Assessment without Levels

‘Assessment without levels’ is a new concept for many teachers who have been brought up on levels as a measuring device of reporting progress.  However, reclaiming teacher assessment for the benefit of improving students’ learning, should be viewed as a liberating opportunity for schools to influence their unique aspirations and to create assessment tailored to their school populations and aims.  It gives schools greater freedom to focus on building their learning cultures with the ultimate aim of improving pupils’ outcomes.

The new national curriculum, based on knowledge and understanding, and learning mastery, creates not only challenges but also exciting opportunities for schools from September 2014 and beyond, and is signalling the most radical changes in education for decades.  Ultimately, its effectiveness will be judged by the school leaders’ ability and innovative attitudes to embrace the opportunity open to them with regard to developing their own ‘broad and balanced’ school curriculum well matched to their own particular settings and situations.  So far, many assumptions have been made, in particular by the press, about the concept of a curriculum based on ‘knowledge and understanding’ with references to rote learning and facts regurgitating.  This is not what the new curriculum appears to be about.

Knowledge in the wider, Confucian, sense is about developing expertise needed for competency in any area.  According to Confucius,

Only when things are investigated is knowledge extended; only when knowledge is extended are thoughts sincere; only when thoughts are sincere are minds rectified; when minds are rectified are the characters of persons cultivated…”

Instant access to information has never been easier.  With this, follows the need for well-developed critical thinking skills to eliminate bias. The knowledge required to progress one’s understanding onto new and higher order thinking levels is exactly what is meant by the ‘knowledge and understanding’ in the new curriculum, as I see it.

However, the most thrilling feature of the new national curriculum is the departure from ‘levels’.  For about a quarter of a century, and a generation of teachers, schools have been attaching an abstract numerical value, and a label, to a learning standard attained.  On reflection, this practice has been, quite frankly, meaningless, and did little to improving educational standards.  Since measuring cannot bring improvement, just the same as weighing a pig cannot fatten it, a different focus is needed now.

Assessing without levels, for the first time in generation, gives schools the freedom to focus on building their learning cultures suited to their circumstances that can be separate from managerial / accountability cultures, which serve a different purpose and are not aimed at improving learning.  Through reclaiming teacher assessment, schools have been freed from the constraints of having to link teacher assessment to levels (measuring / accountability purpose) and, instead, are now free to develop their own teacher assessment focused on formative processes during production (learning process).  This, however, requires a shift in thinking for a generation of teachers brought up on national curriculum levels and APP.

As assessment is central to learning, and since there is now greater freedom to develop assessment to guide learning between key stages, schools now have a chance to define what type of institution they really aspire to be by defining what skills and competencies they value and aim to develop in their pupils.  The deliberate removal of levels from the new national curriculum is aimed at developing learning cultures and requires a fresh look at teacher assessment – the type of assessment that is aimed at developing pupil engagement, feeding-forward and leading to building learning independence and, during the process, is not linked to any measures.

It seems that putting teacher assessment at the heart of learning has its own challenges as schools struggle to understand the concept of assessing without levels, looking towards ‘one size fits all’ solutions and ready ‘toolkits’.  Having the autonomy to develop their own assessment, many now struggle with the new prospect of life without levels.  The pre-occupation with HOW has obliterated the need for WHAT.  And it is WHAT that needs to be answered first before moving on to HOW and WHY.

For improved outcomes at accountability stages, schools must concentrate first on identifying what they want to assess and develop teachers’ confidence in the formative aspect of assessment, without the reference to levels to describe progress in numbers (or grades).  The quality of formative assessment and how it is embedded within the teaching and learning process is crucial to improving learning standards and this is why schools have been given the freedom to develop their own approaches to assessing without levels.

There is over-whelming evidence (Black and Wiliam) which shows that summative purpose of assessment (giving every piece of work a level or a grade) can distract from the formative aim of improving learning and focus on the next steps, which is what leads to pupils’ progress and learning success.

