Effective Assessment and Feedback Rebecca Rhodes

What do you hope to get out of this session? TASK What do you hope to get out of this session?

Overview Assess effectively through marking and feedback Advice on how to get the most from our learners.

Questions to ask yourself How do you assess learning? Does this lead to improvements? Is it effective? What is the purpose of feedback? Formative assessment Questioning Self and peer marking Summative assessment Feedback Written Verbal Targets To reduce the discrepancies between current understandings/ performance and a desired goal

Who here gives grades on student work? YOUR LEARNERS Who here gives grades on student work? Why do you give grades? To sort? To motivate? To feedback? The A/B grade student (70% +) The C/D grade student ‘I’m still the best’ ‘I don't need to do anything different’ ‘I tried my best & is this it?’ ‘How can I do better?’ ‘I’m satisfied’ The E/U grade student ‘I suck at this subject!’ ‘Hmm, I didn't understand what I was doing.’ ‘I always knew I didn’t have the ability’

Assessing and improving learning Ideally we need to move the perception of assessments away being about making judgments and more about helping learning. This can be done in many ways and can include: Assessments (formative and summative) Types of feedback Questioning

What does good work look like? Assessment process Guidance Marking Setting What does good work look like? Returning Goals & objectives Self or peer Mark schemes Teacher Questions Combination Improving Changes Reflection Medals Missions (targets)

Effective feedback answers three key questions Feed Up Where am I going? Guidance Setting Marking Effective feedback answers three key questions Improving Returning Feed Forward Where to next? Feed Back How am I going?

Each feedback question works at four levels: Feedback can be about the: Feed Up Where am I going? Task level Is the work correct? Process level The process used to complete the task Feed Back How am I going? Self-regulation level Confidence to engage further with the task Self level Well done! Feed Forward Where to next?

Feedback at the self or personal level (e.g. praise) Praise doesn't address the three feedback questions (where am I going?, how am I going?, where to next?) making it ineffective in enhancing learning. When feedback draws attention to the self, students try to avoid the risk involved in tackling challenging work and have a high fear of failure in order to minimise risk to the self. Ideally, it is best to avoid the ‘self level’ when giving feedback. Remember- feedback is about helping learning not about making judgments.

Feedback is not ‘THE’ answer At the start of the year when our learners are at the acquisition (getting to grips with) phase and not proficiency (skilled and able) phase the teacher needs to play a prominent role through instruction. Feedback at this early stage is likely to be ineffective as concepts are still not yet understood. Feedback needs to be directed at the right level and at the right time.

FEEDBACK Needs to be clear, purposeful, meaningful and compatible with student prior knowledge. Needs to provide processing, have clear goals and be of little threat to the person at the self level. This is often why self and peer assessment does not work because there is still too much emphasis on the self level (judgement).

COMMON CONCERNS No time Return the work and file it away Have content to get through and cant spend so much time on assessing especially self/peer marking Return the work and file it away Where is the learning process in this? Ineffective written feedback Do the students know HOW to improve from what you have written?

FEEDBACK STRATEGIES Give time for practice Get students to identify where they have met criteria Stress assessments are a learning process and its all about improvement so allow time to read comments, to reflect, and to fix Avoid giving grades to the students Use group and peer work If assessment structure is repetitive encourage students to go back to previous assessments Use peer, self and spoof assessment

What is the purpose of questioning? To seek evidence from learners that enables teachers to adjust their teaching Framing of the question needs to Encourage students to say what they think Avoid students guessing what the teacher is looking for Avoid one-word answers Is 7 a prime number? vs. Why do you think 7 is an example of a prime number? would give completely different responses.

QUESTIONING To seek evidence from learners that enables teachers to adjust their teaching Time allowed to answer Give wait time Discuss in pairs/ groups Avoid raising hands Use ‘wrong’ answers to learn what correct ones are

This can be achieved through effective assessment and feedback LEARNING IS... Self evaluation Target setting Improving Progress This can be achieved through effective assessment and feedback

Further reading Formative Classroom Assessment- Theory into Practice By James H. McMillan Visible Learning- A synthesis of over 800 meta-analysis relating to achievement By John Hattie

Self/ Peer Marking THE PROCESS STEP 1: AWARENESS STEP 2: RE-WRITE CRITERIA STEP 3: PRACTICE 3x BASIC STEP 7: IMPROVE STEP 4: PRACTICE 1x DETAIL STEP 6: REFLECT STEP 5a: SELF MARK STEP 5b: PEER MARK

If you wish to email me or get a copy of this PowerPoint Thank you If you wish to email me or get a copy of this PowerPoint rrhodes@farnborough.ac.uk