1. Assessment
Dr. Rosie Martin
10th January, 2012

2. Teaching as Inquiry
What capabilities do we
What educational
as students need in
outcomes are valued
order to achieve more as
for our students? and
self-regulated learners?
How are our students
doing in relation to
those outcomes?
What capabilities do
we as teachers need
to better promote the
What has been the learning of our
impact on student students?
outcomes of our
changed actions as
learners, teachers and
leaders? What capabilities do we
as leaders/ facilitators
need to better promote
the learning of our
Engage students in new teachers to bridge the
learning experiences gap for our students?
Deepen our capabilities
as students, teachers
and leaders through
further learning

3. Assessment
● How do you know what learners need? Where
does data collection and analysis fit into our
inquiry cycle?
● Why collect data? When is it appropriate to
collect data? Assessment data or information
is time limited in terms of its value to support
students with their current learning.
● We often use ‘data’ or ‘assessment
information’ interchangeably, but what do we
mean? Discuss with the people around you.

4. Purposes of Assessment
1. The use of assessment to help build pupils’ understanding, within
day-to-day lessons.
2. The use of assessment to provide information on pupils’
achievements to those on the outside of the pupil- teacher
relationship: to parents (on the basis of in-class judgments by
teachers, and test and examination results), and to further and
higher education institutions and employers (through test and
examination results).
3. The use of assessment data to hold individuals and institutions to
account, including through the publication of results which
encourage outsiders to make a judgment on the quality of those
being held to account.

5. Formative and Summative
Assessment
What a pupil does or says will be observed and interpreted by the
teacher, or other learners, who build on that response to develop a
dialogue aimed at helping learners to take their next steps. This is
formative assessment, which contrasts with summative
assessment.
There are characteristic differences between the two uses of
assessment:
• Summative comes at the end of learning episodes, whereas formative
is built in to the learning process;
• Summative aims to assess knowledge and understanding at a given
point in time, whereas formative aims to develop it;
• Summative is static and one-way (usually the teacher or examiner
judges the pupil), whereas formative is on-going and dynamic
(feedback can be given both to the pupil and the teacher);
• Summative follows a set of pre-defined questions, whereas formative

6. Formative and Summative
Assessment
● How and when do you, as a classroom or
subject teacher, employ each of these
strategies?
● What do you do with the information that
you gain from the assessments?
● What are the difficulties associated with
each?

7. ASSESSMENT for Learning
“…the term ‘assessment’ refers to all those
activities undertaken by teachers, and by
their students in assessing themselves,
which provide information to be used as
feedback to modify the teaching and
learning activities in which they are
engaged.”
‘Inside the Black Box’, 1998

8. However, frequent summative testing is not, of itself,
formative.
A teacher may set pupils some questions, whether in a test
or in routine written work, and in the light of their results tell
them what they need to do to reach, for example, the next
target or level. This is not formative unless the interaction is
designed to help pupils to learn.
This crucial point can be illustrated by a boy’s response to
the marking of his homework. The teacher had written on
the work “use paragraphs”, to which he retorted: “If I’d
known how to use paragraphs, I would have done”. Marks,
levels, judgmental comments or the setting of targets,
cannot, on their own, be formative. Pupils may need help to
know how they can improve.

9. Self Assessment
● Learners of any age self-assess when
they have the required information
● Learners need to be taught how to use
that information in order to self-assess
accurately
● Clear learning intentions, success criteria
and exemplars support learners to self
assess
● Self-assessment encourages learners to
take responsibility for their learning

10. Peer Assessment
● Assessing the work of others against given criteria
compels learners to understand more
comprehensively and supports the development of
their own metacognition.
● “Pupil groups can mark each other’s work, and
thereby learn to think about the aim of a piece of
work and to understand the criteria of quality”
(Black and Wiliam, 1998).
● If pupils merely compete to prove who is right or
dismiss one another’s comments rather than
taking them seriously, they are again being
judgmental rather than formative. Thus the ideal is
that pupils engage in formative assessment for

11. Think, Pair, Share
● Describe a lesson/topic where learners
engaged in self or peer assessment
● What information did you give them in
order for them to successfully carry this
out?
● What happened as a result of the self or
peer assessment?
● What would you do differently?

12. In summary
Effective Assessment:
● Benefits students
● Involves students
● Supports teaching and learning
goals
● Is planned and communicated
● Is suited to the purpose
● Is valid and fair