Assessment for Learning
Excerpts from the Approaches to learning and teaching series, courtesy of Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment International Education: cambridge.org/approachestolearning
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What is Assessment for Learning?
Assessment for Learning (AfL) is a teaching approach that generates feedback which can be used to improve learners’ performance. Learners become more involved in the learning process and, from this, gain confidence in what they are expected to learn and to what standard. We, as teachers, gain insights into a learner’s level of understanding of a particular concept or topic, which helps to inform how we support their progression. We need to understand the meaning and method of giving purposeful feedback to optimise learning. Feedback can be informal, such as oral comments to help learners think through problems, or formal, such as the use of rubrics to help clarify and scaffold learning and assessment objectives.
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Why use Assessment for Learning?
By following well-designed approaches to AfL, we can understand better how our learners are learning and usethis to plan what we will do next with a class or individual learners (see following diagram).We can help our learners to see what they are aiming for and to understand what they need to do to get there. AfL makes learning visible; it helps learners understand more accurately the nature of the material they are learning and understand themselves as learners. The quality of interactions and feedback between learners and teachers becomes critical to the learning process. We can use AfL to help our learners focus on specific elements of their learning and to take greater responsibility for how they might move forward. AfL creates a valuable connection between assessment and
learning activities, as the clarification of objectives will have a direct impact on how we devise teaching and learning strategies. AfL techniques can support learners in becoming more confident in what they are learning, reflective in how they are learning, more likely to try out new approaches, and more engaged in what they are being asked to learn.
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What are the challenges of incorporating Assessment for Learning?
The use of AfL does not mean that we need to test learners more frequently. It would be easy to just increase the amount of summative assessment and use this formatively as a regular method of helping us decide what to do next in our teaching. We can judge how much learning has taken place through ways other than testing, including, above all, communicating with our learners in a variety of ways and getting to know them better as individuals.
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Assessment for Learning in the Cambridge Global English series
As we have seen, Assessment for Learning improves performance through:
To achieve desired results, it is essential that the learner is involved throughout the process, thereby inspiring engagement and confidence. In the Cambridge Global English series, the authors aim to provide you with the tools to successfully implement an Assessment for Learning
approach. They provide clear goals in line with the Cambridge Primary curriculum framework, and we provide a range of resources and techniques to help you gather the information about your learners which you will need to
plan, adapt and tailor your teaching to meet their specific needs.
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Understanding where the learner is going
We would encourage you to look through the How to use this book pages of your Stage Learner’s book with your learners so that they are familiar with the organisation and features of each unit. At the start of each Learner’s Book unit you will find a set of learning intentions (We are going to... or In this lesson you will... boxes), written in learner-friendly language. These include the key objectives addressed in the unit. In the Teacher’s Resource, you will see these again, this time using the learning objectives from the curriculum framework so that you can be reassured of full coverage and understand more clearly how the unit objectives fit into the curriculum as a whole. These are accompanied by success criteria so that you have measures against which to monitor your learners’ progression. Each lesson spread repeats the learning intentions for that lesson to ensure learners are absolutely clear about their objectives at all times. At the end of each unit, the Look what I can do! or Summary checklist box revisits the learning intentions of the unit so that learners can self-assess their progress.
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Understanding where the learner is now
Each stage starts with Progress quiz 1 (available to download from Cambridge GO as part of this Teacher’s Resource). This quiz deals with the knowledge and skills which are a prerequisite for success as learners start to work through the stage. It aims to inform teachers and learners whether the foundations are solid and whether remedial work is required before knowledge and skills are built upon as a part of the spiral curriculum. It can also indicate whether the group are confident in certain areas, meaning less time need be spent on these. Of course, teachers will also learn which individuals will need special support in order to fulfil their potential. Each unit starts with a Getting started box to tease out prior learning and language, with the support of the unit opener image. It’s useful for you to know what learners already know so that you can tailor your teaching; it’s helpful for learners to prime themselves for new learning by activating schemata (mental frameworks which help us understand new information) and engaging with the topic; and this process also offers an opportunity for confidence-building peer teaching. Please also see the Diagnostic questions section in Improving learning through questioning.
The Teacher’s Resource includes concept checking questions (a type of hinge-point question; see Improving learning through questioning for more information). These will help you understand how well learners have grasped concepts before moving on. At the end of each unit, projects provide an opportunity for low-floor high-ceiling challenges (activities that are accessible for all learners while also providing opportunities to stretch all learners), where all learners can achieve collaboratively to the best of their ability. These pages are designed to bring the learning of the unit together.
You may wish to keep learner portfolios using products of the projects and the written tasks. You may well wish to record some examples of performance from projects and spoken tasks. Each unit has a corresponding unit quiz (available to download from Cambridge GO as part of this Teacher’s Resource). These will help you assess understanding of the language learning intentions, and adapt your teaching accordingly. This may involve designing lessons to address common problem areas, or providing individual support as required.
At various points throughout the Learner’s Book, you will find Check your progress sections, which revisit the key learning intentions of the previous units to assess retention. At the mid-point in the course, there is a Progress quiz (Progress quiz 2). This is designed to encourage a backwash effect (the positive impact on learning caused by testing) on your learners. The results of these quizzes might also be useful as one part of your reporting process. The Mid-year quiz will provide valuable feedback to help you address problem areas in both language and skills. The Teacher’s Resource includes a Progress Report which you can photocopy for each member of your class to help you monitor and report upwards on progress.
The Teacher’s Resource also includes more detailed generic assessment criteria. This is designed to help you assess your learners’ work, in order that you can provide valuable, developmental feedback. We would advise against giving marks in order to optimize learner-specific, qualitative feedback. The projects also offer opportunities for self and peer assessment. Assessment criteria can be found in the Teacher’s Resource. Self and peer assessment allow your learners to engage deeply with the criteria which make their work of a good standard. It ensures that they are actively involved in the learning process, and leads to learner independence and motivation. The Teacher’s Resource also includes plenary self and peer assessment opportunities at the end of each lesson.
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How to get there: improving performance
We have looked at a number of points on the learning journey where progress is checked. How you wish to respond to the outcomes at these intervals is your choice, as the teacher. Only you know each individual well enough to be able to respond in the most appropriate way to ensure that each and every learner gets the guidance required to continue on their learning journey. Nevertheless we have developed some tools to save you time, provide you with some ideas and help you provide for your learners.
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