Can high-stakes state assessments be based on schools’ own assessments ? - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Can high-stakes state assessments be based on schools’ own assessments ?Should they be?

Paul Black

King’s

College, London UKSlide2

21998/9 Task Group on Assessment and Testingreport to Kenneth Baker

recommendations about

teachers

’ role

14. The national assessment system should be based on a combination of moderated teachers' ratings and standardised assessment tasks.

(Paragraph 63)

15. Group moderation should be an integral part of the national assessment system. It should be used to produce the agreed combination of moderated teachers' ratings and the results of the national tests.

(Paragraph 77)

17. The final reports on individual pupils to their parents should be the responsibility of the teacher, supported by standardised assessment tasks and group moderation.

(Paragraph 80)Slide3

3New Minister - new national assessment tasks

(

The original tasks

)

were made a little too complicated and we have said we will simplify them. . . The complications themselves were largely designed in the first place in an attempt to pacify opponents who feared above all else 'paper and pencil' tests. . . This opposition to testing and examinations is largely based on a folk memory in the left about the old debate on the 11-plus and grammar schools.

(

Clarke 1991)Slide4

Margaret Thatcher’s opinionKen Baker warmly welcomed the report. Whether he had read it properly I do not know: if he had it says much for his stamina. Certainly I had no opportunity to do so before agreeing to its publication . . .that it was then welcomed by the Labour party, the National Union of Teachers and the Times Educational Supplement was enough to confirm for me that its approach was suspect.

Pp.594-5 in THATCHER

, M. (1993)

The Downing Street Years (London, Harper Collins).

4Slide5

5Purposes of assessment

1 Formative - develop pupils

’

as learners

2 Summative for individuals

3 Accountability - of teachers, of schools, of nations

Synergies and tensions

:

3 separate methods ?

or multi-purpose

?Slide6

6 Validity

Validity is achieved when

inferences that users of the

results need

to make

are justified by the

evidence

The users are

:

The

student

Those who teach that

student

next year

Or in the next school

And all involved with the

student

after schooling completed

Slide7

7

Our Present Situation

from RS report

Higher education, employers, and students themselves, are not given valid information

In our present national systems there are neither Opportunities nor Motivation for any agency to develop the quality of teachers’ summative assessments

Slide8

KOSAPKing’s-Oxfordshire-Summative-Assessment ProjectInvestigate & strengthen teachers’ assessments to include open-ended tasks as well as formal tests

English

& Mathematics departments

Year 8 (13 year olds)Slide9

Participants and Activities3 schools’ departments of maths. and science

12 teachers :

2 in each

of the school’s departmentsFormulating

a

number of assessment activities for Y8

students

Develop action

plans in each school for

broader summative assessments for

all teachers and for all Y8 pupils in English and mathematics.Slide10

Research QuestionsAudit the present summative assessment practicesHow do the processes of moderation support teacher learning about students’ progress?

How can these

valid assessment systems

be implemented within departments ? Slide11

Summative Assessment PurposesDecisions about teaching setsInformation for the next teacherReporting to Senior Management Team

Reporting to Parents

Target setting

Slide12

Problems in the current practice and cultureThe teacher’

existing practices lacked the rigour and uniformity required

There

was a general acceptance of the tests and tasks that they already do, despite their concerns that these assessment tools may be unfair, invalid, and unreliable in measuring the capabilities of their students.

Uncritical

attitude that the teachers

had

towards the task of making summative judgmentsSlide13

Maths SA PracticesMaths teachers used end-of-topic tests.Derived questions from external examinations & textbooks

Teachers had not considered quality of tests nor how appropriate these tests where at assessing specific skills and conceptual understanding.

Slide14

14Validity of AssessmentsWhat does it mean to be good at - --

?

The project made me think more critically about what exactly I was assessing. The first question I remember being asked (

‘

what does it mean to be good at English?

’

) gave me a different perspective on assessment. I find myself continually returning to this question.

Teacher in King’s project

Slide15

Learning Through Investigations. . . at the end of units, they’d all be really nice investigations to do that would allow them to think about things that they’ve covered in class, but also, you know, be exposed to the investigations of how to do them, what to think about. Because I was quite surprised at the beginning how they couldn’t ... they didn’t know how to do it. Mathematics

teacher

15Slide16

Moderation Meetings. . . and we’ve had moderation meetings, we were together with the other schools, teachers in other schools looked at how rigorous our assessment would be and they criticised what, you know, our marking criteria (are). And we changed it, which is all being very positive .

