Transcript High-stakes assessment of open-ended work in mathematics

Assessment for Learning
Where is it Now?
Where is it Going?
Paul Black
Department of Education
King’s College London
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Hitting the Headlines
1998 Black & Wiliam 74-page review article : Evidence.
1998 Inside the Black Box. 20-page booklet. ~ 50 000 sold.
1999 - 2001 KMOFAP work: teachers invent the practice.
2002 King’s team: Working Inside the Black Box 24 page
booklet~ 45 000 sold.
2002 KS3 DfES initiative stresses Assessment for Learning.
2003 King’s team: Assessment for Learning book 2 reprints.
WHY : what did we do right ?
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Where is it now ?
The Revival : It’s worth doing
Implementation : How it’s done
Hitting the headlines
Others can do it too – or can they ?
Old wine in new bottles ?
Why it matters ?
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The Revival: It’s worth doing
Experimental and control groups, pre-and post-tests,
numerical data on learning gains
About 30 studies found
All show gains: effect sizes 0.4 to 0.7
Sometimes “low attainers” show largest gains
Variety of approaches to formative
Lack detail – they don’t ( can’t ?) tell you what to do
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The Revival: It’s worth doing
Research review of Black & Wiliam
–Many rigorous studies show that standards are raised by
formative assessment.
–The positive effect is greater as the range of the formative
feedback is expanded.
King’s project work with schools
–Standards were raised
–Teachers happy about the way they had changed
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Implementation: How it’s done
An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information
to be used as feedback, by teachers, and by their students, in
assessing themselves and each other, to modify the teaching and
learning activities in which they are engaged.
Feedback is two-way
–Student to teacher
–Teacher to student
Feedback can be
–oral or written
–short term or medium term
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Implementation: How it’s done
The main strategies
Questioning and dialogue
–
Oral feedback
Comment only marking
– Feedback on written work
Self- and peer-assessment
– Developing group discussion
Formative use of tests
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Implementation: Questioning
I’d become dissatisfied with the closed Q&A style that
my unthinking teaching had fallen into, and I would
frequently be lazy in my acceptance of right answers
and sometimes even tacit complicity with a class to
make sure none of us had to work too hard … They and
I knew that if the Q&A wasn’t going smoothly, I’d change
the question, answer it myself or only seek answers from
the ‘brighter students’. There must have been times (still
are?) where an outside observer would see my lessons
as a small discussion group surrounded by many sleepy
onlookers.
James, Two Bishops School
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Changes in Questioning
Teachers role : move from presentation to exploration of students’
ideas, involving them in the exploration
Students role : more active, realising that learning depends on
readiness to express and discuss, not on spotting right answers
Teachers spend more effort on framing questions to explore issues
critical to development of students’ understanding
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Implementation: How it’s done
Feedback on Written Work
Comment-only marking
Previously I would have marked the work and
graded it and made a comment. The pupils only
saw the mark and/or credit. After a credit they lost
the motive to improve. Now they get a credit after we
have gone over the work so they have an incentive
to understand the work
Rose, Brownfields School.
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Changes in Marking
Teachers changed their view of the role of written work in
promoting learning
Teachers were challenged to compose comments on written
work which address the learning needs of the individual and
reflect key aspects of the subject
Teachers had to give more attention to differentiation in
feedback
Students changed their view of the role of written work as part
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of their learning
Implementation: How it’s done
Self- and Peer-Assessment
Criteria must be understood by students so they can apply
them : modelling exercises are needed where these are
abstract
Students must be taught to collaborate in peer-assessment,
for this helps develop objectivity for self-assessment and is of
intrinsic value
Students should be taught to assess their progress as they
proceed keeping the aims and criteria in mind - so as to
become independent learners
Peer- and self- assessment develop students as learners in a
unique way
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Peer marking
• We regularly do peer marking—I find this very helpful indeed. A lot
of misconceptions come to the fore and we then discuss these as we are
going over the homework. I then go over the peer marking and talk to
pupils individually as I go round the room.
Rose, Brownfields School
• The kids are not skilled in what I am trying to get them to do. I think
the process is more effective long term. If you invest time in it, it will
pay off big dividends, this process of getting the students to be more
independent in the way that they learn and taking the responsibility
themselves.
Tom, Riverside School
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Hitting the Headlines
1998 Black & Wiliam 74-page review article : Evidence.
1998 Inside the Black Box. 20-page booklet. ~ 50 000 sold.
1999 - 2001 KMOFAP work: teachers invent the practice.
2002 King’s team: Working Inside the Black Box 24 page
booklet~ 45 000 sold.
2002 KS3 DfES initiative stresses Assessment for Learning.
2003 King’s team: Assessment for Learning book 2 reprints.
WHY : what did we do right ?
