Some examples:
Rubric to mark paragraph
Remembered to indent first word
|
Forgot to indent
|
||
Topic sentence is clear about the main idea, and gets the reader’s
attention.
|
Topic sentence is present, but we are not sure exactly what the main
idea is. It could be one of two or three ideas.
|
Topic sentence is vague, and is very unclear about the subject.
|
No topic sentence
|
All parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Most parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Only a few parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Body part jumps from one topic to another
|
Interesting closing sentence wraps it up and leaves the reader
thinking.
|
Relevant closing sentence
|
Vague closing sentence
|
No closing sentence
|
Interesting vocab. Used (>3)
|
Some interesting
words used (>2)
|
One interesting word used
|
Words are too simple
|
All words are spelt correctly
|
One or two spelling mistakes
|
More than two mistakes, but less than six
|
More than five spelling mistakes
|
Remembered to indent first word
of each paragraph
|
Remembered to indent first word
of most paragraphs
|
Remembered to indent first word
of few paragraphs
|
Forgot to indent
|
Topic sentences are clear about the main idea, and get the reader’s
attention.
|
Topic sentences are present, but we are not sure exactly what the
main idea is. It could be one of two or three ideas.
|
Topic sentences are vague, and very unclear about the subject.
|
No topic sentence
|
All parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Most parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Only a few parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Body part jumps from one topic to another
|
Interesting closing sentence wraps it up and leaves the reader
thinking.
|
Relevant closing sentence
|
Vague closing sentence
|
No closing sentence
|
Interesting vocab. Used (>7 from list)
|
Some interesting
words used (<7)
|
One or two interesting words used
|
Words are too simple
|
All words are spelt correctly
|
One or two spelling mistakes
|
More than two mistakes, but less than six
|
More than five spelling mistakes
|
Remembered
to indent first word of each new paragraph.
|
Remembered
to indent first word of most paragraphs.
|
Remembered
to indent first word of a few paragraphs.
|
Forgot to
indent.
|
All parts
of the body of a paragraph are related.
|
Most
parts of the body are related.
|
Only a
few parts of the body are related.
|
Body part
jumps from one topic to another.
|
Interesting
vocab. is used (>3 words)
|
Some
interesting
words
used (>2)
|
One or
two interesting words are used.
|
Words are
too simple
|
All words
are spelt correctly.
|
lOne or
two spelling mistakes.
|
More than
two mistakes, but less than six.
|
More than
five spelling mistakes.
|
Punctuation
is all correct.
|
Most
punctuation is correct.
|
Only some
punctuation is correct.
|
Much of
the punctuation is missing.
|
Dialogue
is used effectively to show characters.
|
Dialogue
is used mostly when needed.
|
Dialogue
could be used more often.
|
Very
little or no dialogue is used.
|
Inferences
are used – “show, not tell” often.
|
Some
inferences are used.
|
A few
inferences are used.
|
Very
little or no inferences are used.
|
Similes
or metaphors are used to good effect.
|
Some
similes or metaphors are used.
|
One or
two similes or metaphors are used.
|
No
similes or metaphors are used.
|
Interesting
setting is used.
|
A good
setting is used.
|
Setting
is present, but is not very detailed.
|
No
setting is used.
|
Characters
are gripping
|
Characters
are interesting
|
Characters
are not that interesting
|
Characters
are dull
|
Conflict
or problem is exciting.
|
Conflict
or problem is interesting.
|
Conflict
or problem is present , but not interesting enough.
|
No
conflict or problem is present.
|
Interesting
conclusion leaves the reader thinking.
|
Relevant
conclusion
|
Vague
conclusion
|
No
conclusion
|
Finished unit on self-assessment for MA at Bath. See below:
How can self-assessment improve learning? An exploration into the
practical application of self-assessment in my own teaching.
Introduction
Traditionally the role of assessment has been one of judgment and
selection, but this role has been undergoing a paradigm shift, and assessment
is now also used as a tool for learning.
