Assessment for Learning Practice - Essay Example

?Assessment for Learning Assessment for Learning Introduction Black defines Assessment for learning as the process in which the main purpose of the design of the assessment is to help students learn, this differentiates assessment that is designed for holding someone accountable, or assessments that are used to rank individuals or provide certification for their competencies (BLACK, 2007, p.14). An activity in which assessment is conducted can assist students if the design of the assessment supplies knowledge that can be utilized as feedback, which can assist pupils and their teachers in assessing themselves in order to alter the activities of learning which they are already engaged in. This form of assessment is regarded as formative in nature or recognized by the name of formative assessment as in this form of assessment; the information or the feedback is utilized to meet the needs of the learners. Body Types of Assessment Black and William and several experts of the field of education, state that formative assessment cannot be regarded as an event and cannot even be referred to as a tool (BLACK, 1998). They regard formative assessment as box of procedures that all have a feature that is common amongst them. The feature that all these procedures contain is that all of them contain certain action that assists in improving learning. Sadler states that the formative assessment is a term used to refer to assessments that are created with the purpose of providing feedback on an individual’s performance and can help in elevating the pace of learning (Sadler, 1989, p. 115). In the case of formative assessment, the instruments utilized for assessment are not formative in nature, instead the information obtained through different tools is formative in nature because it leads to alterations in teaching practices to make learning more effective. In a particular educational setting, various stools including quizzes, tests and projects are utilized, these tools are not considered as formative, but the information obtained after application of these tools is regarded as formative assessment. Another form of assessment that is utilized in classrooms is summative assessment, summative assessment is a term used to define the act of making judgments with different assessment tools such as quizzes, tests and assignment projects. In educational institutes, summative assessment is used when the purpose is to determine and account for learning that has taken place among students and the results obtained through these assessment tools are then communicated to others (ORLICH, 2009, p.331). Communication of outcome can take place several forms such as a grade, numerical, symbol or it can be in the form of a comparison to a benchmark (BENJAMIN, 2008, p.3). Example of comparison standards includes “high standard met” and or “standard not met”. Once the standard is identified it is communicated to the pupil who have achieved the standard and then to the caretakers of the student (HARLEN, 2007, p.117). There have been instances when a particular assessment that is formative in nature is used in a summative manner and similarly, those assessments that are summative in nature are used in a formative manner. The difference between these two forms of assessments is that in the case of formative assessment, information obtain is used for betterment of learning and in the case of summative assessment, information gained used to rate and for the purpose of accountability. Example of formative assessment: A test reveals that a student has not met the standard and this information is used to help student in relearning the subject or practice. Example of summative assessment: a student fails a test, the test scores are revealed to the student, school board and parents and the student is regarded as failed. The main reasons due to which there is a need to differentiate between formative and summative assessment is that certain conditions need to be met in order to achieve the gains of formative assessment as proposed by researchers. These conditions include the tools that are designed for assessment should be designed in accordance to the standard of the content that needs to be learned. Secondly, the tools that are being used to assess should be in accordance to what has already been preached or is going to be preached. The information that is extracted through the use of tool should serve the purpose of obtaining information regarding problems that are specific in nature as this well assist teachers in decision making regarding the actions that are required to be taken and the students for whom these decisions are being made (NCCA, 2013). Actions are taken after information has been obtained and information is obtained in a timely manner. If an assessment is conducted and the assessment lacks even one of these features, the process of formative assessment will fail and will be harmful towards learning. Sadler states that the purpose of formative assessment is not achieved if the information obtained through assessment is only used for the purposes of recording, informing individuals who do not know how to use this information and who do not have the ability to alter the result of the assessment and if it is coded in such a manner that it fails to inhibit future action (SADLER, 1989, p.121). Black and William surveyed several methods used for assessment and all these tools produced some form of formative data, those tools which were very effective included: discussions and tasks conducted at school and home and the actions that were conducted to make improvements to learning (Black, 1998). The effective practices were those in which feedback was provided and this feedback was descriptive in nature and information regarding improvement in learning was provided. These practices even resulted in the improvement of skills required for self assessment. Black and William further state that the key features of formative assessment includes an opportunity for pupils to give in their own input as this will result in further discussion (Black, 1998). Secondly the discussions that take place between teacher and students should stimulate critical thinking and expression of ideas. Thirdly, the feedback provided to the students should be regarding the quality of work produced by the student and should include points regarding how the student can improve, while the teacher should keep in mind that comparison of work between peers should not take place. Formative assessment helps teachers in answering and solving several issues, formative assessment helps the teacher in differentiating between students who are and who are not able to interpret what is being taught, it helps in determining the strengths and weaknesses of a student, the feedback that needs to be provided to the students and the alterations that are needed to be made to the set of instructions. As a matter of fact, learning can be improved if teachers act in accordance to the information that has been obtained through formative assessments and the backing of formative assessment is obtained through effective discussions that take place between the pupil and the student. When formative assessment is in the hands of the students they try to determine their own learning goals and these goals are consistent with the learning goals set by the instructors. It even helps them in determining their current state of learning and answers the question of how much they have already learned. The feedback that is provided by the teacher to the student helps them in determining the route that they will take in improving their own learning. These conditions that students face during formative assessment has been defined as assessment for learning by Sadler (Sadler, 1989, p.140). There are several strategies through which formative assessments can be conducted successfully and these strategies help in accomplishing the aims and objectives of assessment for learning. The first strategy is to determine the goals that a student should achieve from formative assessment, in this step the teacher provides the student with a vision or the target of learning the student should achieve. In the next step the student determines his current stance of learning; this is realized by the student through the detailed feedback on the assessment provided by the teacher. Next the student determines the method through which the difference between his current stance of learning and targeted stance of earning, the method is even provided by the teacher through discussions. Formative assessment encourages student participation in assessment and the benefits derived through this participation have been heavily proposed by researchers such as Sadler and Black. Conclusion Assessment for learning is regarded as a process in which assessments lead to improvement of learning. Assessments are of two forms, summative and formative. In formative assessment, assessments are conducted and the information derived through assessment is used to alter teaching procedures and to inform students about what they can do to achieve better results. In the case of summative assessments, information derived is used for informing and accounting performance students. Information obtained is first communicated to students and then to their care takers. Formative assessments lead to improvement in learning as the information derived is used to help student’s correct ways of learning. References BENJAMIN, A. (2008). Formative assessment for English language arts: a guide for middle and high school teachers. Larchmont, NY, Eye On Education. BLACK, P., & WILIAM, D. (1998). Inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment. London, School of Education, King's College London. BLACK, P., HARRISON, C., LEE, C., MARSHALL, B., & WILIAM, D. (2007). Assessment for Learning. Maidenhead, McGraw-Hill International (UK) Ltd. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=287789. HARLEN, W. (2007). Assessment of learning. Los Angeles, CA, SAGE Publications. NCCA (2013) Assessment for Learning. [online] Available at: http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/JuniorCycleReview/Aflleaflet2.pdf [Accessed: 18 Jan 2013]. ORLICH, D. C. (2009). Teaching strategies: a guide to effective instruction. Boston, MA, Cengage Learning. SADLER, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science. 18, 119-144. Read More