It is now a month since we started working from
home and are in full lockdown. I have been asked many times by teachers,
friends and colleagues about assessment in general and how to assess our
students in this new medium, which for
most is live online teaching. This has made me reflect about the importance of
going back to the basics of assessment and what I have said previously in other
blog posts, webinars I have given or conversations I have had – we need to keep
focusing on the basic principles of face to face (f2f) teaching as these still
apply and build on these so that we continue to make informed decisions about
the technology we bring into our lessons while keeping it simple!
I believe that it is important to start by
underlining that (online) assessment it too broad a term and that we need to
look at it more closely so that we can benefit as teachers from adopting an
appropriate approach and suitable strategies. In broad terms, assessment can be
summative or formative, where the former is about grades or marks, high stakes
exams and in many cases life-changing results. The latter, is about supporting
learning, building skills, and in my humble opinion, a personal journey we
embark on with our students. Now, I am not saying summative assessment is wrong,
I am focusing on what the current circumstances allow for and how I have
adapted to it – I am just sharing my ideas here so no point of contention
sought! Now, since summative assessment seems to have been put on hold in many
institutions from what I hear around my network, and many are trying to adapt
by adopting tools or collaborating with websites which offer the possibility to
replicate the same summative exam conditions we were used to when teaching f2f,
I have been thinking about the wonderful opportunity this situation brings
along for us to focus more intently on formative assessment.
In the last MA in Digital Technologies for
Language Teaching I completed in 2016 with the University of Nottingham, the
module on assessment really caught my attention, mainly because of my
involvement as a language assessment specialist with different international
boards. In particular, I found useful the distinction between assessment of
learning and assessment for learning, summative and formative assessment respectively,
and how this distinction can help us make better decisions in the
classroom. Hounsell, Xu and Tai, (2007) in their Balancing assessment of and
assessment for learning Guide no 2 helped me better understand formative
assessment so I want to share here the 4 strategies for better formative
assessment they identified for rebalancing assessment. These are easy to
implement and a must-have-awareness-of for teachers, I would argue, during
lesson planning.
I have a
preference for visual information so I put the strategies and my examples in
the table below. Information in colour under in column comes directly from the
guide, and my examples and thoughts about them come in the section below it:
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Feedforward assessments
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Interconnecting
assessment and assignment tasks to create a recursive cycle or feedback loop
where feedback can be fed directly into a subsequent task or aid preparation
for an exam – feedforward.
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Providing feedback on work our students do in the classroom either
orally or in writing needs to become feedforward by creating a ‘feedback
loop’ (p.4) where they can manipulate our feedback and integrate it into
their work. We need to ensure there is a follow up to our feedback to provide
opportunities for them to incorporate that feedback into their work and
prevent it from just being read and forgotten.
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Cumulative coursework
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The assignment
evolves over a period of time e.g. semester and shows the evolving grasp of
the concept by the students via feedback from tutors and other people
involved. Can take the form of a portfolio, log or workbook.
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Many of you will agree that most of the homework we set is related to
exercises in workbooks which come or not with answer keys and which in theory
would help students check their own work. We may also provide feedback on
their work, but I believe more flexibility could be built into our homework
setting routines. For instance, our students could keep an online portfolio
of their work, reflections, lesson related research to showcase at the end of
each Term (as it is the case for my current institution here the year is
divided into 3 terms) or school year.
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Better understood expectations and
standards
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Making
students aware of the criteria while valid does not effectively help students
to grasp the same concept of quality the teacher holds (Sadler, 1989 in
Hounsell et al., 2007). Solution - more interactive briefing and training of
students about assessment and expectations e.g. dialogue about assessment,
involving students into generation of criteria, opportunities for them to
assess own and peers' tasks and also providing training on this. One possibility is using 'exemplar' sample
for students to see and benchmark.
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Here, I think we can still do a lot in our
classrooms as often feedback focuses on mistakes thus taking a short-term
approach rather than creating tasks which clearly highlight what is expected
of them along with a model. In this sense, I find Cambridge exam tasks,
public assessment criteria descriptors and samples really useful as we can
start by building students’ confidence through modelling and clarification of
expectations.
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Speedier feedback
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A fourth
strategy for rebalancing assessment aims to increase the impact of feedback
by speeding up its provision to and immediacy for students, and so more
directly aid their subsequent performance in summative assessments. Computer-based
or enhanced assessment is definitely an option and example of how IT can
support education in issue-prone areas like this one.
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You may be familiar with the idea of ‘hot’ feedback or similar forms
where the aim is to provide students with feedback as soon as possible on
their performance. This in turn should help them make connections between the
content of the task and where they did no succeed in answering the task
sooner rather than later. This can be problematic for us teachers when we
have large classes we need to provide feedback to, so the next and last
section includes some ideas to address this issue.
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Where do digital tools
fit in all of this?
I am fond of
mantras and mine in lockdown is ‘keep it simple’! With this in mind, I thank
all the online websites and companies who are providing free services during
lockdown as they are indeed providing an opportunity for us to become more
acquainted with them. However, as a teacher myself and in line with my mantra,
my first choice is those tools which require no subscription now or later and
which are available to most. Now, I am fully aware that I do not know all the
apps and tools available so in my specific case I am trying to make the most
with what I already have while keeping it simple – that is the Google Suite of
tools: Docs and Forms (n this article), but also the other tools like Slides,
Drawing, etc. These digital tools allow
for great flexibility and can easily lend themselves to ensure a tick on each
of the four strategies identified above in very simple ways. For instance:
Google Docs
·
Written homework can become a dialogue between
the student and the teacher, one that goes beyond the initial correction and
which allows the student to see writing as a process (drafting) rather than a
once-written and corrected then done!
·
Once students are comfortable with the step
above, move on to groups tasks which require more collaboration following the
same steps as above, but applying them for group work.
·
Start using rubrics where students can see the
criteria they are assessed against. Start with self-assessment and build their
confidence with handling these before moving on to Peer assessment.
Google Forms
·
Exploit the fact that you can turn these into
quizzes which are marked automatically to reduce your marking load while also
providing immediate feedback to your students on their performance as well as correct
answers where they made a mistake.
·
Use these at different stages, in and outside
your lesson to gather information about your students’ performance and use this
to inform your lesson planning.
·
Recycle them at set times and use the mix
questions option to help easily revisit topics without having to re-invent the
wheel.
·
I follow Bradley Lands (@MrLands) on Twitter. He
is an educator too and has shared a lots of Google Form quizzes he created for
formative assessment which can be copied and edited to suit our classrooms
which are a great springboard for any teacher wanting to start introducing more
formative assessment into their lessons.
In short, whatever you do, try and ensure the
four strategies for formative assessment mentioned are part of the activities
you design to foster a more positive perception of (formative) assessment by
your students and also to pave the way for success in the long term.
References
Hounsell, D., Xu, R. and Tai,
C.M., 2007. Balancing assessment of and assessment for learning Guide no 2. Higher
Education, (2), p.15.
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