Frequently the selection of students or candidates was based on
intelligence. This selection has often been used, and is still used for entry
into specific careers or establishments. These selections are norm-referenced
in order to compare individuals, and are often based on the presumption that
intelligence is innate. This kind of testing is known as psychometric testing,
and its use is restricted to selection procedures, and not for helping the
individual in his learning.
On the other hand, educational assessment is used to develop the
learner by finding more out about the learner. It measures competence rather
than intelligence, and performance is usually judged in relation to the
individual rather than the group. Satterly (1981, p.3) states that it ‘includes
all the processes and products which describe the nature and extent of
children’s learning…The overall goal is not to stop at the description but to
provide information to be used in decision making.’ These decisions could be
simply which group to place the child in, or they could stretch further to
involve teaching and setting objectives. Then they could go even further to
include goal setting for the pupil.
Nowadays, assessment is used for a wider range of purposes; it is used
as a tool for learning, for finding more out about the pupil and as forward
feeding for teaching, as well as a tool for testing and judging. Its purpose can be both formative and
summative as will be discussed later.
This assignment will investigate how I have used educational
assessment in my own teaching.
The
importance of assessment
(Carless et al. 2006) There are various ways that learning can be
improved, such as having an enjoyable working environment, smaller groups,
interesting resources and relating learning to real-life situations. Learning
can also be improved through assessment procedure. Assessment has and will
always have a prominent role in education; it is needed for certification and
as proof of learning. In extreme cases high stake assessment can change the
course of a student’s life; it can give confidence, but it can also take it
away.
Rust (2002) reinforces the high
significance of assessment: “It is
generally accepted in the literature on learning and teaching (Brown &
Knight, 1994) that ‘assessment is at the heart of the student experience’ (p.
1) and probably the single biggest influence on how students approach their
learning (see Ramsden, 1992; Gibbs, 1992; Brown et al., 1997)”.
If we accept that assessment will always be a significant part of
teaching, then we need to find ways to make it a positive learning experience,
rather than a stressful and anxiety inducing experience that it can be for some
pupils.
If used effectively, assessment can help us to understand what has
been learned and what hasn’t been learned, where there may be some confusion,
and so where the teaching needs to be focused. It also helps to define the
curriculum; for a student the assessments are more influential than what is
formally written in course documentation. Students will generally spend a
considerable amount of time looking through past assessments, whereas they may
only glance over the course description.
The Two
Purposes of Assessment
Boud (2000) employs the term ‘double duty’ to signify the two purposes
of assessment, for learning and for grading. He suggests that both learning and
grading should be involved in assessment, and that grading should not impair
learning, as it has been shown to do in some cases. When assessment is used to
improve learning it is known as formative assessment. Formative assessment is
used with the purpose of promoting ongoing learning (Carless et al, 2006). On
the other hand, when assessment is used to judge achievement, then it is known
as summative assessment. Summative assessment is used when preparing report
cards or when taking an entrance exam, or national tests such as ‘A’ levels or
G.C.S.E.’s. This use of summative assessment poses the problem of whether these
tests are really testing the skills they were intended to test. Summative
assessment opens itself up to McNamara’s fallacy of making the measurable
important rather than making the important measurable. It could be assessing
lower order outcomes, which are more accessible rather than higher-order
outcomes. Which skills do we really need
to test when selecting a student? This is a complex question, and will not be
addressed here.
Summative assessment forms a large part of a student’s educational
life, but if its role is restricted to judging achievement, then it is not benefitting
the student’s learning. Would it be feasible to use summative assessment to
improve learning as well to judge it? I will examine these questions in
relation to my own experiences later.
Carless et al (2006, p.8) indeed suggest that summative assessment can
be learner-orientated, as is formative assessment; they use the phrase ‘Assessment
tasks as learning tasks’.
What is
self assessment?
