Formative Assessment: Looking beyond the techniques

Dr Jeremy HodgenKing’s College London

Improving (mathematics) education through feedback and formative

assessment

• Attainment, progression and standards over time

• Teacher education• International comparisons• Primary and secondary

What are you already doing about formative assessment?

Talk to your neighbour.Identify one issue or problem.

What is formative assessment: a working definition

• Any assessment directed at informing learning– What do you need to do next?

TEACHING LEARNING

TEACHING ≠ LEARNING

TEACHING ≠ LEARNING

TEACHING ≠ LEARNING

TEACHING ≠ LEARNING

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.(Tom Watson)

The evidence …• Origins: Bloom (1970s)

• Black & Wiliam: Inside the Black Box (1998) etc

• Numerous other reviews worldwide– Natriello (1987); Crooks (1988); Kluger & DeNisi (1996);

Nyquist (2003)

• All find consistent & substantial effects on …– Attainment and engagement– BUT poorly described in practice.

More evidence …

• Hattie’s (2007) meta-analysis: – Feedback is the most effective intervention in education

(effect size: 1.14)

• Wiliam (2007): – Assessment for learning probably the most cost effective

way of improving teaching– Better and more achievable than reducing class size or

enhancing teachers’ subject knowledge

Extraordinarily “successful” …

• Inside the Black Box: > 50,000 copies sold (UK)• Working Inside the Black Box: > 40,000• Mathematics Inside the Black Box: > 7,000• Embraced by DCSF / DfES, National Strategies • Taken up by schools• Hard to find a teacher who hasn’t heard of it

What people say: debunking some myths and misconceptions

• “Don’t students need marks?”

The effect of marks & feedbackGain Attitude

Marks only None Top Bottom

Comments only All All

Comments & Marks None Top Bottom

The effect of marks & feedbackGain Attitude

Marks only None Top Bottom

Comments only All All

Comments & Marks None Top Bottom

Marks and Comments

Marks and Comments

What people say: debunking some myths and misconceptions

• “Don’t students need marks?”• “What’s new? Good teachers already do this

anyway?”• “I already ask lots of questions”

Listening to students’ answers

• Evaluative– Teachers know the answer– Listening for the correct answer– Often give clues: “Almost …” … “Nearly …”

• Interpretive– Teachers don’t know how students will answer– Why do they say that?

When Miss used to ask a question, she used to be interested in the right answer. Now she’s interested in what we think.

What people say: debunking some myths and misconceptions

• “Don’t students need marks?”• “What’s new? Good teachers already do this

anyway?”• “I already ask lots of questions”• “If only I had the time …”• “Our students couldn’t do that.”• “It’s just a set of tricks.”

Looking more closely : Five principles

• Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions

• Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

• Providing feedback that moves learners forward• Activating students as learning resources for one

another• Activating students as owners of their own learning

Looking more closely : Five principles

• Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions

• Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

• Providing feedback that moves learners forward• Activating students as learning resources for one

another• Activating students as owners of their own learning

Looking more closely : Five principles

• Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions

• Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

• Providing feedback that moves learners forward• Activating students as learning resources for one

another• Activating students as owners of their own learning

Looking more closely : Five principles

• Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions

• Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

• Providing feedback that moves learners forward• Activating students as learning resources for one

another• Activating students as owners of their own learning

Looking more closely : Five principles

• Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions

• Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

• Providing feedback that moves learners forward• Activating students as learning resources for one

another• Activating students as owners of their own learning

Some broadbrush strategies

• Rich tasks• Sharing learning intentions• Questioning and dialogue• Marking and Feedback• Peer and self-assessment• Using summative tests formatively

Sharing learning intentions

• Today we are learning … to use capital letters and full stops

• How could you share this learning intention with students?

… scientific method … English grammar … Physical Education / Sport …

Improving classroom dialogue

• Some examples from UK classrooms

Improving classroom dialogue

• The power of wait time– Increasing the range of students who answer– Increasing the quality of answers• More WRONG / partially correct, longer explanations

• Asking better questions– Highly context dependent

• Saying less and listening more

Marking and feedback

• Two ideas:– There are 5 mistakes here. Find and fix them.– You seem to be confused about … Talk to Eeva

about how to work out the difference.• Have you got some more ideas that might

work?

Peer and self-assessment

• The learning paradox• It’s good to talk• The value of being wrong

Using summative tests formatively

• Use to expand students’ conceptions of learning …

He was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of mistakes but he made mistakes in a good direction … I tried to imitate him but I found out that it is very difficult to make good mistakes.

(Goro Shimura)

Start NOW

• Doing something is better than doing nothing – Try something & evaluate whether it works

• Assess before or during teaching: don’t teach student what they already know

• Teachers don’t have to do it all

Moving forward

• Keep it simple • Work with others• Give and ask for feedback• Mistakes are useful: Getting it wrong can be

helpful