Formative assessment Key strategies involved in formative assessment
Creating a classroom culture in which all involved see ability as incremental
rather than fixed.
Involving pupils in planning both appropriately pitched content and
meaningful context.
Clarifying learning objectives and establishing pupil-generated and pupil-
owned success criteria.
Enabling and planning effective classroom dialogic talk and worthwhile
questioning.
Involving pupils in analysis discussion about what excellence consists of –
not just the meeting of success criteria, but how to best meet them.
Enabling students to be effective self- and peer-evaluators.
Establishing continual opportunities for timely review and feedback from
teachers and pupils, focusing on recognition of success and improvement
needs, and provision of time to act on that feedback.
These strategies for formative assessment provide both teachers and students with the framework with which to steer the decisions made about tasks and techniques. The techniques change and there are often many ways to fulfill a strategy, but principles need to be constant and the basis for school consistency. Techniques will often be different from teacher to teacher, and necessarily so for different age groups, but strategies and principles which create ultimate frame of reference for effective practice. Key characteristics of assessment for learning Examples of teaching strategies in lesson Impact on learning Sharing learning objectives with pupils Teacher:
• explains objectives;
• provides sheet with learning
objectives for pupils to refer to;
• questions pupils to check
understanding;
Pupils:
• gain clear understanding of
what they are to learn.