Mathematics teacher

16Slide17

Moderation: teaching and learningconversationsI think its quite a healthy thing for a department to be doing because I think it will encourage people to have conversations and it’s about teaching and learning. . . . it really provides a discussion hopefully as well to talk about quality and you know what you think of was a success in English. Still really fundamental conversations.

Teacher in King’s project

17Slide18

18Teachers’ Summative Assessment Confidence

But I think if all the teachers had more, possibly more ownership of what we are actually doing in terms of summative assessment then you would have more confidence in saying to parents, which I think is one of the biggest things I find with lower school.

Mathematics teacher

Slide19

Moderation: Collaborative Professional DevelopmentSimilarly, teachers who examined student data together and worked out as a group what its implications were for deciding how best to help those under-achieving, difficult-to-move students, had higher achieving students than those schools where such a collective examination, diagnosis and problem-solving cycle did not operate.

New

Zealand : Parr and

Timperley

, 2008, p.69

19Slide20

20Validity in the future?

… the teacher is increasingly being seen as the primary assessor in the most important aspects of assessment. The broadening of assessment is based on a view that there are aspects of learning that are important but cannot be adequately assessed by formal external tests. These aspects require human judgment to integrate the many elements of performance

behaviours

that are required in dealing with authentic assessment tasks.

p.31 in

Stanley, G.,

MacCann

, R., Gardner, J., Reynolds, L. & Wild, I. (2009).

Review of teacher assessment: what works best and issues for development.

Oxford University Centre for Educational Development; Report commissioned by the QCA.Slide21

21Two National Systems

Queensland : all by moderated teacher assessment in

local

clusters of schools. State tests to inter-calibrate

Sweden: state tests fix the mean and spread of

each school

, teachers decide results of individual pupilsSlide22

22

Royal Society 2014

Report : Vision

for

science and mathematics

education

Teacher assessment and moderation are more common and trusted components of assessment for publications (10 years time

)

Teachers are responsible for assessment of public qualifications. Teacher assessment is trusted, understood and by parents

, the

public, and employers (20 years time). Slide23

References 1Assessment for learningBlack, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. & Wiliam, D, (2003) Assessment for

Learning

– putting it into practice

. Buckingham: Open University Press. Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (2009) Developing the theory of formative assessment.

Educational

Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability

,

21

(1), 5-31.

Summative Assessment studies

Black, P., Harrison, C.,

Hodgen

, J., Marshall, M. and

Serret

, N. (2010) Validity in teachers’ summative assessments.

Assessment in Education

17(2) 215-232.

Black, P., Harrison, C.,

Hodgen

, J., Marshall, M. and

Serret

, N. (2011) Can teachers’ summative assessments produce dependable results and also enhance classroom learning?

Assessment in Education. 18

(4), 451-469.

Black, P., Harrison, C.,

Hodgen

, J., Marshall, M. and

Serret

, N. (2013)

Inside the Black Box of Assessment: Assessment of learning by teachers and schools.

London: GL Assessment.

In press

continued

con

con

23Slide24

References 2 Black, P. (2013) Formative and Summative Aspects of Assessment: Theoretical and Research Foundations in the Context of Pedagogy. p.167-178 in McMillan, J.H. (ed.) Sage Handbook of Research on Classroom Assessment. In press

Klenowski

, V. & Wyatt-Smith, C. (2013)

Assessment for Education: A guide for Students, Teachers and Researchers. London: Sage. In Press.Self Theories and Mind-Set

Dweck

, C. S. (2000)

.

Self-theories: their role in motivation, personality and development

. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.

Dweck

, C. S. (2006)

Mindset: the new psychology of success.

New

York:Random

House.

Group work

Lyn Daws, Neil Mercer and Rupert

Wegerif

(2003)

Thinking Together.

Published by Imaginative Minds Ltd

.

Ed

Baines, Peter Blatchford and Peter

Kutnick

(2009)

Promoting Effective Group Work in the Primary Classroom

London:

Routledge

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