Literacy Across the Curriculum2ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING

Literacy Across the Curriculum2•There is a marking-across-the-curriculum issue …

•But there’s a deeper issue about assessment too

•And the tyranny of questions

•We need to get better at assessing in different ways & stop seeing it as only our domain

…which is what this presentation is about

Some opening principles:

Literacy Across the Curriculum2The limitation of questions

Dylan Wiliam (King’s College):

•UK versus Japanese teachers

•Marks can have a negative impact

•Demotivation of UK students

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Research from Israel:

33% of students given marks only – made no progress33% given mark and comment – no progress33% given comment only – increased their performance by 30%

Literacy Across the Curriculum2•Quality of questioning•Quality of feedback•Sharing criteria with learners•Using peer and self-assessment

4 key ingredients in good assessment

Literacy Across the Curriculum2FORMATIVE

V

SUMMATIVE

ASSESSMENT

Learning

Formative assessment: “How am I doing?”

Summative assessment:

How have I done?

2

teacher - peer - parent - buddy - mentor

verbal - tick-list - general comment - written feedback

Literacy Across the Curriculum

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Part 1: Marking Across the

Curriculum

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Marking for literacy: some key principles

1. Make marking criteria explicit2. Mark selectively3. Prompt and praise4. Expect active involvement from pupils5. Develop a consistent approach, easily

interpretable by pupils, teachers and parents

6. Provide immediate feedback

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Some principles for selective marking1. Focus attention on those literacy skills

which coincide with the meaning and purpose of the work.

2. Select high-value features for marking, commenting on features from which the pupil can generalise and apply the advice to other written tasks.

3. Give specific prompts which tell pupils exactly where and what they need to improve.

4. Expect pupils to respond to the prompts.

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Year 7: Cross-curricular priorities

1. Recognise and record personal errors, corrections, investigations, conventions, exceptions and new vocabulary.2. Recognise the cues to start a new paragraph and use the first sentence effectively to orientate the reader, eg when there is a shift of topic, viewpoint or time.3. Revise the stylistic conventions of the main types of non-fiction:

– information– recount– explanation– instructions– persuasion– discursive writing

4. Use appropriate reading strategies to extract particular information, eg highlighting, scanning.

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Year 8: Cross-curricular priorities

1. Explore and compare different methods of grouping sentences into paragraphs ofcontinuous text that are clearly focused and well developed, eg by chronology, comparison or through adding exemplification.2. Learn complex, polysyllabic words and unfamiliar words which do not conform to regular patterns.3. Combine clauses into complex sentences, using the comma effectively as a boundary signpost and checking for fluency and clarity.4. Use talk to question, hypothesize,speculate, evaluate, solve problems and develop thinking about complex issues and ideas.

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Year 9: Cross-curricular priorities

1. Compare and use different ways of opening, developing, linking and completing paragraphs.2. Synthesize information from a range of sources, shaping material to meet the reader’s needs.3.Write with differing degrees of formality, relating vocabulary and grammar to context, eg using the active or passive voice.4. Discuss and evaluate conflicting evidence to arrive at a considered viewpoint.

Test this now!

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Part 2: Alternatives to

Questions

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Literacy Across the Curriculum2Bloom’s taxonomy of questioning

Evaluation

Synthesis

Analysis

Application

Comprehension

KnowledgeDescribe / identify / who,

when, where?

Translate / predict / why?

Demonstrate / solve / try in a new context

Explain / infer / analyse

Design / create / compose

Assess / compare & contrast / judge

Tasks

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Mr Rees has been teaching about witchcraft in 17th century England. How could he assess whether students have understood the topic?

Mrs Miles has just finished teaching an ecology lesson. How could she assess whether students can synthesise the main points?

Ms Hunting has just explained the coming term’s design project. How could she assess students’ ability to evaluate their own work?

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Invite students to elaborate Could you say more about

that?

Speculate I wonder what might happen if …

Suggest You could try

Reflect on the topic Let’s bring this all together

Offer extra information It might be useful for you to know that

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Reinforce useful suggestions I especially liked .. because

Clarify ideas We can tell this is the case by

Correct me if I’m wrong But I thought we had all agreed that ..

Echo comments / summarise So you think? Jane seems to be saying?

Non-verbal interventions Eye-contact, a nod, raised eyebrows

Literacy Across the Curriculum27 tips for effective questioning …

1. Plan questions in scheme of work

2. Use Bloom’s taxonomy to move to higher-level skills

3. Share key questions at the start of the lesson - point the way ahead

4. Balance asking and telling

5. Ask open questions

6. Make questions collaborative

7. Give thinking time

Literacy Across the Curriculum2Part 3: Re-think Assessment

Self-assessment by students

Presentations in small groups

Re-present in different format

Group feedback

Ticklists

Re-teaching a lesson

30-second 1:1

Feedback from other groupsLearning buddy

DEPENDENCE

INDEPENDENCE

NEXT STEPS

Get feedback from students on their attitudes to marking - what helps

them & what doesn’t

Get clear in your own mind formative -v- summative assessment

Get one team testing new homework-setting patterns

Display marking criteria in all classrooms

Use sampling to evaluate marking

Literacy Across the Curriculum2ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING