Classroom 3 Assessing meaningfully

In some countries assessments are used as evaluative tools to judge and sort students into categories, which will determine different academic and vocation pathways affecting their future. In NZ, the values and key competencies as laid out in the NZ curriculum means that teachers assess in a way that is student-centred, skill-based and future-focused. To me, the method of assessing students in my subject area, English, is KIND because the students' work is described using rubrics (Brookhart, 2013); they are shown the next steps in their learning progression (during one-on-one conferencing); and they are given opportunities to develop and practice their skills. This aligns with my biblical worldview because God knows us intimately and challenges us to be our best selves (Psalm 139:14, Matt 10:30); Jesus models and teaches us to follow him (Matt 8:18-22); and the Holy Spirit leads and guides us each step of the way (John 16:7-16). God's wrap-around care models how preparing Senior English and ESOL students for NCEA assessments can also be a means to exhibit and explore notions of loving kindness, justice and righteousness. In this blog, I will explore 4 aspects of assessing meaningfully, these aspects are easily remembered because they create the acronym K.I.N.D.

K- Kinds of Assessments

There are many different types of assessments which attempt to quantify learning in different ways. Effective English and ESOL teachers use a variety of these methods in their classrooms.

Summative Assessment (or assessment of)

Is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark such as the NCEA, IB, IELTS,, Cambridge and TOEFL.

Formative Assessment (or assessment for)

Refers to all those assessment activities undertaken by teachers, and by the students themselves, which provide information, to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities. Diagnostic assessment evaluates students learning at the beginning before the unit is taught. The difference between the Diagnostic and Summative Assessment is often used to measure student learning or improvement especially in the Test-Teach-Test method of ESOL teaching.

In evidence-based assessments, teachers observe behaviours, interactions and changes that show learning (Dyson, Plunkett & McCluskey, 2018) and archive them. Examples of evidence gathered can be seen in curriculum  progressions, in future fluencies, key competencies and good learner behaviours. Because coming up with valid, authentic, sufficient and reliable assessment can be a challenge, teachers from many schools combine their efforts to create  Assessment Resource Banks (ARBs) for task-based assessments.

Self -assessment (or assessment as learning)

Is to teach learners to examine and reflect on their own learning and evaluate the work of their peers (Clarke, 2005). Bourke (2010) suggests that independent students are able to seek helpful information about their work through "others and artefacts". Independent learners are able to evaluate learning content, set their own learning goals (Moss & Brookhart, 2009), articulate what they understand and what they want to understand.

I- Incubation

Is an extended period of time where students are only given formative assessments or opportunities to learn and practice. Students must be ready for testing in order to gain the most from the experience of a summative assessment event.

In my subject English, especially creative writing, students need time for ideas to incubate. My host school AT and I discussed the importance of allowing students time to develop their own ideas, practice writing skills and develop their own voice. Creative writing skills such has fashioning a convincing narrative voice, characterisation and show not tell require extended periods of time drafting and redrafting for professional authors let alone students. Famous writers often give credit to their editors for their finished work and in the classroom this feedback is provided by their peers and teacher who direct and challenge student writers to continue to refine their story. For the teacher, shadowing individual student writers through the creative process is a form of verbal formative assessment which allows the teacher to plan the next steps to motivate and help the student improve elements of their story. 

Incubation time is one of the biggest benefit of placing students an ESOL class where they are allowed the necessary time prepare for an assessment task. The teacher is allowed to gauge their learning readiness before they attempt EL credits (Summative assessment). Depending on the student and their level of English when they first arrive in the country their incubation period can vary from one term to a year and a half. Before the summative assessment in ESOL classes, I pick out general areas of weakness in my students' work (usually tenses and subject-verb agreement) and teach these as a grammar lesson (i.e. feedforward). Then students try and pick out the errors in their own work themselves. Sometimes for an added challenge, I tell them how many errors there are in their writing and they have to find them. At other times, I colour the errors, give them a key and they correct their own work. In paragraph writing exercises for creative writing, I make students copy out corrections (usually in expression), then I give them sentence starters to write another paragraph on a similar topic. Sometimes, for students with very low literacy, they learn the corrected paragraph for dictation and then use it as an exemplar for their next writing task.

