2 Literacy Across the Curriculum ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Some opening principles: • 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

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum The limitation of questions Dylan Wiliam (King’s College): • UK versus Japanese teachers • Marks can have a negative impact • Demotivation of UK students

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Research from Israel: 33% of students given marks only – made no progress 33% given mark and comment – no progress 33% given comment only – increased their performance by 30%

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum 4 key ingredients in good assessment • Quality of questioning • Quality of feedback • Sharing criteria with learners • Using peer and self-assessment

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum FORMATIVE V SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Summative assessment: Formative assessment: “How am I doing? ” How have I done? Learning teacher - peer - parent - buddy - mentor verbal - tick-list - general comment - written feedback

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Part 1: Marking Across the Curriculum

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Marking for literacy: some key principles 1. Make marking criteria explicit 2. Mark selectively 3. Prompt and praise 4. Expect active involvement from pupils 5. Develop a consistent approach, easily interpretable by pupils, teachers and parents 6. Provide immediate feedback

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Some principles for selective marking 1. 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.

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Year 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 nonfiction: – information – recount – explanation – instructions – persuasion – discursive writing 4. Use appropriate reading strategies to extract particular information, eg highlighting, scanning.

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Year 8: Cross-curricular priorities 1. Explore and compare different methods of grouping sentences into paragraphs of continuous 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.

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Year 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!

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum ? ? ? Part 2: Alternatives to Questions

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Bloom’s taxonomy of questioning Evaluation Tasks Assess / compare & contrast / judge Synthesis Design / create / compose Analysis Explain / infer / analyse Application Demonstrate / solve / try in a new context Comprehension Knowledge Translate / predict / why? Describe / identify / who, when, where?

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Mr Rees has been teaching about witchcraft in 17 th 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?

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Invite 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

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum Reinforce 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

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum 7 tips for effective questioning … 1. Plan questions in scheme of work 2. Use Bloom’s taxonomy to move to higherlevel 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

2 DEPENDENCE Literacy Across the Curriculum Self-assessment by students Re-teaching a lesson Group feedback Part 3: Re-think Assessment Re-present in different format Ticklists 30 -second 1: 1 Presentations in small groups INDEPENDENCE Learning buddy Feedback from other groups

NEXT STEPS Get feedback from students on their attitudes to marking - what helps them & what doesn’t Display marking criteria in all classrooms Get one team testing new homeworksetting patterns Use sampling to evaluate marking Get clear in your own mind formative -v- summative assessment

2 Literacy Across the Curriculum ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING