Aims of Assessment for Learning in Primary Science - Case Study Example

Assessment for Learning in Primary Science of the Assessment for Learning in Primary Science Achieving and sustaining aproactive assessment for learning methodology in the education in general and primary science in specific has been a predominant focus for the contemporary governments, education officials and policy makers all across the globe. Both educational leaders and policy makers have continuously developed policies aimed at supporting their schools in developing the necessary assessment criteria to enable enhanced learning processes and thereby improve the progression rates of the pupils in these various schools. The conventional formation of an assessment for learning involves the teachers and/or instructors and their learners in utilizing the assessment criteria to assess progress and analyze the outcomes and eventually provide feedback on the outcomes in a bid to improve learning among the pupils. This paper seeks to evaluate the significant aims including the purpose and practice of assessment for learning specifically in relation to primary science. Further, the paper will examine the specific but relevant assessment strategies that are applicable in assessing primary science. Moreover, the paper will provide the necessary approaches that will enable the useful monitoring that aims to inform the teachers about the needful way forward given the results of the assessments. Aims of assessment for learning in primary science Different countries and governments design implement and follow different science curricula. However, it is imperative to note that the aims of primary science teaching and learning include the ability to engage sufficient interest and understanding that is supported by enjoyment backed but sustained creativity and curiosity (Department of Education and Skills 2006, pg. 23). As a result of the above process, the pupils will be able develop the necessary scientific skills and competencies necessary for informed decisions that supports progression in learning. Further, the fact that primary science is learning that is basically focused on living things, phenomena and materials, underscores the intent of primary science learning in remaining relevant to the everyday lives of the pupils. As such, the assessment for learning in primary science should be entirely focused on enabling students to explore the world around them as they learn and observe things that exist around them. As a result, one of the aims of the assessment for learning in primary science should be to provide a systematic and consistent platform on which every child/pupil is capable of sufficiently knowing how they are doing in terms of progression in primary science education (Davies, 2011, pg. 2). Additionally, the assessment should be aimed at enabling the student to understand what they need to do in order to improve their educational performances and how exactly to get to the desired level of progress. Further and in a bid to facilitate learning, the assessment for learning should aim to encourage pupils to seek the support that they need as a motivation for independent learning and progression. Moreover, being a process that involves several parties, the assessments for learning in primary science should be all inclusive in terms of empowering the parties to evaluate their individual efforts in sustaining development in the learning of primary science. The other aim of assessment for learning in primary science is to equip every teacher and/or instructor with the necessary tools to make well-founded and sufficiently supported judgments as concerns the pupils’ progress attainments. In this regard, the assessment for learning should aim at enabling teachers to clearly understand the required concepts and principles underlying the progression of pupils. Consequently, the teachers will be well equipped with the essential concepts relevant for forming judgments in reference to the way forward regarding, in particular, pupils who currently are not attaining their optimal potentials. Additionally, the assessment for learning in primary science should sufficiently empower the schools to develop and put in place well structured and supporting systematic and regular assessment platforms that will sustain easily manageable and well to the point pupil assessments. In this regard and in a bid to foster useful and accurate pupil assessment in the primary science, schools will work sufficiently in tracking pupil performances and thereby enabling feedback endeavors that forms a stable block for improving the current pupil situational analysis and thus mitigate pupil learning problems. Further, the assessment for learning in primary science should aim to improve the parents’ and cares’ knowledge about their children performance. Additionally, the parents will be able to understand the current performance level of their children, define their role in enabling the pupils to progress in the primary science learning and further understand how they need to support the teachers and the pupils to sustain learning progression of their children (Davies, 2011, pg. 1). General science assessment strategies There are several assessments for learning strategies that teachers employ to evaluate the performance and progress of the pupils in science classes. The various approaches and strategies that teachers and/or instructors employ include learning intention sharing and success criteria negotiation with all the pupils, questioning and dialogue approaches aimed at promoting in depth learning, self and peer focused assessments criteria, teacher feedbacks, learning environment creation, pupil’s own learning strategies and employing the relevant summative test results for the purposes of forming the belief and perception of the pupils towards accepting their current progression levels and thereby enforcing the requisite progress supporting actions among the pupils. These strategies are discussed below. Teacher feedbacks In a bid to provide sufficient guidelines in line with the results of the assessment for learning, many teachers employ feedback provision as an assessment strategy to encourage and promote pupils to endeavor for an in-depth learning. In this regard, the teacher must ensure that he/she develops a trusting relational interaction between him/her and the pupils. Further, the teachers will ensure that they conduct the feedback provision in the form that allows for negotiation and overly constructive sharing between them and the pupils. In a bid to achieve the above attributes, the teachers must additionally, seek to focus the feedback not on the individual worth of the pupil but specifically on the learning process and the progression of the specified pupils. Further, and to underscore the importance of the feedback, the teacher must emphasize the need for the pupil to be ready, wanting and expecting the feedback before engaging them in the feedback provision. As such, the pupil will feel the worthiness of the feedback and emotionally associate the feedback with the need for progression in learning the science course in question. Further, this is significant in enabling the pupil to accord the feedback with the individual goals and values, which are generally aligned to the progression metrics that the teacher will be focusing the feedback on. Consequently, the pupil will eventually be encouraged to address the value criteria identified and thus strive to focus on the positive achievements. Learning intention sharing and success criteria negotiation with all the pupils One of the mostly used assessments for learning in primary science is the intentional sharing of the learning intentions and success metrics between the teachers and the pupils. In this