Black And Wiliam: The Role Of Formative Assessment In Schools

I believe assessment is important and is the basis of planning for instruction, whether it is diagnostic prior to learning, formative during units or lessons, or summative to evaluate student learning. Rowan’s quote in Every Teacher’s Guide to Assessment, "After all, in the end, the problem is less the idea of testing itself, but how we design them, apply, them, and make use of their data." definitely has an impact on my assessment practices. I feel it is necessary to make sure the student acquires all aspects of the learning. Assessment should be used to bring a value for students. Within my instruction, I implement daily formative assessments which may include turn and share, quick writes, graphic organizers, online discussion responses, KahootIt, and other forms. Designing the appropriate formative assessment to match the lesson is important to assess how the learning is taught and whether the students are showing progress. In addition, I have worked on building blocks of formative assessments in checklist style leading up to the point of reviewing for a summative test. Each of these are checked off as completed and instant feedback is given. Feedback from an assessment is essential to student learning and how a teacher will ensure the content is being acquired.

Feedback is a vital part of the assessment process as it gives the assessor an idea of if the learner has met the criteria set and if they haven’t, what action is needed to achieve the criteria.

The term ‘formative assessment’ is used to describe the activities and processes used by teachers and learners to gather information that informs future teaching and learning. Assessment becomes formative if the information gathered is used as feedback to adapt and modify teaching and learning (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.2). There are a variety of different methods and techniques that can be used by teachers and learners that can contribute to enhancing learner progress. These include

Effective assessment will identify individual educational needs of all children as well as informing them about their specific performances and achievements, this will then allow teachers to use approaches that are personalised to the needs of a child. Assessment can be used not only to measure learning but also to promote learning by teaching pupils how to ask questions as well as answering them, by emphasising to a child that it is acceptable to ‘have a go’ and that by giving the wrong answer is still an opportunity to learn. It further provides the student with an understanding of what levels they are working at, what level they would like to working towards, and plan on how they are going to reach that level.

Assessment, both formative and summative, plays a significant part in the learning experience as it determines progression and enables learners to demonstrate that they have achieved their desired learning outcomes.

A formative assessment provides informal feedback and information during the teaching process. This assessment measures student progress and performance thus allowing further improvement and development. It can also assess the teacher’s progress as an instructor, enabling the teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching methods.

Scotland re-evaluated assessment strategies which saw the Assessment is for learning (Aifl) initiative implemented in 2002 which aimed to improve children’s life chances through a more coherent system (Gov.scot, 2005). The revised system, A Framework for Assessment (BtC5), incorporates principles of Curriculum for Excellence (CFE) and the values of Aifl, which collectively aim to support pupil progression. Furthermore, they aim to build confident individuals and successful learners (Educationscotland.gov.uk, 2008) who are active participants in their own learning and set their own targets. However, ‘for this to be effective teachers need to build an intimate and detailed knowledge of their pupils’ thinking and assist them, with fairly specific advice and scaffolding, in achieving the next stage’ (Harris, 2007). Therefore, for formative assessment to effectively support learner attainment, teachers must have a detailed knowledge of pupil capability and support them progressively in developing their own metacognition.

Assessment is carried out through formative (checks throughout the course), ipsative (to test against previous marks), and/ or summative (at end of course) activities to help the learner see their development whilst allowing the Assessor to give valuable feedback when appropriate. It’s purpose is to measure the learners understanding of the subject against the anticipated outcomes set by the criteria.

Through the identification of these assessment methods, I will analyse their purpose and the role that they play in my learner’s development; and how these are used to identify learner progress and confirm their knowledge and understanding. I will explore theories and principals of assessment, covering formative and

3.4 In order to support pupils using formative assessment it is necessary to ensure all pupils are clear of the learning intentions of the lesson. They also need to know the reason that they are learning it and the assessment that will take place. A discussion with them will make sure that all this is clear. Success

Assessments are the process of evaluating an individual’s learning. They involve generating and collecting evidence of a learner’s attainment of knowledge and skills and judging that evidence against defined standards. Formative Assessments (quizzes and practical tests) are used to

Formative assessment can be an effective tool in building positive relationships as it gives cause for two-way communication at any point of a learning course. It can be written or verbally delivered, offering the opportunity to appeal to a variety of learning styles. It enables the learner to influence their learner programme and helps them build essential life-skills such as goal setting and self assessment. Its main disadvantage for the trainer is the amount of time the type of assessment can consume, and a learner may become disengaged by repetitive assessment exercises that interrupt the flow of learning.

Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting further student learning and enabling improved student learning through purposeful interaction and providing meaningful feedback. Formative assessment is specifically intended to generate feedback and feed forward on performance to improve, accelerate and enable learning (Sadler, 1998). Formative assessment can and should occur throughout a daily class, through implementation of learning and teaching strategies that lead to both oral and written feedback. The Formative assessment approach is equitable and reliable, producing some significant indicator of student developed understanding that links directly to the syllabus outcomes. This then allows the teacher or other students to respond by trying to

Recently, whenever I hear current teachers discussing about assessing students, ‘Formative Assessment’ is sure to be highlighted. Nowadays this method (formative assessment) is becoming popular among schools and is being applied widely in schools including my own school. Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) identified in the few past decades, formative assessment has turned out to be the main goal for teachers and educational systems. On the foundation of Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) findings and from my experience in the field of teaching, I found out nowadays teachers and school stakeholders strongly feel that formative assessment is the best method to assess in order to enhance students’ learning. For these evident reasons, I am interested in finding

Assessment enables educators to provide feedback to their learners, this in turn promotes self-evaluation by the learner, as they use the assessment feedback to scrutinise and make judgements about the quality of their work (Spiller, 2009:6 & 7).