1. HKU SBA Seminar Series 2008-09
Moving Students Forward via Interactive Assessment The Impact of IA on Student Learning, Challenges Teachers Face Practising IA and the Way Ahead
Nicole Tavares & Liz Hamp-Lyons
Faculty of Education
The University of Hong Kong
Prepared by Nicole Tavares, Sept 2008

3. The Study
Part of a much larger study to investigate what strategies for capacity-building are needed to help assessment-for-learning “take” in the junior secondary curriculum
17 teachers in 7 schools, Grades 1 – 3
Teacher action research, followed with focus group interviews with teachers and students

4. The Theory
closely linked to work we have been doing with teachers of secondary-age learners in Hong Kong
in which we have been providing professional development to support the introduction of an innovative, teacher-delivered assessment drawing on the work of Black & Wiliam and the London Reform Group in assessment for learning.

5. Five key strategies of AfL
Engineering effective classroom discussions
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Sharing learning intentions and success criteria with learners
Activating students as owners of their own learning
Activating students as learning resources for one another
Dylan Wiliam, “Assessment for learning: Putting it into practice”, Scottish Education Festival 2005

6. Focus on one AfL strategy
Engineering effective classroom discussions
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Sharing learning intentions and success criteria with learners
Activating students as owners of their own learning
Activating students as learning resources for one another

7. Moving learners forward
The Zone of Proximal Development
According to Vygotsky, all learning occurs in a range at and a little above the learner’s current level of knowledge and skill: this is the ‘zone’ in which development can be stimulated to occur – the zone of ‘proximal’ development.
The corollary of this is that learning will not occur if the distance between the learner’s current level and the level at which the teaching is pitched is too high.

8. The ZPD in applied linguistics
Vygotsky’s theory has been implemented as dynamic assessment in special education, and more recently by applied linguists, particularly Lantolf and Poehner (2004), Poehner and Lantolf (2005) and Poehner (2008).

9. The ZPD in language education
However, we see the concept of the ZPD as having more in common with work in assessment with children who are developing normally, for example by Stiggins (e.g., 1998) in educative assessment, and by Wiggins (e.g., 2004) on assessment as feedback.

10. ZPD and interactive assessment
Because the context in which we have been working is classroom-based and frequently involves groups in collaborative talk or in peer response to classmates, we describe what we are building as interactive assessment.

11. What is Interactive Assessment?
OUR CONTEXT
A very clear and carefully developed system of assessment for learning which emphasises formative uses of an eventual summative assessment:
Teachers engage students with thinking about their learning during the assessment process;
Assessment is one stage of the teaching, learning and assessing cycle in the classroom;
Every assessment is therefore for feedforward as well as for feedback.

12. Interactive Assessment
requires that teacher-assessors intervene during learners’ spoken performance in order to:
scaffold and support learners in producing an assessable performance that they know they are capable of in everyday settings;
stimulate and challenge them to reach a higher-level performance than that being produced – to reach for a performance just at the edge of their ability.

13. Teachers moving forward
This new paradigm in assessment calls for a re-conceptualisation of the teacher’s role and strategy use as an assessor in the classroom-based assessment of normal language development and proficiency in school-aged children.
In our context these are Chinese-speaking children in English language classes.
BUT the theory and much of the practice can be applied across subjects.

14. Teachers moving forward: Challenges faced
Before the Project
Cycle 1
of the Action-Research Study
Cycle 2
Summative
Formative + Summative
Interactive
Teacher-as-Assessor
Teacher-as-Mediator …………………….……  
Non-Intervention
Interruption  Intervention
Positive Intervention  
by the Teacher
by Students
Post-Task Feedback
Post-Task Feedback
Concurrent Feedback
Evaluative Feedback
Informational Feedback
Feedback for Feeding Forward …………  

15. Understanding Mediated Assistance
Focus:
Language to Organise Discourse?
(Textual) Structure
Quality of Ideas
Gesturing: X
Smiling/Nodding
… …
Wait Time:
Too little
Too much
… …
Questioning: Back-channelling, Probing & Prompting
Questioning:
Guide/Template
Contextualised
Spontaneous

16. HKU SBA Seminar Series 2008-09
An ESL Teacher Learning to Assess Interactively in an ‘Individual Presentation’ Context
Prepared by Nicole Tavares, Sept 2008

17. Using IA Strategies Mediation and support via … Guided Questioning
Graduated Probes and Prompts
Responsive Back-Channelling
Strategic Use of Wait Time
Non-Verbal Cues
… …

18. Teacher and Students as Engaged Co-Participants
Positive Teaching,
Learning & Assessment
Attitude
Students' Enhanced Readiness
to Express Themselves & Better Performance
Right Degree of Challenge
for the High-Ability Group?
Reduced Helplessness
among
Low- Achievers
Teacher and Students as
Engaged
Co-Participants
Confidence Building
Increased Support
for Average Students
Collaborative & Supportive Culture
Communicative
ELT Environment

19. Enhancing Mediated Assistance
Language Development: Accuracy?
Focus:
Language to Organise Discourse?
(Textual) Structure
Quality of Ideas
Helpfulness & Correctiveness?
Gesturing: X
Smiling/Nodding
… …
Responsive to Learner Needs?
Wait Time:
Too little
Too much
… …
Range vs Staging of Questions?
Questioning: Back-channelling, Probing & Prompting
Just-in-Time Questioning?
Questioning:
Guide/Template
Contextualised
Spontaneous

20. Major Challenges & Recommendations – 1
Practical Recommendations
Nurturing Students’ Language Development
1a) Teacher Modelling
1b) Gesturing
- ‘Thumbs-up’ Strategy
1c) Flash / Cue Cards // Slips -
he OR she?

21. Major Challenges & Recommendations – 2
Practical Recommendations
Handling Large Class Size & Nurturing Students’ Language Development
2) Beginning with mini speaking tasks
Ss/C as Attentive Observers & Thinkers; T as IA Model & Facilitator
Ss/C as Participants; Focusing on more ‘controllable’ aspects    
Effective implementation of a range of formative assessment approaches in classrooms school-wide could be ‘as much as 20 times more cost-effective than class-size reduction programs’ (Wiliam, 2007)    
–ed T P
Ss as Peer Evaluators in Multiple Groupings

22. Major Challenges & Recommendations – 3
Practical Recommendations
Teachers’ Language Awareness & Pedagogical Expertise
3) Ongoing Teacher Professional Development
a) AfL principles and practice
b) SBA as an integral part of the curriculum
c) IA and error-correction strategies
d) Pedagogical content knowledge
e) Catering for learner diversity
f) Teaching skills
– Just-in-time questioning, multiple groupings, …
g) … …

23. Major Challenges & Recommendations – 4
Practical Recommendations 4)
a) Continuous practice and reflection
b) Receptiveness and responsiveness to students’ feedback and needs
Teachers at a personal level

24. 2009 Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination English Language Handbook for the School-Based Assessment Component (2007, p. 26)

25. 2009 Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination English Language Handbook for the School-Based Assessment Component (2007, p. 31)