Using Assessment for Learning and Learning from Assessment

Innovation in assessment is no longer an option in higher education in Britain if we examine the aims and the claims that are being made. From the Dearing Report to our module guides, we claim to wish to support independent and life-long learning, put the students at the heart of the learning process and to help students take responsibility for their own learning. This cannot be done without including students in mainstream summative assessment and without reconciling the contradictions that currently contribute to impeding the students this access. This article will look briefly at the aims of higher education, provide an overview of current thinking on student learning and formative assessment as a framework for offering one possible practical solution to the problem. This possible solution is Taras's (2001) version of student self-assessment which works within the theoretical framework of Sadler's (1989) theory of formative assessment and of what we know about student learning.     

Formative Assessment: Assessment Is for Self-regulated Learning

The article draws from 199 sources on assessment, learning, and motivation to present a detailed decomposition of the values, theories, and goals of formative assessment. This article will discuss the extent to which formative feedback actualizes and reinforces self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies among students. Theoreticians agree that SRL is predictive of improved academic outcomes and motivation because students acquire the adaptive and autonomous learning characteristics required for an enhanced engagement with the learning process and subsequent successful performance. The theory of formative assessment is found to be a unifying theory of instruction, which guides practice and improves the learning process by developing SRL strategies among learners. In a postmodern era characterized by rapid technical and scientific advance and obsolescence, there is a growing emphasis on the acquisition of learning strategies which people may rely on across the entire span of their life. Research consistently finds that the self-regulation of cognitive and affective states supports the drive for lifelong learning by: enhancing the motivational disposition to learn, enriching reasoning, refining meta-cognitive skills, and improving performance outcomes. The specific purposes of the article are to provide practitioners, administrators and policy-makers with: (a) an account of the very extensive conceptual territory that is the ‘theory of formative assessment’ and (b) how the goals of formative feedback operate to reveal recondite learning processes, thereby reinforcing SRL strategies which support learning, improve outcomes and actualize the drive for lifelong learning.     

从关于学习的评价到为了学习的评价

为了学习的评价近些年来在评价研究和实践中日益被广泛接受。本文介绍了为了学习的评价的基本概念、应用为了学习的评价的主要策略和原则,并将其与关于学习的评价进行了比较。通过将剑桥评价和CTB的两个为了学习的评价的产品作为例证,作者建议专业化考试机构应该在关于学习的评价之外推进为了学习的评价以服务于教育。     

促进学习的评价:教师的策略

促进学习的评价主要发生在课堂里,是镶嵌在教学过程之中,为了支持和促进学生的学习而进行的评价。这种评价只有被教师掌握,并运用于课堂,才能更好地发挥促进学生学习的功效。基于对促进学习的评价理念的理解,为教师的评价实践提供四种策略:设计课堂评价方案、改进课堂提问、合理使用反馈、引导学生参与评价。     

学习性评价:深度学习的有效路

深度学习是一种提高学习能力、实践能力和创新能力为宗旨的学习方式,学习者在理解知识的基础上,建立新旧知识的有机联系,并能够灵活运用所学知识创造性解决实际问题的学习。学习性评价是为了学习的评价,是寻求与解释证据,让学生及其教师以此确定他们当前的学习水平,他们需要追求的学习目的以及如何达到所要追求的学习目标的过程。其主要目的是为了改善表现和促进学习,提高学生的学习能力、实践能力和创新能力,从而指向深度学习。     

Experiencing Clay: Inquiry‐based Learning and Assessment for Learning

This article presents an examination of the effects of using an inquiry‐based learning pedagogy to teach ceramics to pre‐service teachers (my students) at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. At the beginning of the study the students were asked to conduct experiments on the properties of clay. The results indicate that half of them were able to transfer the knowledge and inquiry skills they had acquired from the experiments to their subsequent artwork production, but that the other half could not. I realised that the students needed more guidance to bridge the gap between their initial inquiries and their subsequent artistic creations. This could be done by explaining clearly the objectives of the inquiry‐based learning activities; employing strategies of assessment for learning: that is, setting explicit assessment criteria; involving the students in self‐assessments; and focusing more on methods of knowledge transfer and ways of bringing about improvements.     

学习性评价:涵义、方法及原理

学习性评价是以"促进学生发展、教师提高和改进教学实践"为目的的内部非正式评价,也是有效教学的一个有机组成部分.学习性评价的主要方法可以概括为:(1)改进课堂提问方式,增加回答"等待时间";(2)提高作业反馈质量,促进学生深入反思;(3)加强同伴与自我评价,形成自主与责任意识;(4)两种评价结合并用,优化评价教育功能.在科学课堂上实施学习性评价,首先改变了科学教师的教学方式,其次促进了学生学习方式的转变,提高课堂互动的效果和教学质量,从而有效地促进师生的共同发展.     