Self assessment has been described as a review process that involves
the learner in reflecting on past experience, understanding what took place,
and forming a clear idea of what has been learned (Weedon et al, 2002). Weedon mentions a pack produced by the
University of Bristol in 1992, where self-assessment was described as a review
process which involves the learner reflecting on past experience, then trying
to remember and understand what was taught and then attempting to have a
clearer idea of what had been learned. To me this sounds very similar to good
revision strategies. The student is called to review and reflect on his
learning, which goes a lot further than merely receiving a grade as a form of
assessment. It involves meta-cognitive skills. Meta-cognition is about
understanding and being conscious of one’s own learning; it involves reflection
and asking oneself questions such as “What have I learned?”, “How well have I
done?” and “How can I improve my performance in the future?” Even very young
children can develop this self-awareness, which can aid them in their learning.
Pupils become more responsible and involved in their learning. For
this reason Weedon (2002) suggests that self-assessment is really assessment
for learning rather than assessment of learning, since the assessment is used
to aid learning. I would suggest that it could be both assessment for learning
and assessment of learning if used carefully.
At this point it should be pointed out that there are some aspects of
the pupil’s work that the pupil would know more about, such as how hard they
worked and what they have learned; but there are other aspects that the teacher
would know more about, such as the expectations of the curriculum and which
criteria will be used when judging their work. This would suggest that a
partnership could be the most beneficial way to self-assess (Satterly, D., 1989).
The shift is from teacher controlled to learner controlled (Harris, D., and
Bell, C., 1986).
How can
self-assessment improve learning?
The role of feedback in learning needs to be taken into account at
this point. Research literature points to the fact
that feedback plays a pivotal role in student achievement, however Rust (2005)
points out that there are many weaknesses and problems with feedback practice;
he quotes one study where 30% of the students surveyed said they never found
the feedback helped them and most said it helped only sometimes. In another
study he noted that students commented that feedback was often not understood,
and in another that they often do not read it. This could be due to the fact
that feedback usually comes too long after the work has been completed by which
time the students have moved onto something else. He even cites Fritz et al.
(2000) who showed that feedback sometimes has no effect at all; in a study
where students were asked to repeat the same task later after feedback, and
they largely repeated the task, including the same mistakes.
Feedback needs to be immediate and
interactive. Indeed, a social constructivist approach to feedback would mean
that the students actively engage with the feedback. Rust (2005) goes onto cite Sadler (1989), who identified three conditions for effective
feedback:
1. knowledge of the standards
2. having to compare those standards to
one’s own work (this is key and will be
discussed later.
3. taking action to close the gap between
the two
One way to achieve these three conditions is to have the students
self-assess their work. It seems that effective feedback and self-assessment
basically follow the same course. It could be that they are just two different
ways of looking at good study skills. In fact, many high attainers
automatically self-assess, whereas the lower attainers find it harder, and so
teachers need to work on the skills required to successfully self-assess. In my own experience I have found that all
the students managed to self-assess when presented with a clear rubric without
any problem, the question is whether they would have automatically done so
without guidance. I would say that indeed some of them would not have done so,
and would have returned work which could easily have been improved on had they
done so, thus emphasizing the need for explicit, guided self-assessment.
Steps 2 and 3 above mean that the student is examining his work in
relation to what he knows is expected (the standards), and then deciding
whether his work meets the expectations, and then improving it if it doesn’t.
As Weedon (2002) mentions, the role of assessment for learning is to specify
the gap between current achievement and the desired achievement, and to offer
support to the student to help him close the gap. The emphasis being on the
student and not the teacher, it is the student who will seek ways to close the
gap, with the support of the teacher.
It is possible that good study skills can be taught through
self-assessment. This is an interesting concept, and one that requires further
thought. This is why I shall be examining the concept of self-assessment, and
asking how and at which stage of learning it can be most effectively
implemented.
