Assessment Practice. Prt 1.

Carry out a review of recent literature in good assessment practice. Use the understanding you gain from this to suggest:

How assessment procedures in your A placement school could be developed to align with current thinking on best practice. Where thinking on best practice can be critiqued on the basis of your experience. How your own assessment practice will be developed for the second placement school.

Introduction

"I hate it when you ask how to do something and they ask us questions back. They [teachers] should just tell us what to do so we can get on." A boy in Year 10, cited by Cowie (2005, p. 143).

There are many criticisms of assessment within education. If you switch on the television during GCSE results day, you will often see an unusual montage, of pupils celebrating good marks whilst ageing politicians state that their record-breaking achievements are because of `dumbing down`, or reducing the challenge in formal examinations. In current assessment discourse, however, accountability is now behind discussion on the ways in which formative and summative learning take place within school. The traditional summative model is often seen as limiting learner autonomy by causing teachers to `teach to the test`. Formative assessment, meanwhile, is considered to be the new educational `panacea`. If it is used correctly, it is often stated that it will raise attainment levels significantly.

Defining Assessment Terminology

Recent literature on assessment has focused on the concept of Assessment for Learning (AfL), and the importance of formative assessment in a system that is usually dominated by summative assessment. However, in order to understand these concepts it is necessary understand the discourse that surrounds the use of the terminology. Whilst "Inside the Black Box" by Black and Wiliam (1998) does not contain the phrase Assessment for Learning, Black et al (2004, p. 10) later stated that it meant, "any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students` learning." Since "Inside the Black Box" was published, and the term first became popular, there have been many instances where it has not been used correctly. In the Department for Children, Schools and Families document, "The Assessment for Learning Strategy" (2008, p. 19) AfL and Assessing Pupils` Progress (APP) are listed side-by-side. This is a common occurrence in policy documents, and has led to a misunderstanding about what AfL means. This misunderstanding can be best summed by Black, cited by Mansell (2008, p. 7), stating, "The main idea conveyed by this strategy is the belief that target-setting and frequent assessment of learning will help pupils learn more effectively. This is not assessment for learning. It may help learning, but it is not what I and colleagues have been writing about." It is also important to differentiate between APP and AfL, and formative and summative assessment. Mansell et al (2009, p. 9) states that, ""Formative" and "summative" are not labels for different types or forms of assessment but describe how assessments are used." In this way, formative assessment could be better understood if it was called `formative discourse`, as the main purpose of the assessment is to enable a dialogue between learners and teachers, and learners and other learners, for the purpose of deepening their comprehension and cognitive processes. Summative assessment, meanwhile, is the term used when describing the way assessment is used to attach a value-judgement to work that has been done, for the purpose of assessing cumulative learning, accountability for internal or external purposes, or political appropriation, or the many other ways in which test scores are used. To recap: AfL is designing and planning for formative assessment and summative assessment to inform learning. APP is a formalised version of AfL which promotes frequent summative assessment, modelling and the sharing of targets to direct pupils learning. Formative assessment is the informal method of creating a dialogue (verbal or non-verbal) with pupils to add depth to their learning. Summative assessment is the traditional method of assessment, which is concerned with attaching a value-judgement to the work. It is worth noting that much of the literature on the use of formative assessment has begun to develop an either/or dichotomy: it is either for formative assessment, or against it. However, as Taras (2007, p. 364) states, "According to Scriven (1967), the process of assessment is a judgement according to weighted standards, goals and criteria (this is summative assessment). Feedback from this which indicates any gap between the ideal required and how to reach it is formative assessment. Therefore, logically, summative and formative assessment lead into each other and are one continuous process." This is, in part, why the term `formative discourse` was mentioned above: Black and Wiliam (1998) seem to focus on the informal discourse inside the classroom, during lessons, whilst Taras seems to have assumed that it has a fixed quality to it, such as a written grade or level. My understanding is that Black and Wiliam were focusing on having discourse for a better understand not just of learners` work, but on the process by which they came to create that work, and therefore to suggest not only how to close "the gap", but for the teacher to understand why the gap exists in the first place. Its concern is not necessarily always with "weighted standards, goals and criteria," as much as learner autonomy through best practice. However, Taras is nonetheless correct in suggesting that formative assessment and summative assessment, by her definitions, lead into one another.