1. Descriptive Feedback Success Criteria Learning Goals
Assessment of Learning
Descriptive feedback given to the student, is linked to learning goals and success criteria. Students learn best when they receive frequent feedback which gives them the opportunity to understand what they need to adjust in order to meet their learning goals.
“Teachers can ensure that students understand the success criteria by using clear language that is meaningful to the students and by directly involving them in identifying, clarifying, and applying those criteria in their learning. Examining samples of student work with their teachers helps students understand what constitutes success and provides a basis for informed co-construction of the success criteria.”
Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools, 2010, p.33
“As a result of developing self-assessment skills, students learn to identify specific actions they need to take to improve, and to plan next steps – that is, to define their long-and short-term individual goals with increasing clarity and realism.”
Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools, 2010, p. 35
Individual Goal Setting
Success criteria, based on the learning goals and linked to the expectations, is developed by the teacher and co-constructed with the students.
Student Self-Assessment
and Peer Assessment
“The emphasis on student self-assessment represents a fundamental shift in the teacher-student relationship, placing the primary responsibility for learning with the student. Once students, with the ongoing support of the teacher, have learned to recognize, describe, and apply success criteria related to particular learning goals, they can use this information to assess their own and others’ learning.”
Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools, 2010, p. 35
“Summative assessment occurs at or near the end of a period of learning, and may be used to inform further instruction.”
“The information gathered is used by the teacher to summarize learning at a given point in time. This summary is used to make judgements about the quality of student learning on the basis of established criteria, to assign a value to represent that quality, and to support the communication of information about achievement to students themselves, parents, teachers and others.”
Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools, 2010, p. 31
Success Criteria
Learning Goals
“Feedback provides students with a description of their learning. The purpose of providing feedback is to reduce the gap between a student’s current level of knowledge and skills and the learning goals. Descriptive feedback helps students learn by providing them with precise information about what they are doing well, what needs improvement, and what specific steps they can take to improve.”
Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools, 2010, p. 34
Descriptive Feedback
“Implementing assessment for learning and as learning in the classroom can be challenging, requiring a transformation in our perception of the teacher-student relationship, as well as new learning about strategies. Success lies in taking an approach that recognizes the interdependence of practices related to assessment for learning and assessment as learning. By clearly identifying, sharing, and clarifying learning goals and success criteria, teachers lay the foundation for practices such as providing feedback and enabling students to develop skills in peer and self-assessment.”
Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools, 2010, p. 33
Expectations
Learning Tasks, Assessment Strategies and Tools
A Guide to Effective Literacy Instruction: Grades 4 to 6, Volume Two, Assessment, 2006.
Judy Townson
March 29, 2011
The teacher creates learning goals based on the selected cluster of expectations across the strands of the curriculum.
Teachers gather evidence of learning that is directly related to an intentionally selected cluster of expectations that is based on student needs.
“Learning goals clearly identify what students are expected to know and be able to do, in language that students can readily understand. Teachers develop learning goals based on the curriculum expectations and share them with students at or near the beginning of a cycle of learning.”
Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools, 2010, p. 33 1