Formative Assessment

Formative e-assessment: some theoretical resources Dylan Wiliam www.dylanwiliam.net

Feedback Components of a feedback system 

data on the actual level of some measurable attribute;

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data on the reference level of that attribute;

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a mechanism for comparing the two levels and generating information about the ‘gap’ between the two levels;

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a mechanism by which the information can be used to alter the gap.

To an engineer, information is therefore feedback only if the information fed back is actually used in closing the gap.

Formative assessment Frequent feedback is not necessarily formative Feedback that causes improvement is not necessarily formative Assessment is formative only if the information fed back to the learner is used by the learner in making improvements To be formative, assessment must include a recipe for future action

No such thing as formative assessment Descriptions of  

Instruments

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Purposes

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Functions

An assessment functions formatively when evidence about student achievement elicited by the assessment is interpreted and used to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to  be better, or better founded, than the decisions that would have  been made in the absence of that evidence.

Some principles A commitment to formative assessment 

Does not entail any view of what is to be learned

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Does not entail any view of what happens when learning takes place

Types of formative assessment Long-cycle  Span: across units, terms  Length: four weeks to one year  Medium-cycle  Span: within and between teaching units  Length: one to four weeks Short-cycle  Span: within and between lessons  Length:  day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours  minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours

Unpacking formative assessment Key processes 

Establishing where the learners are in their learning

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Establishing where they are going

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Working out how to get there

Participants 

Teachers

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Peers

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Learners

Aspects of formative assessment Where the learner is going

Where the learner is

How to get there

Teacher

Clarify and share learning intentions

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

Providing feedback that moves learners forward

Peer

Understand and share learning intentions

Activating students as learning resources for one another

Understand learning intentions

Activating students as owners of their own learning

Learner

Five “key strategies”… Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions 

curriculum philosophy (goals and horizons)

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

classroom discourse, interactive whole-class teaching

Providing feedback that moves learners forward 

feedback

Activating students as learning resources for one another  

collaborative learning, reciprocal teaching, peer-assessment

Activating students as owners of their own learning 

metacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment

…and one big idea Use evidence about learning to adapt teaching and learning lea rning to meet student needs

Gresham’s law and assessment Usually (incorrectly) stated as “Bad money drives out good” “The essential condition for Gresham's Law to operate is that there must be two (or more) kinds of money which are of equivalent value for some purposes and of different value for others” (Mundell, 1998) The parallel for assessment: Summative drives out formative Perhaps the most that summative assessment (more properly, assessment designed to serve a summative function) can do is keep out of the way

Signature pedagogies…

…in Law

…in Medicine

Changing demands for skill Which of the following categories of skill has disappeared from the work-place most over the last forty years? y Routine manual y

Non-routine manual

y

Routine cognitive

y

Complex communication

y

Expert thinking/problem-solving

The regulation of learning Signature pedagogies 

Pedagogies of engagement

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Pedagogies of contingency 

Proactive

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Interactive

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Retroactive