Within the changing assessment climate, this shift in attention from accountability measures (progress and attainment at the end of the learning process) needs to occur so schools can develop high quality assessment for learning strategies to guide and scaffold pupils’ learning, perhaps starting with high quality initial assessment to inform future teaching.

Creating a Learning Culture

What Works in Education: from myths and fads to evidence-based learning

Teachers are increasingly demanding training that is based on solid and robust research evidence for what really works in education and leads to improved learning.

For far too long, teachers’ CPD and subsequent practice followed various fads and trends that, on the surface, seemed attractive to implement and try as part of the classroom practice.  The appeal of many myths, like ‘brain gym’ or explicit reliance on different ‘learning styles,’ or what has been termed as ‘accelerated learning’ techniques, has been based on the premise that relatively simple and easy lists of strategies, if followed, could lead to big learning gains and improvement in pupil engagement.  Although these approaches promised research-based foundations on  how the brain works, the real fact remains that many of these myths, which have been sold to teachers as ‘real evidence’, often lack clear scientific proof that any of the suggested classroom strategies lead to improved learning.  It would appear that these quick-fix fads have been simply sold to the teaching profession as short-cuts to improvement based on snippets of inconclusive or out-of-context research.

Dr Hilary Leevers, head of education and learning at the Welcome Trust, agrees:

“Neuromyths” can merely perpetuate misconceptions about the brain.  Of greater concern is when they influence how we are raised or educated.  You may be familiar with the idea of different types of learner.  For example, if you are a “visual learner” you need content delivered primarily visually.  But there is very little scientific evidence to support this idea, and labelling pupils by type of learner and delivering content accordingly limits the richness of their learning experience and may reduce what is learned.                                                      (The Guardian, 7 January 2014)

Indeed, ‘labelling’ pupils’ can have a negative influence on learning and progress. Moreover, these unproven myths have not only contributed to a stream of ineffective classroom practices, that could be referred to as ‘educational fads’, they have also simplified some of the neurological research findings for the purpose of appeal on popular psychology grounds that vowed instant classroom success.  Another reason why these myths can be so damaging, is that teachers have come to expect ready-made lists of effective strategies that they can follow in class and, in some cases, this has led to a tick-list teaching-style characteristic of little reflection about what really leads to improved learning and quality outcomes for young people.  In contrast, substantive evidence-based research into better teaching and learning that results in improved learning progress cannot be reduced to tick-lists and is characterised by an approach-style methodology being used as part of the teaching and learning processes.

I feel that teachers need some help in distinguishing between solid, evidence-based research into what strategies, if consistently applied, really bring big learning gains and myths that result is seemingly quick-fixes but have little to do with improvement in learning outcomes or developing essential pupil learning autonomy for long-term success.  It is also critical to emphasise the need for deeper reflection and honest self-evaluation of teachers’ own practices so robust research-based evidence is seen in terms of an ‘approach’, rather than a list of ritualised classroom strategies.

Investment in high quality CPD for teachers based on solid academic research findings into what really works in education – and there is enough of evidence-based research regarding what approaches lead to improved outcomes – is absolutely key if we are to improve everyday classroom practice and long-term prospects for our young people.  It is about elucidating what is ‘real’ and what is a ‘myth’ so teachers can make informed judgements regarding the rationale behind their teaching methods.

When it comes to research-based evidence, it seems appropriate to mention the research into assessment for learning (AfL) as an example of a wide evidence-based study into improving learning outcomes. Despite the effectiveness of AfL approach based on the evidence of ‘effect size’[i] between 0.4 to 0.7 (one of the biggest found in educational interventions, Black and Wiliam,1998, and backed up by Hattie’s research into effectiveness of classroom interventions), this approach to better teaching and learning can be still poorly understood by teachers and policy-makers, who seem to be  conditioned into thinking that ‘assessment’ can be only reflected quantitatively, rather than qualitatively during the process, and ultimately leading to improved standards that can be demonstrated in quantitative, as well as qualitative, values.    

