Active Assessment in English

Thinking Learning and Assessment In English

Brenda Keogh, John Dabell, Stuart Naylor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781136803673
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Everybody seems to be talking about Assessment for Learning. This book shows you how to do it.

The thinking behind the highly influential 'Assessment for Learning' approach is translated into usable and practical strategies for all those teaching literacy in primary and secondary classrooms.

The authors show how thinking, learning and assessment can be linked together in a creative and integrated fashion, so that thinking promotes learning, learning enables assessment to take place and assessment acts as a stimulus to both thinking and learning.

Concise teachers' notes for a broad range of dynamic techniques explain for each:

• what the approach is
• how you use it for assessment
• how you can manage it in the classroom
• how it helps with learning.

Downloadable resources are included with all of the activities and ideas that can be used on Interactive Whiteboards. Active Assessment for English will prove inspiring reading for all literacy teachers at primary and secondary levels, LEA advisers and inspectors.

PART 1

Introduction

Assessment and learning

Assessment and teaching

Assessement and recording

Creating the right environment

Introduction

Using this book and CD ROM

The book sets out descriptions of practical strategies for assessment and learning in English. Each strategy is described in terms of:

what it is

how it can link assessment and learning

ideas for follow up

practical suggestions

We have also provided illustrations of what these strategies might look like in the classroom, set in the context of different areas of English. The index provides an overview of the strategies and the contexts in which they are set. For each strategy there are at least two illustrations. The first illustration is most suitable for younger learners while the second illustration is for older learners. These illustrations are provided separately on the accompanying CD ROM. The CD enables you to modify some of the examples so that you can use them to produce classroom resources in the topic that you are teaching. You can use a data projector to share the activity with the whole class and to interact with the text using the writeable and drag and drop features of the CD, as well as using the usual interactive whiteboard facilities.

If you are intending to improve your understanding and practice in formative assessment in English and would welcome guidance on how to make it more creative and more effective, then this is the book for you.

“Thinking, learning and assessment can be linked together in a creative and integrated fashion.”

NB We have included deliberate mistakes in many of the illustrations. This is deliberate! The mistakes make the strategy even more effective in promoting talking and thinking.

“The book sets out descriptions of practical strategies for assessment and learning in English.”

Active assessment in English

Part of a teacher’s job is to assess pupils. It’s included in the job description. However, even if assessment were not a requirement, good teachers would continue to assess pupils. They know that assessment can help them to adjust their teaching to maximise pupils’ learning and plan the next steps in learning, as well as involving pupils in their own learning.

This book is about active assessment in English in primary and secondary schools. It is about how thinking, learning and assessment can be linked together in a creative and integrated fashion, so that thinking promotes learning, learning enables assessment to take place and assessment acts as a stimulus to both thinking and learning. That may sound ambitious, but we believe that good teachers already do this. This book draws on this good practice to provide real guidance on how to go about it.

Building on research

This book builds on recent research and guidance on assessment, especially that produced by Black and Wiliam (1998), the Assessment Reform Group (1999), Black et al (2002) and Marshall and Wiliam (2006). These publications have been highly influential in raising the profile of formative assessment and in offering guidance on how assessment can be made more effective. The principles that they put forward underpin our writing. We have translated these principles into practical strategies that can be used in the classroom during English lessons.

Assessment and learning

Assessment makes a difference

Assessment makes a difference to learning. There is ample evidence to support that statement, summarised most effectively by Black and Wiliam (1998) in their extensive review of published research. It can make a positive difference when learners are actively involved in their own learning, when assessment is an integral part of the learning experience and when assessment enhances self-esteem and motivation.

It can also make a negative difference. Assessment can inhibit learning when, for example, teachers emphasise quantity or presentation of work rather than learning, grade work rather than giving advice for improvement and make comparisons between learners which demoralises the least successful (Assessment Reform Group, 1999).

“All the assessment activities described in the book provide opportunities for learning as well as for assessment.”

Learning through assessment

In generating the assessment activities in the book our intention has been to take account of current research into learning in English. We recognise that learners do not simply receive knowledge from a teacher but that they have to construct their own understanding of how to communicate in English. They build on and modify their existing ideas in the process and are influenced by social interaction.

All the active assessment activities described provide opportunities for learning as well as for assessment. Assessment and learning are integrated in each activity. As Black and Wiliam put it (1998:12), “A good test can be a learning as well as a testing occasion”. The activities in the book provide opportunities for learners to share their ideas and judgements in such a way that sharing provides a context and a purpose for developing their understanding and skills further. From the teacher’s perspective sharing ideas is an opportunity for assessment by gaining access to what learners are thinking. From the learner’s perspective sharing ideas is a normal and purposeful part of their learning rather than a formal assessment.

“From the teacher’s perspective sharing ideas is an opportunity for assessment by gaining access to what learners are thinking.”

Talk, collaboration and assessment

Discussion, dialogue and argument about ideas and judgements in English play a vital role in thinking about and learning English. They help learners to clarify their thinking, to justify their ideas using reasoning, t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Index of active assessment strategies and activities
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3