strategy, the teacher and/or instructor will openly discuss and share with the pupil as they develop the necessary learning progression intentions and the supporting success criteria metrics on which the progress will be measured. Therefore, in order for the strategy to be successful in achieving the desired results, the teacher must initially establish a clear understanding of the pupil’s expectations and perception about the lessons at the start of the negotiations and sharing about the success points and the overall strategy in general. With this in place, the teacher might begin by asking pupils to share with each other about the topic he/she is planning to conduct assessment for learning on and share with them about the need for the assessment and the necessary success criteria to follow. Creating a learning environment The fact that pupils learn more effectively from sharing, observing and trying out the various ideas on their fellow pupils makes appropriate learning environment a significant component of assessment for learning in primary science. According to Skills for Life Improvement Forum (2009), teachers have continuously employed peer dialogue and/or questioning among pupils to enable them to explore the relevant success matrices as discussed earlier. In this regard and in addition to the above strategies, the teacher must encourage a learning environment that will enable the pupils to explore the relevant peer learning methodologies and thus maximize resources from their fellow pupils (Skills for Life Improvement Forum, 2009, pg. 9). As a matter of principle, the teacher will utilize the show and tell approach where both the teacher and the pupils use whiteboards that ensure interactivity between them. Further, the teacher may also explore the jigsaw approach where specific pupils are encouraged to become more experienced on certain topical areas and thus become the teachers for their fellow pupils. In this way, different group of students will explore specified topics and share with the rest who will also in the meantime learn about other assigned topics and share at their specified/allocated time. In this way, the teacher will conveniently manage the requisite assessment criteria on which he/she will eventually test the pupils on. Practice and outcome strategy When teachers allow pupils to practice while recording the outcome of such practices, the pupils are more likely to reflect on such practices and thereby learn thus increasing their motivation and progression in primary science. This strategy is highly considered as a keen motivator of pupils’ ability to think broadly and relatively mature on the subjects of learning in primary science. As such, practice pegged on the desired outcomes will enable pupils to broadly think about the strategic goals and success objective of each of the learning programs that the teacher will be willing to implement and the resultant assessment for learning that the teacher and/or instructor will utilize to evaluate the learning progress of the pupils in primary science. Many teachers explore this strategy because among other reasons, the strategy enables pupils to enforce their own learning through diligent reflection on their own learning success strategies and providing comments on how the success strategies have been helpful in enabling their learning progression in primary science. In this regard, the teachers may employs learning motivational tools like concept maps and the use of key words to propel initial practice that is pegged on the eventual outcome (Hodgson, 2011, pg. 13). Questioning and dialogue strategies Another assessment for learning strategy that many teachers and/or instructors commonly employ across the globe is the question and dialogue oriented assessment methodology. Different teachers operating in different learning platforms have utilized different types of questions including open, effective and feedback questions to engage pupils to expressly share their thinking and thereby commit to the assessment for learning programs as is expressed by the teacher. Dialogue also allows pupils to open up and share while feeling attached and committed to the resultant assessment for learning strategy in place in the learning of primary science (So-Wing, 2007, pg. 4). Additionally, questioning and dialogue enables both the teachers and the pupils to explore all the relevant approaches that will enable them to optimize the results of the assessment for learning conducted on the process of learning primary science. Moreover, it is imperative to note the significant learning role that sharing information in terms of dialogue plays in providing fundamental platform for the continued communication and sharing between the teachers and the pupils. Monitoring learning outcomes A mere conduct of the above assessment for learning strategies in the learning of primary science is evidently not sufficient in enabling the teachers to source for the relevant progress information and thereby generate mitigating focused strategies to enable them, the pupils and the parents to address progression challenges. In this regard, the teachers must employ additional scientific approaches including the ability to elicit scientific misconceptions. In this case the teachers will keenly introduce relevant concept cartoons to enable pupils to involuntary provide the underlying misconceptions they may have on the primary science topic the teacher is planning to cover in class (Hodgson, 2011, pg. 13). This way, the teacher will be able to motivate pupils to be more investigative and thereby allow for easy and constructive monitoring. Such monitoring will enforce evaluative strategies including the assessment for learning methods discussed in the earlier section and help the teacher in aligning the outcomes to the success criteria and the resultant achievement. More importantly, the teacher will be able to sufficiently monitor the learning progress of the pupils and provide well informed feedbacks that form the way forward for the teachers, the pupils and the parents. Another monitoring approach that teachers should employ to enable the optimization of the assessment for learning results will be to develop and implement quick and relevant tools that support the children in developing and loving science related languages. This will work to focus the energies of both the teachers and the pupils in enhancing personalized approaches and inculcating individual preference of the topic to be learned in primary science. Additionally, the teachers will be able to enforce exploratory discussions with the pupils and these will be focused on enabling the students to freely share information among them. Further, it is significantly important for pupils to understand the underlying benefits they would accrue if they developed and presented their own understanding of the science language and this is the only way the teacher will manage and encourage pupils to undertake the initiative (Hodgson, 2011, pg. 19). Bibliography Department for Education and Skills. 2006. Assessment and Reporting Arrangements: Key Stages 1 and 2. London. Davies, A. 2011. What is Assessment for Learning? Available at: http://annedavies.com/assessment_for_learning_wafl.html [Accessed December 14, 2011]. Hodgson, C. 2010. Assessment for Learning in Primary Science: Practices and Benefits (NFER Review). Slough: NFER. Skills for Life Improvement Forum. 2009. Guidance for Assessment and Learning: Assessment for Learning. Available at: http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/pdf/4.2sflguidance_5.pdf [Accessed December 14, 2011]. So-Wing, W. 2007. Assessing Primary Science Learning: Beyond Paper and Pencil Assessment. Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, vol. 5, no. 2 pg. 35 – 78. Read More