Seemingly, this lack of in-depth grasp of what AfL means in practice, highlights the need for teachers’ greater awareness of robust, research-based evidence so they can make more informed choices regarding their most effective practices in class leading to improvement and learning sustainability.

High quality, evidence-based training is crucial to institutional learning and continuous teacher professional development for improved standards in teaching and learning.

 

References:

Black, P. and Wiliam D. (1998). Inside the Black Box. London: NferNelson

Hattie, J. and Yates, G. (2014). Visible Learning and Science of How We Learn. Oxon: Routledge.

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[i] Learning gains measure by comparing (a) the average improvements in pupils’ scores on tests with (b) the range of scores that are found for typical groups of pupils on the same tests. The ration of (a) divided by (b) is the ‘effect size’.

 

 

Assessment for Learning (AfL) model

Ability vs Effort: A learning capacity for life

http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/blog/developing-a-learning-capacity-for-life

The importance of qualified teachers - SecEd

The importance of qualified teachers - SecEd

Even the government is divided over whether unqualified individuals should be allowed to teach in state-funded schools. - See more at: http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/blog/the-importance-of-qualified-teachers#sthash.UWcsZ2TY.dpuf

The Future of Education: From curriculum-based learning to learning-based curriculum

Looking forward to meeting the challenges of the 21^st century education, educational systems need to move away from  the ideas that shaped the education of earlier generations.  Whereas in the past, learning in schools was curriculum-centred, where knowledge and understanding were key to measuring achievement (memory-based learning), the demands of the digital age, with its rapid technological advancement, require the shift towards learning-centred curriculum, which is skills-based learning with emphasis on application, problem-solving and other higher order learning strategies. 

Although any learning is based on knowledge foundations and understanding, since the widespread availability of technology, including mobile technology, knowledge has become so readily accessible that the modern curriculum needs have changed.  This means that teaching and learning, to be relevant to the needs of the modern society, must focus on developing other skills, including critical thinking, creative reasoning, imaginative solutions to problems, evaluative skills and multi-dimensional communication skills.

This shift from curriculum-centred learning to learning-centred curriculum, where the focus needs to be on developing learning self-regulation and autonomy, requires the change in assessment focus from testing aimed at assessing knowledge and understanding to assessments that match the objectives of the learning-centred curriculum aimed at teaching higher order learning skills relevant to further studies and future career development.

Since learners are at the heart of the learning-centred curriculum, some traditional teaching methods, of didactic nature, need to move way to new methodology expected to develop pupils’ learning self-regulation.  As the importance of learning independence to future success cannot be underestimated, schools are faced with the challenge of developing autonomous learners capable of their own mastery of learning.  Although some pupils possess a natural ability to learn effectively and therefore can be more motivated to learn than others, these meta-cognitive skills need to be explicitly taught, through the use of classroom formative assessment strategies, to develop pupils’ self-regulation essential to motivation and learning independence.  

Drawing on research based findings into the importance of developing pupils’ self-regulation, we know that children who are well motivated to learn are capable of using their self-regulatory skills effectively for higher achievement, whereas children who are not skilled at using self-regulatory skills, tend to be poorly motivated and over-reliant on teachers, which has a negative effect on their progress. Indeed, Boekaerts (1995) asserts that “It is important that teachers make their students independent of their help by preparing them for bugs, by teaching them how to consult resource material and how to use their social support network”.

As these independent learning skills are essential to developing learning sustainability needed for future multiple career changes and personal development, schools need to focus on developing their learning-based curricula and effective assessment systems that engage pupils in their own learning and, through feeding forward and other formative strategies, to facilitate pupils’ mastery of learning.  Therefore the shift in the locus of control from the teacher, in a more traditional curriculum-centred learning, to the pupil, in the new learning-centred curriculum, should be at the heart of education in the digital age.

 

References:

Boekaerts, M. (1995). Motivation in Education. The British Psychological Society.

 

Dr Joanna Goodman