There are a number of reasons why self-assessment improves learning:
1)
It introduces other perspectives
2)
It introduces involvement with the assessment
criteria, which in turn helps develop and understand the criteria
3)
It takes the focus away from the teacher
4)
It focuses on the process and not the product
5)
It encourages learners to take responsibility
for their own learning
Self-assessment brings students into direct contact with the
assessment criteria; they therefore have a clearer idea of what they are trying
to achieve, and its purpose is made clear. (Black and Wiliam, 1998) Learning is
more effective when the student has understood the purpose of the learning. In
order to understand the purpose students need to be trained in self-assessment
so that they can grasp what they need to achieve. Students are indeed happier
when they understand the criteria used for assessment. These criteria could be
made explicit by deciding collaboratively on them with the teacher, rather than
the teacher just stating them. Of course, some criteria are not open to
collaboration or negotiation (Weedon et al, 2002); this applies to externally
set exams, like G.C.S.E.s, or standardized tests. However the criteria can
still be interpreted in the classroom. Students still need to understand the
meaning of the criteria if they are to make valid self-assessments as they work
through the exam. Time spent discussing and understanding the criteria will
improve performance, Carless et al (2006) suggest three pathways through which assessment
can support learning:
1)
Designing assessments that engage pupils in
processes that lead to learning.
2)
Involving pupils in the evaluation of their work
or that of peers.
3)
Building feedback loops so that the pupils can
react to feedback or information received.
By involving students in their assessment they are engaged in their
learning. Other assessment procedures are often something of a mystery to
pupils (Carless et al, 2006). They may not have a clear idea of the criteria
and may not know what their tutor or teacher is looking for. They might not
understand what constitutes good performance, or how to get a good grade. But
if they are to self assess correctly they will necessarily need to understand the
criteria and standards, and so will learn what constitutes good work. Through
evaluating their own work pupils develop a sense of the standard of work they
should be attaining. They compare their work with a standard in order to assess
it, and then try to close the gap between their work and this standard. It
helps them to understand what the assessment criteria really mean in practice.
(p.12) ‘Their involvement in their assessment helps them develop the capacity
to evaluate their own work.’
It also follows from a socio-cultural perspective that students are
not only objects of assessment, but are participants in all aspects of their
assessment, from formulating the criteria to creating meaningful assignments,
and then assessing their own and other’s work (Dysthe, 2004). Assessment plays a role in forming the
student’s identity; the language used influences how the student sees himself
as a learner. Assessments are needed that leave room for the student to express
themselves and how they see themselves emerging as learners. Whereas
traditional psychometric assessment focused on innate abilities, educational
assessment is focusing on how cognitive abilities can be developed through
learning opportunities.
Tensions
which may arise when implementing self-assessment
When introducing self-assessment into a classroom the teacher should
be aware of the power issues involved in the classroom (Weedon et al, 2002).
Students have ideas about what the job of the teacher should be, and they often
see this as involving making judgments about the merit of the students’ work.
Therefore taking on ways of working where the students’ ideas about the merit
of their own work are valued can upset the usual order and routine of the
classroom. Possibly, the best way forward would be to have a system of
collaboration, where the teacher gives his input about the expectations of the
curriculum and which criteria will be applied in formal assessments. The
student would be able to give his input about what he was trying to achieve and
how far he thinks he has gone in achieving it, and how it relates to his
personal goals. When coming up with the final assessment, which would possibly
include a grade, all of these parts could be taken into account in
collaboration. It could be a good idea for the student to self-assess his work
first, which would then be checked through with the teacher as an exercise in
dialogue. This would take up more classroom time than standard summative
assessment, and some teachers may feel that it takes away from their teaching
time. This could be a concern in a school where there is an accountability
culture with frequent high stakes testing. (Stobart,p.159) ‘The real evidence
of difficulty comes from the way that formative assessment is so often
suspended when examination pressures set in.” While formative assessment,
including self-assessment is considered to be a good thing, when teachers feel
under pressure to get students through and exam or test then they seem to
consider that their time is best spent otherwise. This is despite evidence that
self-regulated learners will perform better. For many teachers they see their
job, as do the students they teach, as covering the curriculum and preparing
for the test. It seems that they need more convincing evidence that formative assessment
helps students to learn. In my own experience I have found that often teachers
worry that they are not spending enough time on input when they spend more time
on other activities like self-assessment. Change is always difficult to bring
about, and self-assessment is not going to happen overnight in schools, but would
need to be brought in gradually, while teachers see for themselves an
improvement in performance.
