Raising Achievement through Formative Assessment

Raising achievement matters2

For individuals: Increased lifetime salary

Improved health

Longer life

For society: Lower criminal justice costs

Lower healthcare costs

Increased economic growth: Net present value to the UK of a 25-point increase on PISA:

£4 trillion (the value of every house in the UK)

Net present value to the UK of getting all students to 400 on PISA: £5 trillion

There is only one 21st century skill

So the model that says learn while you’re at school,

while you’re young, the skills that you will apply during

your lifetime is no longer tenable. The skills that you

can learn when you’re at school will not be applicable.

They will be obsolete by the time you get into the

workplace and need them, except for one skill. The

one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to

learn. It is the skill of being able not to give the right

answer to questions about what you were taught in

school, but to make the right response to situations

that are outside the scope of what you were taught in

school. We need to produce people who know how

to act when they’re faced with situations for which

they were not specifically prepared. (Papert, 1998)

3

What matters is teacher quality4

Take a group of 50 teachers: Students taught by the most effective teacher in that

group of 50 teachers learn in six months what those taught by the average teacher learn in a year.

Students taught by the least effective teacher in that group of 50 teachers will take two years to achieve the same learning (Hanushek & Rivkin, 2006)

And furthermore: In the classrooms of the most effective teachers,

students from disadvantaged backgrounds learn at the same rate as those from advantaged backgrounds (Hamre & Pianta, 2005).

What formative assessment is

Unpacking formative assessment6

Where the learner is going Where the learner is How to get there

Teacher

Peer

Learner

Clarifying, sharing and

understanding learning

intentions

Engineering effective discussions, tasks, and

activities that elicit evidence of learning

Providing feedback that

moves learners forward

Activating students as learningresources for one another

Activating students as ownersof their own learning

And one big idea7

Use evidence about learning to adapt what happens in classrooms to meet student needs.

To consider …8

Why are we marking work?

How are we marking work?

What should be in place BEFORE you mark a piece of work?

What happens DURING the production of a piece?

What should happen AFTER you’ve marked the work?

How are students involved in the process? What do we expect from students?

Why are we marking?9

Knowing where are students are/how much they have understood and therefore informing our planning.

Encouraging students to value work – nag about presentation, producing work for an audience.

Reinforcing connection with students.

Being able to give personal, immediate feedback and information about how to make improvements.

Feedback about Learning10

Dylan Wiliam

How should we mark?11

Formative marking should:

Be using comments only

Be selective

Refer to previous work to indicate progress

Link to learning objectives

Remove ego involvement

Specify something that could be improved and how to go about this

CAUSE thinking.

BEFORE marking a piece of work12

Provide checklist/success criteria/model

Refer to work as a “draft” to promote the idea that redrafting to improve is part of the process.

Work must be worth marking. Consider: Presentation

Link to previous targets/wishes

Checking of work

Students proofread work and highlight parts where they’ve met success criteria

Editors/Checking buddies responsible for checking before work is submitted.

DURING the production of the piece13

Refer to checklists/success criteria

Mark/give feedback on plans

AFTER work has been marked14

Feedback should have caused thinking so …

DIRT (Dedicated Improvement & Reflection Time)

Students act on wishes, complete tasks set, ask questions, reflect

Teachers:

Evaluate, reflect

Plan next steps

Make adjustments

Differentiate more effectively

TIMING of feedback15

Should feedback be at the end of a unit/piece of work?

Could we do “End of Unit Tests” ¾ way through a unit to give time for students to act on wishes and make improvements?

Students need time to revisit their area for development before moving on.

Next steps16

Take time to digest the information from today

Discuss in faculties and consider how far your current marking and feedback CAUSES students to think and engages them in the feedback process

From the “Instead of …” sheet, select some strategies that you are going to try over the first half-term. What will work in your subject area?

Are there strategies that you already use that we can add to the sheet and share? Thread on Frog – I’d like everyone to add a strategy or report on one that they’ve used.