N- NCEA

In PPE1, I observed the teaching of a unit preparing a Year 12 class for the summative NCEA assessment AS91107. Before I arrived, the class watched the whole of the movie “Hot Fuzz” directed by Edgar Wright and in the first lesson I observed, my AT taught a vocabulary list related to cinematography and got students to give examples from the movie by calling on almost every student in class. From this discussion (verbal assessment), he could tell if students knew the necessary technical vocabulary necessary for the writing task. Then the students watched a clip on the opening sequence of "Baby Driver" also by Wright, he asked them to analyse the role of sound/music. Again, he used discussions to assess the students level of understanding. He only gave positive feedback encouraging students to think deeper by asking probing questions. This became the scaffolding for the next task where students were asked to do the same type of analysis for the opening sequence for "Hot Fuzz". Again he gave them verbal feedback which was embedded in the class discussion. The result of which emerged a co-constructed, detailed and insightful analysis of Wright's approach to music in his work. As preparation for the summative assessment, the teacher explained the assessment rubrics and requirements and then he wrote an exemplar of an excellence essay analysing a movie clip (which students were not allowed to use for their assessment). All these steps can be seen as examples of "clear descriptions of learning" (Davies & Hill, 2009). In this way students were front loaded with lots of opportunities to practice the skills (perfecting them by taking onboard their teacher's feedback) before attempting the actual set assessment. They had almost a month to incubate their ideas, write drafts and hand in their final submission.

Both in PPE and Host school, my Senior English ATs track and closely monitored writing drafts (formative assessment). In my Host School, my AT had a shared Google document for students to fill up the connections they were drawing from the movies they were examining. Another document had conferencing slots for every student in class. In both schools, every student had multiple conversations with my ATs about their work and were given written comments on how to improve their work (feedward). This monitoring, selecting and holding accountable are described as the critical functions of assessments by Ghaicha (2016)

Individual conferencing with the students, is an effective way to do differentiation. I have listened in on these one-on-one conferences and have tried to learn how to give effective feedback on students drafts from my ATs. I think their effectiveness rest on their ability to question their students' thought process in such a way to challenge students to think deeper about the connections they are drawing. Students are also shown better ways of crafting their analysis and how to find better examples using Google search. This verbal individualised feedback on essay drafts is detailed and stretches students to aim for and achieve excellence.

At PPE1, after the students handed in their drafts and before their second one-on-one conferencing, my AT and I sat down to discuss each individual student and their readiness for testing. He knew all his students so well: their weaknesses, interests, learning styles and what they would need to achieve excellence. After this briefing, I had an opportunity to do conferencing with some of the students and discovered that it was really hard to do feedforward well. Although, Hattie (2012) provides teachers with questions to start off with and ways to make feedback more effective, ultimately I think the ability to feedforward well comes with experience.

D- Deepening meaningfulness

Assessments are meaningful if they help individual students meet their future academic/vocational goals and if their wider family or community are supportive of their achievements.

Some of the challenges in ESOL teaching is the number of English assessments standards available around the world. The CEFR shown in the video below is most commonly used in textbooks and ESOL resources. However for International students to find summative tests useful and meaningful they need advice on doing the English test that is fit for purpose. Often the decision on which foreign university to go to rests on the ESOL student and their family who finances them. The ESOL teacher needs to give advice on the most suitable English test to do get into a university/ training in the country of their choice.

In general, assessing tends to be more meaningful if parents or their wider community are supportive and included in the feedforward. See diagram below

 

In conclusion, effective teachers use a variety of assessment tools, allow time for incubation, prepare students for the NCEA and help students and their family select the right summative assessments necessary to achieve their long-term goals. In short, in NZ, meaningful assessment is K.I.N.D. This general trend towards formative assessment has been called third-generation assessment in the work of Dyson, Plunkett & McCluskey (2018) and is one tool that teachers use to foster effective learning suitable for a VUCA world.

References

Brookhart, S. (2013). How to create and use rubrics for formative assessment and grading. ASCD.

Bourke, R. (2010). The chameleonic learner: Learning and self-assessment in context. NZCER.

Clarke, S. (2005). Formative assessment in secondary classroom. Hodder Education.

Davies & Hill. (2009). Making classroom assessment work. NZCER.

Dyson, Plunkett & McCluskey. (2018). Success in professional experience: Building relationships in educational settings. Cambridge.

Ghaicha. (2016).Theoretical Framework for Educational Assessment: A Synoptic Review. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(24). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1112912.pdf

Hattie. (2012). Know thy impact. Educational Leadership, 1(70), 18-23.

Moss & Brookhart, (2009). Advancing formative assessment in every classroom: A guide for instructional leaders. ASCD.