An introduction to formative assessment

Online workshop

Ko te kai rapu, ko ia te kite.

• Teachers • Syndicates/departments• AtoL facilitators

Who will find this workshop useful?

You can use this workshop:

• to update, review and/or reflect on formative assessment practice

• as a focus for professional development in exploring formative assessment

• to support AtoL in-depth programmes in schools.

• identify how assessment can improve learning

• reflect on how the findings from research impact on your

current teaching practice

• gain knowledge while participating in this workshop, which

will inform your on-going planning.

In this workshop you will:

Ko te tamaiti te pūtake o te kaupapa

The test of a successful education is not the amount ofknowledge that a student takes away from a school, but the appetite to know and the capacity to learn.

If a school sends out students with a desire for knowledge and some idea of how to acquire and use it, it will have done its work. Too many students leave school with the appetite killed and the mind loaded with undigested lumps of Information.

(Abbott, 1999)

What do we mean by assessment?The word ‘assess’ comes from the Latin verb ‘assidere’ meaning ‘to sit with’. In assessment one is supposed to sit with the learner. This implies it is something we do ‘with’ and ‘for’ students and not ‘to’ students (Green, 1999).

Imagine a kuia teaching students to weave flax sitting in a circle. What would be happening in this situation?

Assessment in education is the process of gathering, interpreting, recording and using information about pupils’ responses to an educational task (Harlen, Gipps, Broadfoot, Nuttal, 1992).

What are summative and formative assessment?

Formative assessment

‘… often means no more than that the assessment is carried out frequently and is planned at the same time as teaching.’ (Black and Wiliam, 1999)

‘… provides feedback which leads to students recognising the (learning) gap and closing it … it is forward looking …’ (Harlen, 1998)

‘ … includes both feedback and self-monitoring.’ (Sadler, 1989)

‘… is used essentially to feed back into the teaching and learning process.’ (Tunstall and Gipps, 1996)

Summative assessment

‘…assessment (that) has increasingly been used to sum up learning…’(Black and Wiliam, 1999)

‘… looks at past achievements … adds procedures or tests to existing work ... involves only marking and feedback grades to student … is separated from teaching … is carried out at intervals when achievement has to be summarised and reported.’ (Harlen, 1998)

If we think of our children as kūmara, …

• summative assessment of the kūmara is the process of simply measuring them. It might be interesting to compare and analyse measurements but, in themselves, these do not affect the growth of the kūmara

• formative assessment on the other hand, is the equivalent of tending, feeding and watering the kūmara – directly affecting their growth.

The kūmara analogy

What do you think?Does the kūmara analogy work for you?

Activity: use the listed terms as a starting point to develop a representation (model, mind-map, concept map) of how summative and formative assessment are related.

Assessment point/taskAfter learning During learningFeedbackFeed-forwardLearning continuumOf learningFor learningLooking backLooking forwardReview/reflectImprove/enhance

New Zealand research‘Te Kauhua Māori Mainstream Pilot Project’ is a professional development pilot project which provides schools with opportunities to address Māori student achievement in mainstream settings. The evaluation identified common transformative processes which resulted in sustained professional growth amongst teachers.

To view the ‘Te Kauhua Māori Mainstream Pilot Project’ website on TKI, go to:

http://www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/tekauhua_e.php

New Zealand research… ‘Te Hiringa i te Mahara’ (the power of the mind) is a national professional development programme funded by the Ministry of Education that targets Māori secondary school teachers with particular emphasis on te reo Māori teachers. The project began in June 1998, to address the stress associated with the excessive workload of Māori secondary school teachers.

The project is managed by Gardiner & Parata Ltd and aims to significantly improve education outcomes for students.

To view the ‘Te Hiringa i te Mahara’ website on TKI, go to: http://www.thm.ac.nz/home.htm

Te Mana is part of the Whakaaro Matauranga – Think Learning project aimed at raising expectations of Māori achievement amongst Māori, the community, and education providers.

Te Mana has produced information to assist rangatahi and their whānau, teachers, and people returning to education. This information complements the work of 22 pouwhakataki (Māori community liaison officers) throughout Aotearoa who work with whānau, hapū, iwi, and schools to help Māori get the most out of education.

To view the Te Mana website on TKI, go to:http://www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/temana_e.php

New Zealand research …

New Zealand research ‘Te Kōtahitanga’ was developed and managed by Professor Russell Bishop from the University of Waikato. He was assisted by a partnership of researchers from the University of Waikato and the research whānau of Poutama Pounamu Research and Development Centre of Tauranga.