Another problem that could be encountered with self-assessment is that
some students may find it too difficult and will not be motivated by it (Weedon
et al, 2002). Also the challenge to think for oneself can be threatening to
some students (Black and Wiliam, 1998). Some may be too hard on themselves,
demanding unrealistic achievements and the ending up disappointed. Others may
be too easy on themselves, and become complacent. However, Black and Wiliam (1998),
suggest that this is not a problem, and that students are capable of making
appropriate judgments when asked to self-assess. Where they do encounter
problems is in knowing and understanding what is required of them. They often
have only a vague idea about what constitutes correct work, and it is only
possible to assess themselves when they have a ‘sufficiently clear picture of
the targets that their learning is meant to attain’ (Black and Wiliam, 1998,
p.143). Unfortunately many students do not have such a picture and are used to
receiving lessons as an ‘arbitrary sequence of exercises with no over-reaching
rationale’ (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.143). When students do have an overview
they become more committed and effective learners. In order to give them this overview the
criteria need to be made very explicit. A rubric designed collaboratively could
aid this process for example. It could be that self-assessment is largely
successful because the student is in direct contact with the criteria and
necessarily needs to understand them in order to assess his own work.
My
experience of using self-assessment in my own teaching
When teaching fifth grade last year at Marymount International School
in Paris, I gave them an assignment on the pros and cons of homeschooling,
which I had intended to be summative. We had been spending a considerable
amount of time working on paragraphs, topic sentences and closing sentences,
and I was expecting to see at least three well organised paragraphs from the
students. I was very disappointed and surprised to see that a lot of the work
to be handed in had not made allowance for any paragraphs at all, and was
written as one long piece of work. I knew the children knew about paragraphs,
but they had failed to apply their knowledge in a real-life situation. I
decided that there was little point in me marking their work, and instead asked
them what they thought I would be looking for when I graded it. They came up
with the criteria I was expecting, and it appeared that they all know what they
were supposed to do, but had neglected to apply their knowledge. We formulated
a rubric together as a class, and spontaneously most of them asked if they
could re-do the assignment. I allowed them to do this and most of them came
back the next day with excellent, well organized pieces of writing. I then
asked them to fill out the rubric we had designed as an exercise in self-assessment.
During this whole exercise I had not needed to re-teach to any of them.
This showed me that although they had the knowledge they had not
bothered to apply it. I asked myself why and after reading the research on
assessment came to the conclusion that they did not see themselves as active
participants in their assessment; they were what Dysthe refers to as ‘objects
of assessment’. As such they were not motivated to apply their learning. I can
only assume that they thought their grade would be based on content and ideas,
neglecting that correct paragraph writing is part of the process. Through the
discussion of what I would be looking for when marking, the criteria became
clearly defined.
The question I am now posing is when is the right time to introduce
and collaborate on the criteria? From my experience it seemed to me that they
had learned more through their mistakes than they would have learned if I had
sent them away with a given set of criteria. Is it true that we learn more
through our mistakes than what we get right? This doesn’t mean I think they
should be set up for failure, far from it. But I do think a valuable lesson was
learned in that they realized how important it is to actually apply what they
learn in class; that they are not just learning for the sake of it. They saw
the purpose of their learning more clearly. This leads to the question of at
which level should the learners become involved in their assessment? Is it best
to involve them from the start, when defining the criteria? Or later when they
are simply given the criteria? In this case they are passive recipients of the
criteria rather than active participants, which would indicate that they would
be less likely to learn from the process.
