Chapter 4: Formative assessment and feedback:

checking student understanding minute by minute

Introduction-

Low achieving akonga

Low achieving or underachieving akonga can perceive low marks / grades as academic failure. Then decide that the risk of failure is too high to continue making an effort.

Perpetuated failure-

Grading does't help

“Low grades can actually perpetuate failure by providing concrete “proof” of akonga’s academic losing streak.”

Black & William (1998)-

Rich formative assessment

According Black and William (1998), akonga within classrooms of rich formative assessment can learn in six or seven months what would take other students an entire year to learn.

WHY FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK WORK:

There is enough research to suggest this form of assessment accelerates learning. In fact, Leahy et al,. (2005) posits “these gains in achievement can be sustained over extended periods and translate to greater student success on externally mandated standardized tests [SIC]”.

Formative assessment provides akonga timely feedback on learning and enables kaiako to make immediate adjustments to instruction. This vehicle is highlight successful in improving achievement outcomes for low achieving akonga.

The collaboration I teach in, is named Poutama, loosely this Te Reo Maori name translates in English to ‘Steps to Learning’. Formative assessment is only as powerful as the small steps a kaiako takes to measure learning and make changes to instruction to improve student outcomes. Timely feedback can only be given when kaiako are acutely aware of the when a learner has achieved learning. Waiting until the end of a unit / inquiry or the end of a week doesn’t allow a kaiako to make the timely changes to practice to best support akonga.

IMPLEMENTING INSTRUCTIONAL FEEDBACK:

Firstly, not ALL feedback is created equal, and therefore it is not all beneficial and doesn’t necessarily adequately improve akonga outcomes.

Extrinsic motivators such as prizes, doesn’t increase student achievement. It does help to incentivise a learning activity or must do or can do activity. Shifting to giving authentic and appropriate feedback can possible make a positive difference to akonga achievement. But there is still more to it than just giving feedback.

6 Principles about Feedback:

Principle 1-

Establish clear, specific learning goals at the onset of the lesson-

Learning intentions or goals should be written / co-constructed in child-speak.
Steps to reaching the goal need to be achievable / realistic.

Principle 2-

Provide feedback that demonstrates explicitly how akonga can achieve the learning goal-

Instructional feedback should improve students’ performance- to close gaps between their current level of understanding and the learning goals.
Feedback should narrow specifically to the a goal.
“Feedback is about the standard, not the student.”
“Effective feedback has the power to build academic traction in akonga whose wheels have been spinning for too long.”

Principle 3-

Involve all akonga in the feedback process-

Involve all akonga in the feedback process.
There are three tiers of feedback: kaiako, self, and peer.
The moment a concept or standard’s learning goals have been articulated, students themselves become collectors of evidence of learning.
Kaiako should consider deeply the opportunities they can create to authentically enable self and peer assessment.

Principle 4-

Deliver feedback as immediately and frequently as possible-

Low-achieving students respond well to frequent and immediate feedback.
Hattie & Timperley, (2007) suggest that during the early stages of learning, when errors are more common, immediate error correction results in faster rates of knowledge acquisition.

Principle 5-

Link academic progress to controllable factors, such as hard work and tenacity-

Low-achieving akonga are more likely to attribute success to innate ability rather than effort and that they are incapable of achieving. At the other end of the spectrum, high-achieving akonga might believe success is attributable to hard work. Conversely, a low-achieving akonga may believe hard work to be a sign of low ability or personal inadequacy. This therefore inhibits an akonga’s academic progress.
When giving feedback, it is crucial to link effort and tenacity with success, so that akonga receive the right message amongst their feedback.

Principle 6-

Be as encouraging as is genuinely possible-

Feedback should be communicate optimism and helpfulness, not blame or judgement.
“Where grades deflate, feedback can inspire.”
“Feedback lays out a map of next steps that students can take to continue moving toward their goals. Feedback has the power to keep students in the game.”
Be selective in the feedback that is given, some students require more than they’re willing to receive.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES:

Waiting until the end of a lesson or unit is not timely or appropriate in shifting akonga learning.
Ongoing assessment throughout the learning is the best time to give feedback / assessment.

Chapter Four: FAQ

How can you use BOW TIES as formative assessment?

Working in pairs, akonga record answers to a task on their own portion of tie, then discuss and co-construct an agreed answer in the centre of the bow tie. This is easily applicable in maths, whereby students can record their own strategy to a problem and then co-construct a solution to find the correct answer.

How best could SORTS promote formative assessment?

Akonga are given pictures / text / titles and then asked to categorise them into columns / rows. Akonga check learning in pairs or individually. They can co-construct / check / clarify their concept understanding. This is both formative assessment and a strategy to deepen understanding of academic vocabulary.