Implications for teachers and students

Assessment and feedback of students in the online environment Lesson 1. Setting the scene: Introduction to assessment for learning Implications for teachers and students

What are the benefits of Assessment for Learning?

How to implement Assessment for Learning?

Up until this point, we have learned about assessment for learning as a paradigm. In this section, we’ll learn how to bring this new paradigm into a real-life classroom. If you’re implementing assessment for learning to your teaching, you can follow these 5 steps:

1. PREPARE STUDENTS FIRST

Of course, this depends on your students age, but they have probably been enrolled in your school for quite some years, so they are used to learning and being assessed in a particular way. Being familiar with these methods helps them anticipate and understand what’s happening in the classroom. If we want to apply some changes, we need to take that into consideration. Explain that the purpose of assessment is for you to see how they are going in their learning and how you can help. Tell students that in your class learning is less about getting the right answer and more about their capacity to express and discuss their own understanding. Keep in mind that they might need some support to navigate within this new approach, and it might take them some time to get used to it.

2. PLAN TEACHING ACCORDINGLY

If you plan on using assessment FOR learning, you’ll need to plan classroom activities that elicit evidence of their learning. Think about your “opening move” and spend time framing questions which will explore the critical understandings. Here are some activities you could use: gamified quizzes, recorded brainstorming processes, journal writing, concept maps…

3. DEDICATE TIME TO EXPLORE LEARNING

Engage rich, thoughtful and reflective dialogue to explore your students’ understandings. Here are 4 things to keep in mind:

4. GUARANTEE ONE-ON-ONE TIME WITH YOUR KIDS

Finding the space for individualized feedback is one of our biggest challenges in assessment. Therefore, when you plan your lessons, develop classroom routines that enable you to have one-on-one conversations with students.

5. BE UNDERSTANDING AND INCLUSIVE

Remember to be understanding when you assess your students and when you give them feedback. It’s very common to ask students to use words to show their learning. For instance, when we ask them to write or present a task. Be sure you are assessing skills and knowledge rather than students’ literacy skills. You might consider other languages, other than verbal, to show learning in a more inclusive way. In addition, understand students’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds to ensure feedback is given appropriately.

Careful not to make these mistakes!

Some concepts might sound really nice in theory, but it might not be so smooth to put them to practice. Here are 7 common mistakes that teachers make when implementing Assessment for Learning. Look out for these and try not to make them!

Reflection activity:

Take a look at the 7 common mistakes when implementing Assessment for Learning. Think about the last activity that you assessed.

Which mistakes did you make?
Which mistakes did you not make?

Think about those mistakes you made.

How could you avoid making them again?

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