Further
Ways in which I can use self-assessment in my third grade class this year
In this assignment I would like to suggest that it is best to design
the rubric together, so making the criteria explicit through classroom
discussion and collaboration. At this point I think the teacher should have
already prepared a rubric using the criteria he wants to assess, this would not
be shown to the students at any point, but would be a base for the teacher to
work from when discussing the criteria with the students. In my experience when
I have designed rubrics collaboratively with my class they come up with more
criteria than I would have done on my own, and I have found their criteria to
often be relevant and usually useful. It appears that they are more demanding
of themselves when asked to assess themselves in this way; they tend to think
of all that they should be including
in their writing, whereas my focus is narrower. This discussion and
collaboration is a very important part of the learning process. Discussions
where students talk about their understanding in their own ways are important
in increasing knowledge and understanding (Black and Wiliam, 1998). Dialogue
with the teacher provides an opportunity for the teacher to understand the
student’s thinking and then to respond and reorient it. Care should be taken
here so that the teacher does not fall into the trap of looking for and
expecting only a particular response; the unexpected and sometimes innovative
responses being left to the side. This would lead the student to the belief
that they are not required to think out their own answers, and that the
exercise is really to work out what is exactly in the teacher’s head. Often
dialogue between the student and teacher is in the form of the teacher asking
questions, this is often unproductive largely because the students are given
too little time to think out a response, so it is either the teacher or a
quick-responding student who will answer. The others tend to slip into a
passive position where they don’t even bother to think out a response, as they
know the answer followed by another question will follow in a few seconds. As a
result the teacher is out of touch with the understanding of most of the class,
even though he feels he has successfully taught the lesson. To improve this the
students could be given more time to respond, or by asked to write down a
response, which would then be discussed in a group or with a neighbour before
being presented to the teacher. The essential element is that the dialogue
between students and teacher should be ‘thoughtful, reflective, focused to
evoke and explore understanding, and conducted so that all pupils have an
opportunity to think and express their ideas’ (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.144).
In light of this literature, in order to come up with a set of
criteria for the rubric, where all the students have been active, the teacher
would set it up so that they would be working in small groups of three or four.
Each group would then be required to come up with three things, which they
thought should be graded (the criteria). Together with the teacher, they would
collate their ideas and so design the rubric, which would be printed out for
them, or which they would copy out.
The next stage would be for the students to complete the assignment,
and then compare their first draft with the rubric just constructed. The
teacher would then check that they had self-assessed fairly, and if necessary
have a dialogue with each student about this. One may think that all this is
far too time-consuming, but when looked at closely, the only part that takes up
more classroom time than traditional summative assessment is the designing of
the rubric, and the dialogue with individual students. However, this is the
very process that makes the criteria clearer to the students, and this is
exactly what the research points to as being most paramount in learning, so it
could hardly be called a waste of time.
Now I would like to demonstrate how I have applied this methodology in
my current third grade class. I will take the example of a language arts class
where the children were learning about writing paragraphs. We had looked at a
few models of what made a good paragraph, we had looked at what a topic
sentence should be and had seen examples of good topic sentences, and we had looked
at the closing sentence and its function, again using examples. The children
were then asked to create both topic sentence and closing sentences to
unfinished paragraphs. They then had a go at writing their own paragraph about
a dinosaur.
They were given feedback on their work, but no grade. With the report
cards coming up I decided it was time to grade their work.
I explained to them that the next piece of work would be graded, and
that we needed to design a rubric in order to grade this work. I divided them
into groups of three or four, and each group came up with three ideas about
what was important to grade. We then had a classroom discussion around their
ideas, and we designed the rubric together. The next day they wrote their
paragraphs from a choice of ideas.
When they had finished I gave them the rubric I had printed out and
they used it to self-assess. I took these in, and the following day
individually went over them with the students who had discrepancies with the
way they marked their paragraph and the way I marked it, in order to reach a
common accord.
Using this methodology I was aware that I was giving them every
opportunity to get a good grade, and in a way, it felt a little like
‘cheating’. I dismissed this feeling on the grounds that they should have all
learned clearly, through practice and self-evaluation, how to write a good
paragraph. I felt that I was grading their competence rather than their
intelligence.
It is interesting to look at the rubric I had in mind compared to the
one we came up with collaboratively.
Rubric I used as a base:
Remembered to indent first word
|
Forgot to indent
|
||
Topic sentence is clear about the main idea, and gets the reader’s
attention.
|
Topic sentence is present, but isn’t very exciting.
|
Topic sentence is unclear about the real subject of the paragraph.
