Assessment, both formative and summative, are and always have been hot topics in education globally. There are a plethora of apps, platforms, and research-informed literature available internationally, centred on effective assessment and its impact. However, as always in education, we know there is always more to learn and that the most effective educators are those who always continue to engage in their own learning journey.
Recently, one member of our Education Advisory panel, Thomas Guskey, hosted a webinar on this topic and challenged New Zealand leaders to provide learners with the best chances of success by enacting effective assessment. Following on from this webinar the team at Cognition has been reflecting on improved assessment techniques and the impact of approaches to assessment on learners in the New Zealand context. Tom shared four crucial insights in his webinar: assessment must meet its authentic purpose – to inform teaching and learning – and this should be clearly communicated to learners; teachers need to act on the feedback that assessment information provides them and change what they do next as a result; rubrics (when used effectively) support increased student success, and school leaders are ultimately responsible for ensuring teachers are enacting fair and effective assessment.
Assessments as learning tools
What is the main reason for assessing our learners? According to the New Zealand Curriculum (2007), effective assessment benefits and involves students, is planned and shared and designed to support teaching and learning goals, be suitable for purpose, and, fair (p.40).
In New Zealand schools, I think we would agree with Tom’s message that the primary purpose of assessment is to inform teaching and learning. This key point is worth reinforcing because although this is the underlying premise of Assessment for Learning approaches, there are still many examples of teacher (and leader) perspectives that would give other reasons first. I’m sure you have heard about the demands from senior management teams to collect formal test results or the parents who are apparently calling out for reporting against national benchmarks. That is not to say that these are not valid purposes for assessment, they are; merely, that focussing on these may lead us in a different direction, in terms of our subsequent actions or the pedagogies we choose to design learning.
It may be a better fit with current research-informed ideals if formal, summative perspectives were balanced with a genuine sense of curiosity; is what I’m doing working well for the learners in front of me? How is the assessment information I’m getting informing me about my practice?
We are all aware of the positive impacts of highly effective feedback. Arguably, the most valuable form of feedback is when formative assessment information provides the teacher with direct feedback about the changes their actions are creating in students’ learning outcomes. Now, that is worth getting excited about!
Furthermore, Benjamin Bloom’s (1968) influential work on assessment indicated it’s not the content or format of an assessment that determines whether it is formative or summative, rather it is the purpose or reason for the assessment that defines this. What matters is how we use the results. Bloom saw formative assessment as a component of the teaching-learning process.
Summative assessment has a clear purpose, however, it is formative assessment that guides both student and teacher to close the gap between current performance and the desired learning outcomes (Hattie & Clarke, 2018).
Tom cautioned us against setting our students up to play, “guess what’s in the teacher’s head”. Instead, it’s better to design assessments that test specific learning goals, and crucially, these goals must have been clearly communicated with the learners prior to the assessment. If what we want students to learn is how to solve problems in context, these are the skills we ought to be giving them multiple opportunities to practice, then measuring, observing and noticing the outcomes. Instead, what we often do is assess using knowledge-level tasks and then wonder why learners are struggling to transfer their knowledge into practice. We need to play fair! Provide clarity and share the learning criteria up front so that everyone is able to identify the priority; including the students, parents, and other adults involved in the learning; use assessment information to build learning-focused partnerships.
More and more, we are working collaboratively as teachers and this increases the need for effective communication about learning goals and desired outcomes. We must ensure assessment informs our collaborative planning for future learning. This becomes more important in environments where teaching staff share the responsibility for planning and delivering student learning. When teachers work together in this way, sharing data and discussing formative assessment information and how best to respond and support further learning, collective efficacy is increased, creating a snowball effect of outcome improvements. In this way, assessments can become an integral part of instruction. I’ll say that again, effective formative assessment is an integral element that is a key part of teaching and learning.
Assessment-informed actions
Of course, the act of assessment itself is only part of the picture. What we do with the information we have gathered is very important! If we realise (through the planned gathering of assessment information) that some of our learners have not yet grasped the desired knowledge and skills, rather than putting the blame or onus on the students, Tom reminds us to ask ourselves, “what do I (as a teacher) need to do differently?” In asking this question, we acknowledge that identifying gaps in learning undercovers a teacher problem, not a student problem.
Russell Bishop (2019) would call this perspective, being an agentic teacher. Taking responsibility for, and having the power to act to make a positive difference on student outcomes. Because who or what else can have a greater impact, than the young person’s teacher?
Analysis of assessment information is best followed by corrective instruction, by doing something differently in our practice, in order to ensure that the learners make improvements towards the learning goals. Indeed, this is an essential (if sometimes missing in practice) element of the Teaching as Inquiry cycle (Timperly, Kaser & Halbert, 2014). It is the job of the teacher to identify what actions will be required to support the learner to continue to make progress. These actions may need to be completed by the teacher (as in, adapting their pedagogy to apply a different teaching strategy, task, or style of instruction), or, by the learner (who may need to reflect on the steps they took, refer to an exemplar, or do further practice). Importantly, learners need to be directed and supported to act on corrective feedback. Teachers who provide time explicitly for this purpose and guide students in how to improve their work in response to feed forward are setting their pupils up to learn how to learn. This is one of the eight principles of the New Zealand Curriculum (2007) and needs to be taught as a skill alongside the content of our lessons.
