Assessment and learningDylan WiliamKing’s College London

www.dylanwiliam.net

Why are employers unhappy?

Things are getting better:average IQ has increased (Flynn effect)school achievement has increased

But:needs of work have increased morelink between IQ and exam results is weakening(can’t use exam results as proxies for ‘intelligence’)

teaching to the test has narrowed the curriculum(can’t generalise to things that weren’t tested)

Time

Scores

Lake Wobegon

All the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average

X

Improvements are limited

Scores on national curriculum tests in mathematics and English for 11-year olds are increasing

Scores on other, comparable, tests have remained constant

So, improvement is limited to those things that are actually tested

Improvements are transient

Proportion of 11 year olds achieving level 4 in mathematics has increased steadily over the last five years

According to Ofsted, 25% of those who achieved level 4 at the end of year 6 fail to achieve the same level at the end of year 7.

So, achievement has improved at age 11, but not at age 12.

Effects on students

High-stakes testsincrease the link between success and self-esteem

decrease motivation for low-attainerssend the message that only what is tested is important

encourage the development of shallow learning

encourage a performance orientation rather than a mastery orientation to learning

...the model that says ‘learn while you are at school the skills that you will apply during your lifetime’ is no longer tenable. These skills will be obsolete by the time you get into the workplace and need them, except for one skill – the skill of being able to learn. It is the skill of being able, not to give the right answer to questions about what you were taught in school, but to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they are faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared. (Papert, 1998)

The only 21st century skill

Successful education

The test of successful education is not the amount of knowledge that a pupil takes away from school, but his appetite to know and his capacity to learn. If the school sends out children with the desire for knowledge and some idea how to acquire it, it will have done its work. Too many leave school with the appetite killed and the mind loaded with undigested lumps of information. The good school-master (sic) is known by the number of valuable subjects which he declines to teach.

Sir Richard Livingstone, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1941

How do students make sense of this?

Attribution (Dweck, 1986)Personalization (internal v external)Permanence (stable v unstable)Essential that students attribute both failures and success to internal, unstable causes (it’s down to you, and you can do something about it)

Views of ‘ability’fixed (IQ)incremental (untapped potential)Essential that teachers inculcate in their students a view that ‘ability’ is incremental rather than fixed (by working, you’re getting smarter)

Predicting success

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

≤3 3.3 3.7 4 >4

Average KS2 score

Progression from KS2 to GCSE

A*

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

U

Source: Autumn package (2001), DfES

Target-setting in schools

TargetsGovernment sets targets for LEAsLEAs set targets for schoolsSchools set targets for teachers

ButThese targets are useless for teaching

Levels are too coarseGCSE grades are not criterion-referenced

Targets for students must be ‘bottom up’ Schools need coherent assessment systems that support summative and formative functions of assessment

What do students & teachers need?

Students need to know:where they are in their learningwhere they are goinghow to get there

Teachers need to knowwhere students are in their learning

what to do about it When assessment supports all these, it is formative

Formative and summative

Fine-scaled data that supports formative uses can be aggregated to serve a summative function

Aggregate summative data cannot be dis-aggregated to identify learning needs

Assessment for formative purposes should be the foundation of all assessment in schools

Classroom assessment

Rich questioning Feedback to support learners Sharing criteria with learners

Peer- and self-assessment

QuestioningCoherence of discourse

Hot-seat questioningThree-part questions‘No hands up’ (except to ask a question)Netball rather than ping-pong

Kinds of questionsBalance of closed v openBalance of low-order v high-orderIncreased wait-time for higher-order questions

Brainstorming what students know/believe already

Training students to pose questions

Feedback

Comment-only markingComments to cause thinkingWhat happens as a result?

Focused marking Explicit reference to criteria Suggestions on how to improve

‘Strategy cards’ ideas for improvementNot giving complete solutions

Re-timing assessment(eg two-thirds-of-the-way-through-a-topic test)

Sharing criteria with learners

Explaining learning objectives at start of lesson/unit

Criteria in students’ language Posters of key words to talk about learningeg describe, explain, evaluate

Planning/writing frames Annotated examples of different standards to ‘flesh out’ assessment criteria

Opportunities for students to design their own tests and marking schemes

Peer and self-assessment

Students assessing their own/peers’ work with marking schemeswith criteriawith exemplars

Identifying group weaknesses Self-assessment of confidence and uncertaintyTraffic lightsSmiley faces

End-of-lesson students’ review

Formative assessment

Assessment for learning is not the same as formative assessmentAssessment for learning is a description of purpose

Formative assessment is a description of function

Frequent feedback is not necessarily formativeFeedback that causes improvement is not necessarily formative

Assessment is formative only if the information fed back to the learner is used by the learner in making improvements

To be formative, assessment must include a recipe for future action

Changing the focus

From quality control to quality assurance

Assuring the quality of learning while it is happening, rather than after it is finished

Regulating learning, rather than regulating activity

When this happens, attainment rises