Speaker 1: The reason we're focusing on assessment for learning or formative assessment today is because the evidence drives us there. If we're serious about raising student achievement, we have to invest in teachers. If we're serious about investing in teachers, we should do it through formative assessment because the evidence suggests we're going to have more effect there than we will do anywhere else. I think that's quite important because a lot of people will say, I haven't got time to do this stuff. I talk to the head teachers and they say, we've got too many initiatives going on. Yes, but all the other initiatives aren't going to make a difference to your students. So why are you doing them? If you want to read the research, there are five helpful studies. Between them, these five research reports synthesise the results of about 4,000 research projects on feedback, on assessment, on assessment for learning in schools and colleges and in workplaces. What's interesting is they all find consistent substantial effects. Whether you're looking at maths or modern languages, whether you're looking at five-year-olds or 25-year-olds, whether you're looking at Canada or Israel, you get similar kinds of effects. A quick word on the distinction between assessment for learning, which you've probably heard of quite a lot, and formative assessment. Paul Black and I have always used the term formative assessment, but the government adopted the phrase assessment for learning. It's a very sexy way of putting it because you've got assessment of learning bad, assessment for learning good. Very easy to contrast those two things. The problem is that assessment for learning focuses on the intention rather than the action. It says I'm collecting this information in order to, and I go into classrooms and I see lots of formative intention. I see very little formative action. I see very little use of that evidence actually to make a difference. The word formative to me has a very clear etymology. Our formative experiences are the experiences that shaped us as individuals. In the same way, I think formative assessment should be assessment that actually shapes learning. Not that it was intended to, but that actually had the effect of shaping learning. Assessment becomes formative when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet learning needs. Now, unfortunately, we have a new assessment for learning strategy published by the government a few weeks ago. They have emphasized a view of assessment for learning which is all about recording and reporting achievement. I must be a really terrible teacher because I cannot get anybody in the government to understand that they're wrong. But let me put it as starkly as I can. If what you're doing under the heading of assessment for learning or formative assessment involves putting anything into a spreadsheet, if it involves using a pen other than for writing comments in a student's exercise book, then you're not doing the assessment for learning that makes a difference. I'm not saying having a school assessment policy is a bad idea. It's a very good idea. So is tracking student scores over time. It's a very smart thing to be doing. The point is the research shows it doesn't make a difference to student scores, or at least a tiny difference even if it's measurable. So we could call all these things formative assessment or assessment for learning, whether it's the annual cycle of reviewing test scores and checking to see whether you... I mean, there's nothing wrong in looking through your kids' exam results, looking at their papers, seeing that they consistently missed a topic, and looking back and saying, oh, the reason for that is we didn't teach it at all. Now that's a good thing to do, isn't it? But it's not going to make a big difference. The really big effect sizes that we find in the research literature are when you do this stuff here, the minute-by-minute and day-by-day formative assessment. If you let the kids leave the classroom before you've used the evidence about their achievement that you've acquired to make a difference to your teaching, you're already playing catch-up. And if you haven't made an adjustment by the next time they reappear in your classroom, it's probably too late. So basically, you do not need to be able to write to do good formative assessment. It's about that minute-by-minute and day-by-day adjustment of your teaching. The reason is that all the long cycle stuff does is monitor student achievement and possibly align your curriculum so that if you're not teaching stuff you should be teaching, it tells you that. That's helpful, but it's weak. Medium cycle, you might get the students involved, you might get the students understanding the success criteria, that might be helpful, and you might get better teachers thinking about learning. But here's the point, here's the trap. Here's the trap I think we've been in for the last 30 years. Changing what teachers think doesn't benefit students until it changes what teachers do. And as you change what teachers do in classrooms, you'll have no impact on student outcomes. And most of the professional development we've had in this country over the last 30 years has been designed to change teachers' thinking. Basically, we've been trying to get teachers to think their way into a new way of acting. And what we're going to focus on today is getting teachers to act their way into a new way of thinking. The short cycle stuff improves your classroom practice and improves student engagement. Now, what is formative assessment? Well, we've been trying to think about how to communicate this effectively, and it seems to us there are three key processes, where the learners are in their learning, where they're going, how to get there. Nothing very radical there. Think about the role of teachers, peers and learners. Cross those two dimensions and you get this chart here. So we think there are five really central strategies. One is clarifying and sharing learning intentions. One is engineering effective discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning. Providing feedback that moves learners forward. Activating students as learning resources for one another and activating students as owners of their own learning. Now, those probably seem slightly familiar or connected to what you know about. The point is that these are much broader notions than people typically talk about. People typically talk about questioning, about feedback, about self-assessment and peer assessment. For me, self-assessment is important, but it's only part of activating students as owners of their own learning. There are other important things like metacognition, thinking about thinking, about managing your emotional response. Learning is hard, and the resilience that the best students acquire in the face of failure is an important part of becoming an effective learner. Activating students as learning resources for one another goes way beyond just peer assessment. It's also peer tutoring and collaboration, supporting each other as learners. Providing feedback that moves learners forward. That's really important. Most feedback, even in the best schools, even when teachers write comments rather than give scores and grades, is actually the view through the rear view mirror rather than the view through the windscreen. It's what was wrong with the last assignment, but they're never going to do that assignment again. The best feedback takes out of the last assignment what the students need to feed into their next assignment. It's very hard to do, but it's the stuff that makes a difference. I flew back from Glasgow a couple of weeks ago, and I'm very glad the pilot did not navigate the way that most teachers assess. Because if he had, what he'd have done is said, right, Glasgow, due south, flying time of approximately 55 minutes, and after 55 minutes, he would actually sit down at the nearest airport and say, is this Heathrow? And the person on the ground says, no, it's Gatwick. And the pilot says, sorry, you've got to get off because I've got another job to go on to. Because that's what we do, isn't it? We teach kids stuff, and at the end, we test them. And if they've done well, we say, great. If they've done badly, we say, don't worry, we'll do it again next term. Yeah, because we do, don't we? Go around and learn the same stuff. But most kids know so much as a spiral curriculum, as a circular one. So rather than doing that at the end of learning, why not do what the pilot did? Plan a course, then take readings as you go, and change course as conditions dictate. This is not rocket science, but it's about those small cycles. It's about how often should you do formative assessment? Not more often than once every minute. It's that kind of very short cycle. Am I on target? Do the kids get it? Shall I move on now?