1 CONTENTS Introduction 1 Rationale and Overview 2 Why Introduce AfL to Your Classroom(s)? 3 Ties to the Revised Curriculum 6 Putting AfL Into Practice 6 Key Elements of AfL 8 Sharing Learning Intentions 8 Sharing Success Criteria 12 Formative Feedback 15 Effective Questioning 21 Helping Pupils to Refl ect on Their Learning 26 Appendix 1: Resources 33 Appendix 2: Further Reading 34 Acknowledgements The Partnership Management Board would like to thank the many people who contributed to the development and production of the contents of this pack. They include colleagues from: Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) The Education and Library Boards Regional Training Unit (RTU) Classroom 2000 (C2K) The Partnership Management Board would also like to thank all the schools who so generously allowed us to take photographs. Their participation celebrates pupils enjoying learning. Their involvement makes the materials real. Assessment for Learning 1 Introduction When we hear the term assessment, we often think of exams, tests, marks, stress and pass or fail. It is easy to view it as an end product that is separate from the learning and teaching process. This, however, is only one type of assessment: assessment of learning (summative assessment). It takes place after the learning and tells us what has been achieved. Assessment for Learning (AfL), on the other hand, focuses on the learning process (rather than the end product) and attempts not to prove learning, but rather improve it. It is formative assessment. It is a way for us to take stock during the learning process and can help inform us of how the learning is progressing. Summative assessment and AfL (formative assessment) are not opposing or contradictory practices. That is, the use of AfL in the classroom does not mean you will suddenly stop marking pupils work; summative assessment will always have a place in educational practice. Instead, they are complementary approaches, as the use of AfL can help pupils perform better on summative assessment tasks and summative assessment can refl ect the impact of AfL. While the Revised Curriculum does not require you to integrate AfL practices into your classroom(s), we strongly recommend the use of AfL as best practice. The introduction and regular use of AfL in the classroom can help you to fulfi l other statutory components of the revised curriculum (like Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities, Learning for Life and Work (at Key Stage 3), and Personal Development and Mutual Understanding (at Key Stages 1 and 2). In addition, AfL offers signifi cant advantages for pupils. This document will: explain what AfL is; introduce its elements; and introduce some practical strategies to plan and promote AfL in your school/ classroom. Assessment for Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go next, and how best to get them there. Assessment for Learning: 10 Principles The Assessment Reform Group, 2002 Assessment for Learning is based on extensive research conducted by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam. In their 1998 study Inside the Black Box, they refi ned the term formative assessment by emphasising that assessment is only formative when: it is an integral part of the learning and teaching process; and assessment evidence is actually used to: modify teaching to meet the needs of pupils; and improve learning. Unlike summative assessment, AfL is conducted during day-to-day classroom practice and takes place during learning. It also gives pupils an active role in the assessment process. Pupils work with the teacher to determine what is being learned and to identify what the next steps should be. Both parties then use the feedback (which includes information on how the pupils are learning, their progress, the nature of their understanding and the diffi culties they are having) to improve the learning. This emphasis on the pupils role in the learning process is founded upon the constructivist view of learning, which says: however neatly we may design, package and deliver learning experiences, in the end learning is a process that is instigated and managed by the learner. Its the learner who constructs the learning. No matter what artistry we employ as teachers, learning is still something that learners have to do for themselves. In Assessment for Learning: there is a high emphasis on transferable learning; assessment becomes a much more transparent process because it is based on critical information that is shared with learners; and learners are able to take responsibility for their own learning and, eventually, for their own assessment, too. It is not something extra or bolted on that you have to do. Rather, it neatly integrates with your existing classroom practice. AfL involves the following key actions: sharing l