Circling back at the end of his kōrerō, Tom reminded us about how teachers can positively influence learning-focused relationships. And not just with the learner, but with their whānau as well. Learning conversations with families need to involve communicating clearly and agentically about their child. The advice was to steer away from using technical assessment jargon and acronyms (oh how we love our acronyms in education!) and instead share the secret with those who need to understand it. Grow parents’ capability to speak the language of schooling, so that they may be able to contribute to shared tasks of wrapping support around the student’s learning journey. Above all, express confidence that your students can be successful! There is nothing more powerful than maintaing high expectations and conveying a sense of agency for all learners.
One suggested approach to effective assessment
The question of how we might best apply effective assessment practices cannot be answered just within the scope of this paper, nor within the constraints of a time-bound webinar session. However, an area Tom has suggested that’s worth returning to, is the use of rubrics. Rubrics provide clarity, progression, and clear expectations for all concerned. When worded well, they can be just as useful for unpacking the learning with whānau, as they are in conferencing between teachers and students about progress because they can provide specific outcome information to the learner and provide clear guidance for the teacher as to levels of attainment. They allow for student-driven goal-setting, an element of agency and self-directed learning, and clear indicators of what excellence could look like.
Brookhart and Chen (2015) recommend the use of rubrics due to “the fact that rubrics are an efficient, clear, and easily understood way to focus learning goals, criteria, and performance descriptions” (p.363). Furthermore, they suggest teachers receive professional development in the creation and use of rubrics and in coaching students to use rubrics. Constructing effective rubrics, especially those that combine content, technical skills and capabilities, requires skill and practice.
Importantly, Tom reminded us to begin with a model of excellence. Rather than working from a descriptor of the bare minimum expectation or requirement, we should work from an exemplar of the highest level. This implicitly communicates to learners that we believe every individual is capable of achieving these criteria. Be clear about what the learning looks like at, and above, the expected standard, and then support your students to strive for these indicators within their own work. In this way, we can enable and scaffold learners to achieve more success. It is worth pointing out that the timing of success is relevant. Tom insists on ensuring learners experience early success! That is, the first assessments with a new teacher or class or a new area of subject matter. Recognising and celebrating this early success builds learner confidence, motivation, and establishes a mindset that sets their disposition for everything to come in that class or topic. Tom pointed out that even some adult learners love stickers (or other tangible forms of reward and recognition; acknowledgement of success). Crucially, experiencing success breeds further motivation!
Speaking of motivation, according to Hill and Thrupp (2019), “it is widely accepted that the more a student is involved in the assessment process and the more specific and descriptive the feedback, the greater the motivation to learn.” (p.118). Which brings us back to what is needed to encourage and enable teachers to do more of this every day to make assessments fair.
Leading for effective assessment
In answer to a question from the audience about creating the conditions required to effectively support teachers to plan collaboratively for formative assessment practices, Tom reinforced the need for leaders to create systems and structures that deliberately enable these actions to occur. Teacher practices are hugely influenced by leadership decisions and implementing effective approaches to assessment is no exception to this. School leaders must be prepared to spearhead improvements by allocating time and support for teaching staff to focus on professional learning and collaborative practice. Regular opportunities to share strategies, co-construct plans for learning experiences, and discuss gathering, analysing and responding to student assessment information are essential if leaders expect their teachers to work in this way. As leaders, we must set our learners (staff) up for success by providing clear expectations around what excellent teaching practice looks like in our context.
Tom reminded us of the well-known tendency for teachers to revert back to teaching in ways that mirror their own educational experiences. Depending on how long you’ve been in the game, those pedagogies are now a little (or a lot) out of date. It is our moral responsibility to reflect critically on what we now know works best; on how effectively we are implementing best practice approaches to assessment, every day, and to be better. Failing to do so is likely to lead to a return of over-reliance on formal, summative assessment measures (tests) and regression in both our pedagogical practices and our students’ outcome measures. Leadership of effective, embedded, and systematic continuous improvement practices, such as those that take place during well-facilitated Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings, is one of the key ingredients for school-wide success. Without strong, clear leadership, assessment practices are at risk of becoming haphazard and teachers are at risk of falling back into unhelpful habits. It takes a deliberate and shared approach to assessment to ensure success.
Enacting effective assessment
In summary, enacting the principles of effective assessment requries a milieu of elements being considered. According to a range of experts from both here and overseas, and covered in depth by Tom Gusky in the afore-mentioned webinar, careful planning and deliberate action is necessary for the stars to align and our practices to reflect what we know about how to enact these principles.
We must provide opportunities: for students; for teachers; for leaders; to investigate and enact the changes to daily decision-making that connect together to make up our pedagogy and our learning programmes. We must provide all learners (including our staff) with second chances to experience success, by implementing recommended changes to their work over time. And we must maintain the highest expectations of excellence for all, through building relationships, being clear, and playing fair.
References
Bishop, R. (2019). Teaching to the North-East: Relationship-based learning in practice. Wellington: NZCER.
Bloom, B. S. (1968). Learning for Mastery: Instruction and Curriculum. Regional Education Laboratory for the Carolinas and Virginia, Topical Papers and Reprints, Number 1.
Hattie, J. & Clarke, S. (2018). Visible learning: Feedback. London: Routledge.
Hill, M. & Thrupp, M. (2019). The professional practice of teaching in New Zealand (6th Ed.). Australia: Cengage.
Ministry of Education (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media
Brookhart, S. M. & Chen, F. (2015) The quality and effectiveness of descriptive rubrics, Educational Review, 67(3), 343-368, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2014.929565
Timperly, H., Kaser, L., & Halbert, J. (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Seminar Series Paper No. 234. Melbourne: Centre for Strategic Education.