Formative Assessment Exercise Perscription

This is my first year teaching so I'm still finding my feet but I have learnt a valuable lesson regarding formative assessment and promptness when it comes to marking.

My mentor, Mihi, who I teach with, was sick and had a bereavement so I was left with quite a busy few weeks. While I was just trying to keep my head above water with teaching and prep I neglected marking. Once Mihi returned to work I was able to look at all the assignments that had been piling up. In doing this I was able to give great formative feedback to each student and change my next lecture and lab to accommodate the deficits in the students' knowledge that I was now aware of. Because it had taken so long to mark and return the first assignment the mistakes had been repeated for all the other assignments. Now it feels like groundhog day when I mark assignments and correct mistakes that I know students would now not make.

Next year I will make sure, come hell or high water, that I get and give feedback from formative assessment asap. It may mean working harder/longer in the short term but if student learning improves quicker then it will be worth it. Marking the other 15 assessments correct first time instead of having to mark resubmits will be awesome!

Formative Assessment Solutions

My last post included benefits and barriers to formative assessment. I will now discuss solutions to those barriers.

1 Classroom Culture
This must embrace interaction and the use of assessment tools. Students need to feel safe and confident to answer questions without fear of embarrassment or humiliation. Questioning should be encouraged.

2 Learning Goals
Learning goals must be created and students’ progress towards those goals must be followed. Pride in students work and the process must be instilled rather than focussing on grades alone. Goals should be evaluated and modified if necessary.

3 Varied Instruction methods
Different approaches and techniques should be employed to explain concepts. All learning styles (VARK) should be used to promote student engagement. As Stefan said in class, “A good teacher is one that doesn’t put you to sleep”

4 Varied approaches to assessing student understanding
-Diagnostic assessment to assess prior learning to ensure teaching is at an appropriate level.
-Questioning
To assess student understanding during class
Varied questions at different levels of the SOLO taxonomy
Should allow ‘thinking time’ before moving on
-Engage students to critically discuss their assignments and each others
-Project based assessment
-Peer-assessed presentations
-Peer and self evaluation
-Group tutorials
-Portfolios

5 Feedback
Feedback of student performance should be given and instruction should be adapted for each student’s needs if appropriate

6 Involvement of students in the learning process
Scaffolding learning by assessing student’s strengths and weaknesses and showing them how to proceed with the next step in their learning progress. Giving hints not answers and asking questions to help them find answers. Helping students to develop a series of learning strategies and skills.

Formative Assessmant in Practise / Barriers to Formative Assessment

Assessment for learning (aka Formative assessment)

We saw a video on successful mistakes in class. This was to emphasise the need to have no fear of failure and to encourage creativity. The relevance of this for our teaching is that a great deal of learning can be achieved through our mistakes and this is where formative feedback is vital.

The Benefits of Formative Assessment will include:
-better teaching
-better relationships with students
-more student engagement and motivation
-improved ‘learning skills’
-improved retention/attendance rates
-Improved academic achievement

Barriers to Formative Assessment

We were put into groups to discuss the barriers to formative assessment. Our group talked about

Time- marking written work and providing meaningful comments and giving one on one verbal feedback is time consuming

Student apprehension/fear of appearing foolish- Students may be reluctant to question or answer questions if they fear appearing foolish to their peers or lecturer

Motivation- of both student and teacher. If one or the other are not engaged or motivated then they will be reluctant to do any more than the bare minimum. Two of our group were college teachers and their experience was students became ‘Credit driven’ and wouldn’t engage with anything unless it ‘counted’.

Preconceptions- of students and teachers of what assessment is, was or should be and how formative assessment fits into that.

Perception of importance- If an assessment is not recorded or doesn’t count toward the summative grade then students may not try as hard thinking that it isn’t important. Therefore your assessment may be inaccurate showing a poorer result than may be true.

Educational Research and Formative Assessment

The 1966 Coleman report found that academic achievement was related to family background in the early years but going to school created greater disparity between black and white Americans. Expectations (of teachers and students) and quality of teaching are a greater predictor of academic success than race.

The hidden curriculum can dictate the potential performance of students. Even unintended messages given to students will affect their learning.

The Pygmalion effect (If you love the statue enough- it will come to life) was demonstrated in 1968 by Rosenthal and Jacobson when they arbitrarily labelled some pupils gifted and informed their teachers. By the end of the year these pupils did better than their peers.

Four factors may be responsible for this

-a warmer verbal and non-verbal environment created by the teacher

-greater input given to the pupils by the teacher

-greater opportunity for pupils to respond

-greater feedback given to the pupil/teacher won’t accept a low quality answer and has a greater expectation of the student.

Again- it seems quality of teaching and expectations of students and teachers are the most powerful force in predicting academic achievement.

VARK- Four learning styles have been described as Visual, Auditory, Read/Write and Kinesthetic. This can be problematic if people are pigeonholed into one style and limit themselves because of that. You can find your strengths and weaknesses and those of your students but it shouldn’t preclude yourself or your students from developing their non dominant learning styles. Rather it should encourage us to try to incorporate all learning styles into our teaching and assessment

Purpose of Assessment

The purpose of assessment

Why do we assess?

To certify a student is ready to progress to the next level or graduate

To classify and rank students’ performance

To improve students’ learning

To justify and ensure accountability

Feedback is required from teacher to student and from student to teacher.

There are 2 broad forms of assessment that have considerable crossover between each other:

Formative Assessment : This should be a frequent, interactive process of assessing students understanding to identify learning needs and adjust teaching. This includes all activities undertaken by students and teachers to provide feedback to modify teaching and learning.

Summative Assessment: This is the assessment at the end of a course or unit of study.