Could be one of two or more ideas.
|
No topic sentence
|
All parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Most parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Only a few parts of the body are related to the topic sentence.
|
Body part jumps from one topic to another
|
Interesting closing sentence wraps it up and leaves the reader
thinking.
|
Closing sentence is related to paragraph.
|
No closing sentence
|
|
The rubric that we came up with together also included spelling, word
choice and correct capitalization.
When I carried out the exercise in self-assessment it was very
encouraging to see that all the students (with the exception of one) had met
all of the criteria in the first two columns of my base rubric. However when
they looked at their work in relation to the criteria they had added, they
found that their word choice was often too simple. I thought that it was
interesting that they realized this themselves without me needing to point it
out, though it was a little disappointing to note that they didn’t want to go
back and improve their word choice, but were content to accept the grade they
had already achieved. This could be that word choice is a time-consuming
element to change, and they felt that their grade was already satisfactory.
In fact giving them the opportunity to change their work when
comparing it to the rubric was not used. I think this could be to do with their
young age, and their shorter attention span, but also to do with the success
rate that they had reached. It seemed that this lesson had already lasted long
enough, and they wanted to move onto something else. What was most apparent was
their clear understanding of the criteria in my base rubric.
Conclusion
My own experience of self-assessment has demonstrated how well it can
help the learner focus on the standards, and also how it can help motivate the
learner. It can also provide more timely feedback, as the student is not
waiting for their work to be marked. It would appear that the discussion about
what is expected of them is pivotal. This fits in with research that
demonstrates how important dialogue is when learning. It serves to demystify
the process of assessment, it is no longer something which goes on in the
‘black box’, but has become an exercise in dialogue, where the ‘black box’ is
opened up and examined in detail. Students are free to ask questions about what
is in the ‘black box’ and so can see clearly the objectives and purposes of
their learning. They are then expected to actually apply the elements of the
‘black box’ to their own work. This is really the key element in aiding them in
their learning, for they would not be able to do this if they didn’t know
understand what was in the ‘black box’. One interesting discovery that I made
was that the E.A.L. children in my class scored much more highly than usual
using this method. This makes it clear to me that I was really assessing
competence, and giving these children an opportunity to perform as well as
their Anglophone peers.
Self-assessment is an excellent teaching tool, but I think one should
be careful not to over-use it, but to save it for assessing the learning that
has happened after a concept has been well-taught, and after the student has
had time to practice using the concept. The fact that my 3rd grade students
didn’t want to go back and correct their words showed to me that the whole
exercise had been rather too long, and could be shortened somewhere, and
definitely not over-used. It may be a better idea not to use all the criteria
that the students come up with, but stick with the ones I really wanted to meet
in this exercise.
I now intend to use self-assessment in my third grade class at the end
of units of study, though always with careful planning and thought in order to
avoid the tensions that may arise. I intend to solicit their ideas about the
criteria, but to only accept the ones I really want to concentrate on for the
task in hand.
References
Boud, D., 2000. Sustainable Assessment:
Rethinking assessment for the learning society.
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Black, P. and Wiliam, D. 1998. Working
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London:Kings College
Carless, D., Joughin, G., Liu, N. and assoc. 2006. How assessment Supports Learning, Learning-orientated
Assessment in Action. Hong Kong University Press.
Dysthe,
O., 2004. Balancing Dilemmas in
Assessment and Learning in Contemporary Education. London: Routledge, Anton Havnes, Liz McDowell
Gipps, C. 1994. Beyond Testing, Towards a theory of
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Satterly, D., 1981. Assessment in Schools. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
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Stobart, G., Reasons to be cheerful, Assessment for learning
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process model: how the research literature shows us this could be best
practice, Assessment & Evaluation in
Higher Education, Volume 30, Issue 3
Weedon, P., Winter, J., Broadfoot, P., 2002. Assessment: What’s in it for Schools?, London: Routledge Falmer
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