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Learning Principles
Cognitive
• Start from a learner’s existing understanding.
• Involve the learner actively in the learning process.
• Help the learner to understand the learning aims and the
criteria of quality, so enabling self- and peer-assessment.
• Support and guide social learning, i.e. learning through
discussion.
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Learning Principles
Motivation and Self-esteem
Those given feedback as marks are likely to see it as a way to
compare themselves with others (ego-involvement), those given
only comments see it as helping them to improve (taskinvolvement): the latter group out-perform the former.
– (Butler, 1987).
Feedback given as rewards or grades enhances ego- rather than
task-involvement.
With ego-involvement, both high and low attainers are reluctant to
take risks and react badly to new challenges, and failures simply
damage self-esteem
With task-involvement, learners believe that they can improve by
their own effort, are willing to take on new challenges and to learn
from failure.
(see “Self-Theories” by Carol Dweck, 2000)
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Where is it going ?
The Revival : It’s worth doing
Implementation : How it’s done
Hitting the headlines
Others can do it too – or can they ?
Old wine in new bottles ?
Why it matters ?
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Dialogue : Example A
T: Look carefully. Where have you seen something like this? You might
have seen something like it before. What is it involved with? It’s got a
special name . . (3 go hands up - teacher selects one of these)
T: Yes . . . . Jay?
Jay: In electricity sir.
T: That’s right. We can use these in electric circuits. Anyone know what it is
called? This word here helps. Can you read what it says? Carolyn?
Carolyn: Amps
T: And what is this instrument that measures in amps?
–Pause of 2 seconds. No hands go up
T: No? No one? Well it’s an ammeter because it measures in Amps.
What’s it called Jamie?
Jamie : A clock sir
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Dialogue : Example B
T: Why do you think these plants have grown differently ?
Pairs discuss for 4 minutes. Teacher takes no part.Class noisy.
T: Okay. Ideas?
Half the class put hands up. T waits 3 secs. Few more hands up.
T: Monica - your group? Pair?
Monica: That one’s grown bigger because it was on the window.
T: On the window? Mmm. What do you think Jamie ?
Jamie: We thought that . . .
T: You thought . . . .?
Jamie: That the big’un had eaten up more light.
T: I think I know what Monica and Jamie are getting at, but can anyone
put the ideas together? Window - Light - Plants?
Many hands go up. T. chooses a child who has not put up his hand.19
Typical dialogues ?
Clearly, if classroom talk is to make a meaningful contribution
to children’s learning and understanding, it must move beyond
the acting out of such congitively restricting rituals.
Robin Alexander Towards Dialogic Teaching 2004 p.9 .
. . . in normal human life, communicative activity and individual
thinking have a continuous , dynamic influence on each other.
. . .language provides us with a means for thinking together,
for jointly creating knowledge and understanding.
Neil Mercer Words and Minds. 2000 Ch.1.
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Mercer at al.
Indicator words used by pupils
Word
Pre-intervention
Post-intervention
because
13
50
I think
35
120
would
18
39
could
1
6
____________________________________________________
TOTALS
67
215
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Where is it going ?
The Revival : It’s worth doing
Implementation : How it’s done
Hitting the headlines
Others can do it too – or can they ?
Old wine in new bottles ?
Why it matters ?
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Changing the teacher’s role
There was a definite transition at some point, from focusing on
what I was putting into the process, to what the students were
contributing. It became obvious that one way to make a
significant sustainable change was to get the students doing
more of the thinking. I then began to search for ways to make
the learning process more transparent to the students. Indeed, I
now spend my time looking for ways to get students to take
responsibility for their learning and at the same time making the
learning more collaborative.
(Tom, Riverside School)
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Changing the pupil’s role
“… a number of pupils … are content to ‘get by’…
Every teacher who wants to practice formative
assessment must reconstruct the habits acquired
by his pupils.”
P.Perrenoud (Geneva) 1991
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Old wine in new bottles ?
A theory ?
Tools
Object ————> Outcomes
Subject
Rules
Community
Division of labor
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The Triangle
Pedagogy
curriculum
Learning
ASSESSMENT
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Why it matters
The moral enterprise
To ask of other human beings that they accept and memorise what
the science teacher says, without any concern for the meaning and
justification of what is said, is to treat those human beings with
disrespect and is to show insufficient care for their welfare.
It treats them with a disrespect, because students exist on a moral
par with their teachers, and therefore have a right to expect from
their teachers’ reasons for what the teachers wish them to believe.
It shows insufficient care for the welfare of students, because
possessing beliefs that one is unable to justify is poor currency
when one needs beliefs that can reliably guide action.
– S. Norris (Alberta), 1997 in Science Education
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