网络学习评价的意义及若干原则

学习评价是远程教育服务质量管理的核心，网络学习也不倒外，确保网络学习质量的一个重要因素就是对学生在线学习行为的精确把握和评估。总体而言，网络学习的学习评价因为网络媒介而呈数字化特征。在此认识前提上，本文探讨了学习评价在网络学习中的意义回归，提出了网络学习评价的若干原则：面向过程、学习者参与、多元评价技术、数字化与人性化的融合。     

Authentic Assessment for Student Learning: An ontological conceptualisation

Authentic assessment has been proposed as having potential to enhance student learning for a changing world. Conventionally, assessment is seen to be authentic when the tasks are real-to-life or have real-life value. Drawing on Martin Heidegger’s work, we challenge this conceptualisation as narrow and limited. We argue that authenticity need not be an attribute of tasks but, rather, is a quality of educational processes that engage students in becoming more fully human. Adopting the mode of authenticity involves calling things into question, challenging public assumptions and striving to take a stand in the situations encountered. In addition to assessing student achievement, then, authentic assessment can enhance integration of what students know and how they act with who they are becoming.     

促进学习的评价:在线开放课程中同伴互评投入度研究

后疫情时代,提质增效是在线开放课程内涵式发展的重要抓手。重申促进学习的评价,强调学习者的深度参与,探究学习者参与同伴互评的特点及现存问题具有重要的现实意义。文章基于国内一门在线开放课程,采用学习分析技术从结构化与非结构化数据入手,分析在线开放课程同伴互评过程中学习者的投入度,并进一步探究同伴互评投入度与学习绩效的关系。研究结果表明,在线开放课程中学习者同伴互评的行为投入及认知投入不高,但是参与同伴互评能够识别更有动力通过课程的学习者,且其认知投入度能够预测其学习绩效。基于FBM(学习行为模型)模型提出促进同伴互评投入度的两阶段干预策略,从而提高学习者参与同伴互评的投入度,并为教师及平台提供更具针对性的策略建议。     

Assessment and Classroom Learning

This article is a review of the literature on classroom formative assessment. Several studies show firm evidence that innovations designed to strengthen the frequent feedback that students receive about their learning yield substantial learning gains. The perceptions of students and their role in self‐assessment are considered alongside analysis of the strategies used by teachers and the formative strategies incorporated in such systemic approaches as mastery learning. There follows a more detailed and theoretical analysis of the nature of feedback, which provides a basis for a discussion of the development of theoretical models for formative assessment and of the prospects for the improvement of practice.     

Situated Learning and Assessment

The theories of situated learning suggest two different interpretations of what ought to be understood by the concept of full participation: a traditional idea, emphasising the idea of a centre or core which is termed 'full participation', and a modern idea, that stresses the multiple and the weaving relations between different kinds of full participation. Both ideas of participation tend to result in a sociological reductionism, over-emphasising the concepts of power and negotiations. This paper has investigated the conditions for producing assessments. It has been found that it is possible to connect the traditional idea of full participation to an idea of a community of knowledge, which can be further described with the help of concepts like tradition, curriculum and virtue. It has also been found that it is possible to connect recent theories of judgement and relativism to the modern version of full participation.     

Peer Learning and Assessment

Various forms of peer, collaborative or cooperative learning, particularly small group activities, are increasingly used within university courses to assist students meet a variety of learning outcomes. These include working collaboratively with others, taking responsibility for their own learning and deepening their understanding of specific course content. The potential benefits of peer learning have long been recognised and are especially relevant today. However, many existing assessment practices act to undermine the goals of peer learning and lead students to reject learning cooperatively. If assessment gives students the message that only individual achievement is valued, and that collaborative effort is akin to cheating, then the potential of peer learning will not be realised. Inappropriate assessment practices may also lead to unhelpful forms of competition within and between groups that prevent groups functioning effectively. This paper examines some of the main assessment issues in connection with peer learning and suggests ways in which the benefits of this approach can be maintained while still meeting the formal assessment requirements of the course. It discusses the use of group assessment, peer feedback and self‐assessment, assessment of participation and negotiated assessment and concludes with the identification of a number of issues which remain to be addressed.     

Refining Assessment for Resource Based Learning

Technology has introduced a new dimension into resource based learning, with the opportunities for flexibility in time and place offered by delivery of course material either through CD‐ROM or the World Wide Web (WWW), and the potential for access to a wide variety of diverse information sources. Many projects are currently experimenting with courses using these delivery media. This paper describes part of an action research project in which a study of student perspectives on assessment for a resource based UK Open University course highlights those aspects of assessment which appear to support student learning effectively. The feedback has been used to refine three of the assignments, as a way of fine tuning the course pedagogy.