Assessing for learning

The funny bloggers over at Kitchen Table Math put us at JIS Topics on to this article from the Phi Delta Kappan (the journal of Phi Delta Kappa, an international association for professional educators) about one of the hotest topics in education today: formative assessment.

In a nutshell, formative assessment (also called assessment for learning in the UK) is about giving students regular feedback on their work. To be effective, this feedback has to be frequent, specific, and constructive. In other words, not just a bunch of red ink on the page without any advice on how the work could be improved....

This differs from the type of assessments most of us old fogies are familiar with, like unit tests, final exams, and most standardized tests. (Are you breaking into a cold sweat now just thinking about those blasted things?). These types of assessments tell teachers where students stand in comparison with other students; they gage the "sum of a student's cummulative knowledge." Sometimes that's really important.

But students don't learn anything from summative assessments. (Think about it: did you ever go back and re-read your final exam essay to figure out where you could have done better? How about those fill-in-the-bubble tests?) These summative assessments (in edu-speak) are ends unto themselves. But they're not learning tools.

If your curiosity is peaked, check out the Phi Delta Kappan article. It's long and wonky (get out your eye-toothpicks), but it's also loaded with compelling evidence that formative assessment "is an essential component of classroom work and that its development can raise standards of achievement," according to Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, the paper's authors. They go on to say that "they know of no other way of raising standards for which such a strong prima facie* case can be made." Wow, now that's saying something.

* "Evidence good and sufficient on its face." And no, I didn't know that -- I had to look it up! But it sounds impressive, doesn't it? To help me remember, I'm going to use it in a sentence when Robert gets home from work: "This huge pile of paperwork is prima facie evidence that I tried to finish our income tax return but did not succeed." Wish me luck!