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Module 010: Assessment for Learning and

Assessment as Learning

At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. Cognitive: Demonstrate an understanding of key concepts about
assessment for Learning and Assessment as Learning.
2. Affective: Enrich a successful awareness in the key concepts about
assessment for Learning and Assessment as Learning.
3. Psychomotor: Able to formulate own formative assessment.

Assessment for Learning

Assessment for learning (AFL) is an approach to teaching and learning that
creates feedback which is then used to improve students’ performance.
Students become more involved in the learning process and from this gain
confidence in what they are expected to learn and to what standard.
One way of thinking about AFL is that it aims to ‘close the gap’ between a
learner’s current situation and where they want to be in their learning and
achievement. Skilled teachers plan tasks which help learners to do this.
AFL involves students becoming more active in their learning and starting to
‘think like a teacher’. They think more actively about where they are now,
where they are going and how to get there ([Link]).
Effective teachers integrate AFL in their lessons as a natural part of what they
do, choosing how much or how little to use the method. AFL can be adapted to
suit the age and ability of the learners involved.
AFL strategies are directly linked to improvements in student performance in
summative tests and examinations. Research shows that these strategies
particularly help low-achieving students to enhance their learning.

AFL and the relationship with formative and summative assessment

Traditionally, AFL has been closely associated with formative assessment
because practices such as questioning and providing feedback help ‘form’ or
‘shape’ student learning. This differs from summative assessment which
typically is an attempt to measure student attainment at the end of a period of
learning.
The following table, based on the UK’s National Foundation for Educational
Research report (NFER 2007 in [Link]), classifies
types of formative and summative assessment as either formal or informal.

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It can be argued that all of the assessment strategies in this table support AFL
if their ultimate use is to help the student progress in terms of their learning.
A good example of using a summative assessment strategy in an AFL context
is where a test or exam is used to identify a lack of understanding (e.g. in a
particular area of the syllabus) and subsequently targets are set to rectify this.
There are five main processes that take place in assessment for learning
([Link]):
i. Questioning enables a student, with the help of their teacher, to find out
what level they are at.
ii. The teacher provides feedback to each student about how to improve
their learning.
iii. Students understand what successful work looks like for each task they
are doing.
iv. Students become more independent in their learning, taking part in
peer assessment and self-assessment.
v. Summative assessments (eg. the student’s exam or portfolio
submission) are also used formatively to help them improve.

Assessment as Learning
Assessment as learning focusses on students and emphasizes assessment as a
process of metacognition (knowledge of one’s own thought processes) for
students. Assessment as learning emerges from the idea that learning is not
just a matter of transferring ideas from someone who is knowledgeable to
someone who is not, but is an active process of cognitive restructuring that
occurs when individuals interact with new ideas. Within this view of learning,
students are the critical connectors between assessment and learning. For
students to be actively engaged in creating their own understanding, they
must learn to be critical assessors who make sense of information, relate it to
prior knowledge, and use it for new learning. This is the regulatory process in
metacognition; that is, students become adept at personally monitoring what
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they are learning, and use what they discover from the monitoring to make
adjustments, adaptations, and even major changes in their thinking.
Teachers’ Roles in Assessment as Learning
A high level of student participation in the assessment process does not
diminish teachers’ responsibilities. Rather, assessment as learning extends the
role of teachers to include designing instruction and assessment that allows
all students to think about, and monitor, their own learning.
Assessment as learning is based on the conviction that students are capable of
becoming adaptable, flexible, and independent in their learning and decision-
making. When teachers involve students and promote their independence,
they are giving them the tools to undertake their own learning wisely and well.
To become independent learners, students must develop sophisticated
combinations of skills, attitudes, and dispositions. Self-monitoring and
evaluation are complex and difficult skills that do not develop quickly or
spontaneously. Like any other complex set of skills, becoming metacognitively
aware requires modelling and teaching on the part of the teacher, and practice
on the part of the student.
The teacher’s role in promoting the development of independent learners
through assessment as learning is to:
• model and teach the skills of self-assessment
• guide students in setting goals, and monitoring their progress toward
them
• provide exemplars and models of good practice and quality work that
reflect curriculum outcomes
• work with students to develop clear criteria of good practice
• guide students in developing internal feedback or self-monitoring
mechanisms to validate and question their own thinking, and to
become comfortable with the ambiguity and uncertainty that is
inevitable in learning anything new
• provide regular and challenging opportunities to practise, so that
students can become confident, competent self-assessors
• monitor students’ metacognitive processes as well as their learning,
and provide descriptive feedback
• create an environment where it is safe for students to take chances and
where support is readily available
Students need to experience continuous and genuine success. This does not
mean that students should not experience failure but, rather, that they need to
become comfortable with identifying different perspectives and challenge
these perspectives; they need to learn to look for misconceptions and
inaccuracies and work with them toward a more complete and coherent
understanding.

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Students (both those who have been successful—in a system that rewards safe
answers—and those who are accustomed to failure) are often unwilling to
confront challenges and take the risks associated with making their thinking
visible. Teachers have the responsibility of creating environments in which
students can become confident, competent self-assessors by providing
emotional security and genuine opportunities for involvement, independence,
and responsibility.

Formative Assessment
This occurs in the short term, as learners are in the process of making meaning
of new content and of integrating it into what they already know. Feedback to
the learner is immediate (or nearly so), to enable the learner to change his/her
behavior and understandings right away. Formative Assessment also enables
the teacher to "turn on a dime" and rethink instructional strategies, activities,
and content based on student understanding and performance. His/her role
here is comparable to that of a coach. Formative Assessment can be as informal
as observing the learner's work or as formal as a written test. Formative
Assessment is the most powerful type of assessment for improving student
understanding and performance ([Link]

Examples: a very interactive class discussion; a warm-up, closure, or exit slip;

a on-the-spot performance; a quiz.

References and Supplementary Materials

Books and Journals

1. Corpuz, B. (2010). Field study 2: Experiencing the teaching - learning process.
Quezon City: Lorimar Publishing.
2. Paez, A.R. and Serrano, E.D. (2015). Principles of Teaching 1. Cubao, Quezon City:
Adriana Publishing Co., Inc.
Online Supplementary Reading Materials
1. [Link]/departments/curriculum/instructionalservices/assessment/type
sofassessment/
2. [Link]
development/gswafl/[Link]
3. [Link]

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