English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI)

Module 6: Task 1 – 3 Video Lectures

Welcome to our video on assessment for learning. I’m Dawn Bikowski at Ohio University. In this video,
we will look at ways that you can use the types of assessment in your courses to help your students
learn.

Assessment for Learning [on screen: Black et al., 2003] means we think about how our assessments can
help students do their best. Maybe you assume that all assessments help students learn or that all
motivated students will automatically learn from any tests we give them, as long as they try hard and
study. But this is not the case. Students need our help in order to make sure that they learn from not
only our lectures and activities, but from our assessments as well. Here are five key principles to keep in
mind so that you can create assessments that help students learn [on screen: Moore, 2017]:

• The first principle for assessment for learning is to help students become active in their own
learning. Sometimes students feel that classes are passive, that the teacher is in control and
they have very few opportunities to have control over their grade. They might feel that even
when they study hard, they can’t score well on important tests or papers. This is de-motivating
for students. You can help by making sure students know your classes aren’t just passive—
students play an active role.

You can do this by linking assessments to your student learning objectives that are in the
syllabus. This way, students can see why they are being assessed in specific areas.

You can also explain to them why the assessment is important and how it will help them in their
careers.

Third, you can strive to create assessments that are linked to their futures. Whenever possible,
make assessments that are based on real tasks your students will need to do in the future. For
example, if you teach a Tourism course, you can ask students to role play an interaction, in
English, between a hotel manager and a guest who has a complaint. Possible areas to grade on
would be if students use key vocabulary effectively, if they speak so that their English is
comprehensible, or if they employ strategies covered in class to deal with customer complaints.

A fourth way to help students be active in their own learning is to ensure that your assessments
are fair. Prepare students for your assessments, such as by giving them a study guide for an
exam or answering questions about the assessment before they take it. Be sure you have

© 2019 by Ohio University. Video 6.2: Assessment for Learning for the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department
of State with funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by FHI 360. This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit
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 sufficiently covered all material that you will assess. If you haven’t covered it sufficiently, it is
not fair to assess students on it.

And finally, when you give assessments, make them as interesting as possible. Here is a quote
from a student from the study by Moore [on screen: Moore, 2017]: “Competitive [tasks] or
challenging students can encourage other students to learn.” In some cultures, having
competitions in class is very effective to get students motivated. You can choose to grade or not
grade these competitions.

• The second is to give effective feedback to students. Feedback should be given so that students
understand what they did correctly or incorrectly and so that they understand what you
recommend—for example, you might need students to understand that they got the wrong
answer and why it was wrong, or maybe they need to understand that they did a process or lab
experiment wrong and why. If students only find out what they got right or wrong, with no
feedback on why, they are less likely to learn.

One way to help students stay on track with feedback is to make it an ongoing part of the
course. You can create progress sheets or assignments, where you ask students to record their
progress throughout the time period of the assignment. Maybe in weeks 1, 5, 9, and 13 of the
course they record what they’ve done, problems they’ve had, and how they’ve overcome the
problems. You can then give them feedback on their progress, to keep them motivated and on-
track.

You can give students feedback through written comments (for example, on a paper or rubric)
or in person (such as in a conference, during office hours, or before or after class). Or you can
structure peer review activities, which are discussed later in this video. One of the best ways to
give clear feedback is by using a rubric. A rubric is a grid that describes what grading criteria are
and what is expected for each criteria; they will be discussed in more detail in this course. Here
is a quote from a student about effective feedback: “For me I want to see them point out my
mistakes...my teacher she notes my mistakes and she wrote how to change it, so for me I just
look for that [and not the overall score].” [on screen: Moore, 2017]. Effective feedback generally
does three things: identifies strengths, identifies opportunities for improvement or weaknesses,
and suggests next steps.

• Our third principle for assessment for learning is to give students opportunities to reflect on
their own learning. We don’t want students to only take a test and forget about it and the
information they learned. Instead, we want them to look at their results from the assessment
and think about what they did well and how they could do better. This is reflective learning. You
can help students do this by asking them to write two or three things they want to learn, at the
beginning of each unit. Then, at the end of each unit, after an assessment, ask them to reflect on
if they met their goals. They can write their reflection and turn it in to you, or they can share
their reflections in a small group discussion during class. Be sure to do this several times during

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 the semester so that students become more skilled at doing these reflections. Student goals
should be specific. For example, if your field has a specific test they will need to pass in order to
become certified, their goal might be to learn the information required in order to pass that
test.

You can also ask students to help each other by giving feedback to each other so that everyone
learns more. This is often called “peer review” or “peer assessment.” It doesn’t mean that
students grade each other. It means that they look at each other’s work, such as a paper or
presentation, and offer suggestions on how to make it better. Then, they can make any revisions
before they turn in their work to the instructor and it is graded. Here is a quote from a student
in Moore’s study about peer assessment [on screen: Moore, 2017]: “I realised that [peer
assessment] it’s kind of a student’s job, it’s a whole class activity....[The value of peer-
assessment is] ...for me I can see other people’s mistakes, and I can learn from that.” As you see,
when students help each other, they learn from each other as well.

Remember that when a student tries very hard to do well on an assessment and that student fails or
does poorly, this can be very de-motivating, causing them to not want to try harder in the future. The
more we can involve students in their learning and create fair assessments, the greater chance there is
that they will feel empowered to succeed.

References1

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for learning: Putting it into
practice. Berkshire, UK: Open University Press.

Moore, S. H. (2017). A Case Study of Assessment in English Medium Instruction in Cambodia. In B.

1 (This content, as well as external websites, is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted in any way, or distributed after the end of this course. It is
not Public Domain or Creative Commons-licensed, and therefore not for public use.)
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