4 Establishing learning goals
Formative assessment is only effective when teachers know what students are moving towards. As a leader, it is your responsibility to make sure that teachers have goals for the end of an academic year, the end of a sequence of lessons and for completing a particular activity.
Clear goals for students over the short, medium and long term is essential in helping teachers develop their use of formative assessment. Activity 3 will help you to think about how you might support teachers to do this, using a rubric as a tool. Resource 3 offers some guidance on writing a rubric to assess different levels of attainment. Tables 1 and 2 are examples of two contrasting rubrics that assess at different levels and against different criteria.
| Performance levels | Idea: generating an interpretation | Evidence: using support from the text | Response: learning with and from other students |
|---|---|---|---|
7 Extends interpretation | Extends idea to interpret text as a whole
| Brings together evidence from the whole text
| Seeks out other students’ ideas
|
6 Builds interpretation | Elaborates on own ideas
| Builds case from several different passages
| Incorporates other students’ ideas and evidence
|
5 Explains answer | Explains how an idea answers the question
| Explains how a passage supports an idea
| Explains and gives reasons for agreement and disagreement
|
4 Understands issues | Fully understands the interpretative issue
| Understands the need for evidence
| Understands and roughly summarises other students’ ideas
|
3 Recognises alternatives | Asserts a considered answer, aware of alternative ideas
| Supports answer against alternative answer
| Recognises alternative answers and agrees or disagrees simply |
2 Offers simple, quick answers | Gives quick, simple answer to question
| Tends not to volunteer support; offers support only when asked
| Reacts briefly/quickly to other students’ answers without talking about them |
1 Begins to answer | Talks about the text without addressing the question | May retell the story or event, or give an opinion about something mentioned in the text | Allows others to speak without interrupting |
| Category | Expert | Competent | Novice | Needs development |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Craftsmanship | Form is carefully planned, form is balanced. Edges are smooth, refined. Walls are even thickness. Joining is secure and hidden. All surfaces are smooth, without burrs or wobbles. | Form is somewhat planned, and is slightly asymmetrical. Most edges are smooth, refined. Walls are even thickness with minimum wobbles. Joining is secure and hidden. Most surfaces are smooth, without any burrs. | Form is unplanned and lacks balance. Some edges are smooth but many are unrefined. Joining is secure but is obvious. Walls vary in thickness with some ‘wobbles’. Surfaces are mostly smooth with some wobbles, but some burrs are evident. | Form lacks planning and effort. Surfaces are uneven thickness, burrs readily appear. Joining is insecure. Surfaces and edges are unrefined. |
| Creativity | Design is unique, and displays elements that are totally their own. Evidence of detail, pattern or unique applications. | Design is expressive; has some unique features. Has ‘branched out’ to some degree. | Design lacks individuality. Has few details or is not appropriate for the form being expressed. Evidence of copying ideas. | Lacks many design elements or interest. Has minimal additional features or copies the ideas of others. Not much attempt to shown individuality. |
| Production/effort | Uses class time to the maximum. Always on task. Time and effort are evident in the execution of the piece. | Uses class time for work but is sometimes distracted by others. Work falls short of excellence. | Has difficulty focusing on the project much of the time. Easily distracted by others. | Hardly evidences caring about quality of the work. No additional effort is noted than to complete it. |
| Work habits/attitude | Is respectful and open to positive suggestions. Cleans work area thoroughly. | Is respectful and accepts suggestions. Cleans work area most of the time. | Lacks openness for suggestions for improvement. Has difficulty being on task to cleaning up. | Leaves cleaning up to others. Has an ‘attitude’ and is not open to assistance from suggestions. |
Activity 3: Supporting teachers in establishing learning goals
In the following dialogue, the school leader is working with a teacher to help them create a rubric for assessing the skill of writing in a play format. As you read it, note in your Learning Diary how the school leader avoids telling the teacher what to do, enabling her to think for herself.
| Teacher | I have asked the students to convert the story into a play, beginning with the setting and the cast and characters. I am making a chart on stage directions that they can use and putting it up on the blackboard. I am not sure about how I will organise a rubric for the task I have given them. |
| School leader | Well, a good place to start would be identifying what you want the students to be able to demonstrate by writing the play. For example, do you want them to use all of the stage directions on your chart? |
| Teacher | Do you think they would be able to do that? |
| School leader | Well, that depends on how many you are putting on the chart and how frequently they are used generally in play-writing. |
| Teacher | Most of them are used very frequently. I have eight stage directions on the display board. The easy two are ‘exits’ and ‘enters’, and the difficult ones are ‘from offstage’, ‘moving downstage’, ‘speaking from centre stage’ … |
| School leader | So the student who uses all the stage directions in his play script should know why they are to be used and that they have a reason for being used? |
| Teacher | Yes, I have discussed all that in class when they are presenting their skits, so that they also learn about the craft of theatre when putting up a show. I think it will help when we do the annual day. |
| School leader | I now understand why the students of your class always present themselves well in assembly. Now I wonder whether a student who uses all eight stage directions appropriately would be graded as outstanding? |
| Teacher | Hmmm. I think they would be outstanding if they use more stage directions than those on display. I see what you mean. So I could say that if only two stage directions are used, the student needs attention. An A-grade student would be the one who used all eight on display. I guess the use of six directions would be average, and a satisfactory C could be given to students whose scripts had four stage directions incorporated. |
| School leader | Let us not forget appropriateness. So I would say that the ‘Outstanding’ grade, also implies that the directions are used appropriately. |
| Teacher | OK, let me work on it and get back to you. I have some more criteria in mind. |
Discussion
You would have noted that the school leader’s questions are helping the teacher to think about her assessment. She leaves with greater clarity and a desire to create the assessment rubric with more criteria.