This project sought to investigate how Year 9 and 10 Māori student achievement in mainstream schools could be improved.

To view the ‘Te Kōtahitanga’ website on TKI, go to:http://www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/tekotah_e.php

What makes the biggest difference? During the research project for ‘Te Kōtahitanga’, a number of Year 9 and 10 Māori students and their teachers were interviewed and were asked “What made the biggest difference to whether a student learned or not?”

From the findings, four out of five students thought that quality of face-to-face relationships and in-class interactions with their teachers made a big difference.

They said they did well when teachers valued them, challenged them and held high expectations about what they could do. In other words, they did well when the teachers believed in them.

International research

In 1998, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam of Kings College London published the findings of their wide-reaching analysis of research into classroom-based assessment in the document: Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment.

To download a full-text copy, go to:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education/publications/blackbox.html

The black box findings

Black and Wiliam’s research indicates that improving learningthrough assessment depends on five deceptively simple factors:

1. Providing effective feedback to students.2. Student’s active involvement in their own learning.3. Adjusting teaching to take account of the results of

assessment.4. Recognising the profound influence of assessment on

students’ motivation and self-esteem – both crucial influences on learning.

5. Ensuring pupils reflect on their learning and understand how to improve.

In action this means: • Teachers value and believe in students.• Sharing learning goals with the students.• Involving students in self-assessment.• Providing feedback that helps students recognise their next

steps and how to take them.• Being confident that every student can improve.• Providing students with examples of what we expect from

them.

Whaia e koe te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe me he maunga teitei.

Self-evaluation, 1

• How well do you…° Share learning goals with students?° Involve students in self assessment?° Provide timely, focused feedback? ° Provide constructive feed-forward?

• Do you have confidence that every student in your class can improve?• Think now about some of the things that prevent us from assessing in a formative manner.

Rate yourself from:

5 – I do this consistently well to: 0 – I don’t do this at all

Inhibiting factors include:• A tendency for teachers to assess quantity and presentation of

work rather than quality of learning.

• Greater attention given to marking and grading, much of it tending to lower self esteem of students, rather than providing advice for improvement.

• A strong emphasis on comparing students with each other, which demoralises the less successful learners.

Are these inhibiting factors in your experience? If so, describe how you could change one aspect of your teaching practice to work in a more formative manner.

He iti ra, he iti ra māpihi pounamu.

Self-evaluation, 2

Quantity of work/Presentation

Marking/Grading

Comparing students

Quality of learning

Advice for improvement

Identifying individual progress

Where would you place your assessment practice on the

following continuum?

The main focus is on:

In summary

Practice drawn from the research base tends to consist of thefollowing:

• Clarifying learning outcomes at the planning stage.

• Sharing learning outcomes at the beginning of the lesson.

• Involving student self assessment with the learning outcomes.

• Focusing oral and written feedback around the learning outcomes.

• Organising individual goal setting so that student achievement is based on what they already can do as well as aiming for the next level.

• Use of rich questions that both challenge and guide the next learning steps.

Assessment referencesAbbott, J. (1999, January). Battery hens or free range chickens: Whatkind of education for what kind of world? Journal of the 21st Century Learning Initiative, 1–12.

Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Tiakiwai, S. & Richardson, C. (2002). TeKōtahitanga: The Experiences of Year 9 and 10 Māori Students inMainstream Classrooms.http://www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/tekotah_e.php

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. London: British Educational Research Association.

Black, P. J., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 5 (1), 7–74.

Green, J. M. (1998, February). Constructing the way forward for all students. A speech delivered at “Innovations for Effective Schools” OECD/New Zealand joint follow-up conference, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Assessment references, cont.

Harlen, W. (1998) Classroom assessment: A dimension of purposes and procedures. In K. Carr (Ed.), SAMEpapers (pp. 75–87). Hamilton, New Zealand: Centre for Science, Mathematics and Technology Educational Research, University of Waikato.

Harlen, W., Gipps, C., Broadfoot, P. & Nuttall, D. (1994) Assessment and the improvement of education. Chapter 34 in Moon, B. & Mayes, A.S. Teaching and Learning in the Secondary School. London: Routledge / The Open University

Te Hiringa i te Mahara http://www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/tehiringa_e.php

Te Kauhua Māori in Mainstream Project http://www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/tekauhua_e.php

Te Mana http://www.tki.org.nz/r/maori_mainstream/temana_e.php

Tunstall, P., & Gipps, C. (1996). Teacher feedback to young children in formative assessment: A typology. British Educational Research Journal, 22 (4).