurs with each attempt to reduce the gap. A student who is actively engaged in learning is carrying out self assessment constantly as part of a problem solving attempt to reduce the gap. Timely assessment information about the current state of learning of all students helps to make the students more accurate in their self assessments. Teachers are using assessment information to continuously ask 'what is this information telling me about how well my teaching is supporting learning and what I should do next?

The teachers job is to manage the assessment process so that all students get the information they need when they need it. Timing is crucial. In order to do this teachers need to know alot about assessment and needs to ensure that students also know a lot about assessment.







What students Need to Know ﻿ Students need to be skilled assessors of thier own learning and that of thier peers and are able to use or participate in a range of assessment approaches suited to subject, context and purpose, so that:

//﻿'When we do a test as a class we need to do it properly otherwise it won't tell us what we do know and what we need to know next; we also need to do it at the right time so we can use the information to help us with out next goals.' // //'I now know how to group numbers to get bigger numbers, I can check my answer through mental estimation.' // //'My story still hasn't got the impact I want.' // //'I haven't reached that success criteria because the audience didn't respond in the ways I hoped.' // //'I don't seem to learn as quickly as some kids, but I do learn and I am happy with that.' // //'My teacher does another running record with me when we both think I have made progress or if I seem stuck; it is really useful to keep an eye on how I am going.' // //'The teacher explains that when we do the same type of test across all the Year 4 to 8 students for reading it helps the teachers and the board to work out what bits of reading we are best at, and what we might need special support for as a school.' // //'When we do an asTTle test the teacher helps us to nderstand any of the technical language that is in the report and helps us to analyse what we know and what we might learn next.' // //'Because we all asses against the succss criteria we can help each other with this assessment becuse often I can see things for improvement in my friends' work that they can't and they can see things in mine.' //
 * They know that the purpose of any assessment is for learning and that it should provide timely, valid and reliable information.
 * They are able to produce and describe the evidence of thier learning.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">They use success criteria to compare with actual achievement and to identify next learning.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">They describe the result of that comaprison and the reasons for it.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">They know how their progress compares with school and national norms, where ther are noms available.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">they expect that the teacher will help them with assessment if they need it so that they get timely information about their progress.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">They expect whole-class or school-wide assessments to be explained by the teacher in terms of the explicit learning intentions of the lesson or the big ideas of the curriculum.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">They understand the information that comes from assessments that the teacher carries out.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">They see themselves as having value as a source of information to help thier peers learning.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">﻿If you are being successful at enabling your students to maintain agency in assessment, your students should be able to give good answers to all of the bullet points listed above if they are posed as questions. Can they? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Absolum, M (2006)