Critical to this teacher’s developing understanding is that the criteria she would have used (the number of stage directions used) is not formative assessment. If she had just used her initial criteria (number of stage directions = grade), then it is unlikely that she would have been able to provide effective formative feedback to improve the students’ learning, other than to use more of the stage directions.
By adding criteria to other aspects of the task (e.g. the appropriate use of the stage directions), the teacher or students themselves can assess for learning, rather than prompt students to assess of learning.
Helping to move teachers towards using criteria to support assessment for learning requires time: not only for understanding the concept, planning assessment opportunities and developing rubrics (where assessment criteria are linked to performance standards), but also to develop a different sort of dialogue in the classroom. This dialogue may be between teacher and student using the rubric to discuss their learning and next steps for learning, but equally could involve students in self- or peer-assessing to help them understand and take control of their own learning.
If you have not used a rubric before, look at the guidance in Resource 3 to understand how to write and use a rubric that assesses how far students have met criteria around knowledge and skills. You might develop a template for your teachers to use in order to encourage their adoption of this approach.
Activity 4: An example of using a rubric
Below is an example of a dialogue between teacher and student using a marked assignment and an assessment rubric. As you read it, make notes in your learning diary of what the teacher does to support the student’s learning. Imagine that this is a dialogue that you observe in your school and think about the feedback you would give to the teacher.
| Teacher | Here’s your answer sheet – your grade has improved since the last assessment. Have a look at it and tell me if you can see what you have done well and where you need to improve further. |
| Student | I wanted an A. You have awarded me a B+. It doesn’t look right to me! I have answered everything. I can’t tell what I’ve missed out on. |
| Teacher | Let’s take a look at the rubric together. The second criterion regards the sequence of the reasons for Rani Laxmibai’s decision. |
| Student | Well, this is the right sequence according to me! |
| Teacher | I understand that you feel your sequence is good enough for you. In history we often need to get out of our skin and think from the point of view of the people who make the decisions. Let’s see now – why do you think you should begin with the immediate cause and then discuss causes that built up the conflict? |
| Student | In fact, I guess the immediate cause is usually unimportant. You know they were angry because of the unfair decisions made over years and they just used the rumours about the cartridges as an excuse. |
| Teacher | You are really quite upset but you are thinking straight! Your guess is absolutely right! So when you start with the immediate cause, you are in a way highlighting the excuse. Then you systematically identify the causes that were building up over time. If you look at the eight reasons in this case, you can identify a hierarchy that makes one of them the most important cause. |
| Student | I see what you mean. So I have to be more careful about the way I sequence the reasons and I have to have a rationale for the sequencing as well! |
| Teacher | Absolutely. Do that, and there’s no way I can deny you an A in next week’s assessment. You’ve written it really well. |
| Student | Thank you so much! If I write these answers in a more thoughtful sequence, would you please have a look at them? |
| Teacher | Sure! Do them at home, and show them to me tomorrow. |
| Student | Thanks again, this was really helpful! |
Discussion
This dialogue starts after a grade has been awarded. The student starts off defensively and angry. Grades tend to have this effect: if the grade had been awarded after a discussion about improvement had been held, the student would have been much more receptive. As can be seen, the student is keen to improve. By the end of the session she knows what needs to be done and has come to that understanding herself by using the rubric more. The conversation has used the clearly set out criteria in the rubric to highlight what the student achieved and what they need to do to progress. There was no need for any discussion of grades. Instead, a dialogue about what was achieved and what more could be achieved would enable every student to make progress without making them feel unsuccessful.
Supporting other teachers to develop their ability to discuss learning in this way requires careful planning. You might consider opportunities to model effective practice, such as asking teachers to develop and share their own case studies, or observing lessons and praising effective formative feedback.
You might also want to consider how you can support students to engage with formative assessment – you may have noted that this student initially only looked at the grade and did not want to engage with the discussion about how to improve. As formative assessment becomes the norm in the classroom, students will engage and become more self-sufficient learners.
3 Assessment practice in your school