OF
FOR
AS
Students take ownership and monitor their own progress toward their goals
Timely descriptive feedback should be offered to the student
The educator should be coaching the students to insure their improvement
AFL gives educators data to help them plan more effective lessons
Educator should share learning goals and success criteria so that students have a clear understanding of the expectations
Gather information about student learning
Before, during, and toward the end of learning opportunities
Use information to adapt teaching and determine next steps
Can be used to monitor proximity to goals and set new goals
Students will adapt how they are learning or approaching a task
Student applies literacy skills
Student learns to reflect on their learning process
Student sets goals
Metacognition (a critical awareness of how ones self learns and thinks)
This type of assessment is frequent and ongoing
Teacher models guidance and support
Assessment as learning “Assessment as learning focuses on the explicit fostering of students’ capacity over time to be their own best assessors, but teachers need to start by presenting and modelling external, structured opportunities for students to assess themselves.” (Western and Northern Canadian Protocol, p. 42) - (Growing Success Document, p. 31)
Intent & Student Benefits: to help student grow into a self-aware learner and placing the responsibility of learning with the student
Student benefits: can share what knowledge and skills they have
Teacher can effectively adapt their instruction and assessments to be differentiated and personalized. Instruction can target specific and appropriate learning goals.
“Assessment of learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ futures.” (Western and Northern Canadian Protocol, p. 55) (Growing Success, p. 31)
Used at the end of a period of learning
Can be used to help adapt further instruction and learning
Should feature meaningful feedback and come with an opportunity to debrief and reflect with the student
Should be varied in terms of the products created
Conversations
Products
Observations
Should come with clear success criteria, rubrics, and checklists
Student choice should be evident
Should connect to the overall expectations in the curriculum documents
As it pertains to literacy, there should be balance among the four strands (K/U, T, C and A)
"Should be reliable. Some factors go into this: collected over time, more consideration for the most recent products and tasks, should be drawn from a variety of tasks and sources, and allows students to demonstrate their full potential and knowledge" (Paying Attention To Literacy K-12, p. 7)
Teachers who use this type of assessment effectively will be able to monitor a student's progress as they work toward achieving the overall expectations laid out in the curriculum.
During this type of assessment, teachers should provide "timely and specific descriptive feedback to students, scaffold next steps, and differentiate instruction and assessment in response to student needs."
(Growing Success, p. 31)
Assessment For/As/Of: Joshelin's reflections and interpretations
In teachers college, we pulled apart assessment a lot and unpacked the different types and why they are of value. I recall thinking about assessment as a cycle: an assessment for learning provides meaningful, immediate information for the educator to use to construct their lessons and content while also providing some meaningful feedback to the student, followed by assessment as learning whereby the student evaluates their learning with the careful guidance of the educator in order to achieve that critical awareness of themselves as a learner, and lastly the assessment of learning whereby the teacher (hopefully) creates a purposeful, differentiated, dynamic, culturally responsive task which allows the student to demonstrate that they can achieve the overall expectations in the curriculum.
Ultimately, assessment as learning gives teachers the tools to direct students to develop their capacity as an autonomous learner
Allows the educator to react, adapt, change, enrich, and enhance their teaching in order to help improve the student's learning
We were taught to critically reflect on assessment of learning - to note that it is not always accurate (professional judgement should be used), it is not always equitable, and it can break that cycle of learning that comes from assessment for and as learning - the revision and feedback loop is ended, and the final results (in most circumstances) are - well - final. My education in teacher's college can be considered radical; I was prompted to consider what education would look like without assessment of learning. That is not to say that it doesn't have value, but rather to acknowledge that it is a complicated, nuanced practice that is easy to get wrong. This is something I ponder to this day.
A great quote that really speaks to this idea is as follows: "Interestingly, if we're living up to the promise of teaching every student, not just the easy ones, we could turn all summative assessments into formative ones. The only reason students can't redo a final exam, project, or standardized test after they receive feedback and revise their learning is that someone in a policy-making capacity declared it so -- not because it's bad pedagogy." (Reporting Student Learning, O'Connor and Wormeli, 2011)
Immediate information can be gleaned from this kind of assessment
I acknowledge that the terms "summative" and "formative" are now outdated.
Triangulation of Assessments
Triangulation is a means of ensuring that assessment data is as reliable and valid as possible
By using all three types of assessments (for/as/of) we are engaging in assessment as a process and as a dialogue between the student and their teacher and peers
Triangulation allows for the educator to use a variety of data all the way through a students learning journey to determine their proximity to the success criteria
In this way, we as educators are not focused on one product or test result to determine what a student knows and what skills a student has gained or honed
This is the most equitable approach as there are a number of factors at play while assessing. These include: learning gaps, cultural considerations, a poor night's sleep, a lesson that did not go well, a test / assessment planned at the end of a busy day, the student's individual social and emotional factors on any given day, etc. The list goes on and on. By triangulating data from for/as/of assessments, we have a much clearer picture of how to assess our students.
Triangulation of data also ensures a growth mindset and allows us (all stakeholders) to avoid deficit based thinking
This is a benefit to the student who will become more familiar with their style of learning; they will be able to become more autonomous as we guide them through metacognitive thinking and strategies