Dear Janet,
 
Thanks for this rich amount of info and explanation.  I’m so impressed
by the array of innovative thought and action that these different
countries and programs are pursuing.  I see formative assessment as a
fundamental mechanism for examining what is happening, and then taking
this information (data) in order to improve practice on the classroom,
program, or state/country scale.  Your study clearly shows that
formative assessment can and is being used to improve service delivery
on all levels – including guiding the investments that are necessary for
success in the program and classroom.
 
A couple questions:  You noted that in Finland, they use “random sample
evaluations of different subjects” – does this mean that they study test
data in subjects on an aggregate level and make determinations from
this?  If so, this would mean that accountability is spread more
broadly, as opposed to studying individual performance/test data and
then linking success or failure to either individuals (the student or
the teacher) or smaller entities (one school as opposed to a whole
school system).  I would think that such an approach would necessitate
studying not only what is happening in the classroom and school, but
also what types of educational materials and assessments are being used.
Would that be a correct assumption?
 
Also, you discuss the use of guidelines for promoting formative
assessment in various countries/programs that you studied, and you do
note that one set from New Zealand is available for us to look at.  Are
the other materials from the countries you studied also accessible?
These guidelines, case studies, and action plans would be extremely
helpful in developing a focus on the use of formative assessments in
this country.
 
You note that many teachers described changes in their behavior once
they started to use formative assessments – in their interactions with
students, how they set up learning, in providing guidance toward goals,
and in how they think about student success.  I would be extremely
interested in hearing more about this – can you provide us with a couple
of examples of these types of teacher change?  Did the process of going
from random to systematic use of formative assessments begin with
professional development for the teachers, application of the learning,
and then reflecting on the results, or was it less deliberate?  In other
words, did the teachers in your case study already use this approach and
just realized it was successful so incorporated it further?  Or were
these teachers part of a process to get them to learn and use formative
assessment strategies? 
 
And I also have a question for subscribers:  Janet notes that one
example of incorporating formative assessment into teaching would be
finding new ways to explain concepts when the student is struggling to
understand.  I’m guessing that this sounds super familiar to everyone
out there – searching for new ways to help the student when the old ways
are not cutting it.   Can subscribers talk about any formative
assessment strategies they use and how this improves classroom or
program level practice.
 
Thanks so much!!
 
Marie Cora
 
Marie Cora
NIFL Assessment Discussion List Moderator
marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com
Coordinator, LINCS Assessment Special Collection
http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/assessment/
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of
Janet.LOONEY at oecd.org
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 10:33 AM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 177] Re: Questions on formative assessment
 
Dear Marie,
Thank you for your questions.  I've provided some rather detailed
answers here to be sure that the concepts are clear in this initial
phases of the discussion.
 

> “The study shows how teachers have addressed barriers to systematic  

> practice, and how school and policy leaders may apply the  

> principles of formative assessment to promote constructive cultures  

> of assessment and evaluation throughout education systems.”

 

> Specifically:

> Can you discuss further how formative assessment is not practiced  

> systematically in secondary schools?  Does this refer to certain  

> schools using the practice and others not, or rather, that  

> formative assessment is used for certain purposes within a school  

> or school system, but is not practiced in all aspects of the school  

> (system)?

 
 
When we talk about the “systematic” practice of formative assessment, we
are talking about formative assessment as an integrated part of teaching
and learning in classrooms.  Many (probably most) teachers often
incorporate aspects of formative assessment – for example, finding new
ways to explain a concept when a student does not understand.  But as
teachers in our own case studies noted, prior to establishing formative
assessment as an overall framework for teaching and learning, these
kinds of interactions were somewhat haphazard.   Many of the teachers in
our case study schools said they had made fundamental changes in their
approaches to teaching – in their interactions with students, the way
they set up learning situations and guided students toward learning
goals – even in the way they thought about student success – when they
started to use formative assessment systematically.
 

> Formative assessment is an excellent approach for informing the  

> teaching and learning process.  Can you discuss how formative  

> assessment is also useful at the evaluation level – for example,  

> for purposes of examining success on the program or system level?

 
In our study, we distinguish between assessment and evaluation. The term
“assessment” is used to refer to judgments of student performance, and
the term “evaluation” to refer to judgements of programme or
organisational effectiveness.  
 
Ideally, information gathered in assessments and evaluations is used to
shape strategies for improvement at each level of the education system.
At the classroom level, teachers gather information on student
understanding, and adjust teaching to meet identified learning needs. At
the school level, school leaders use information to identify areas of
strength and weakness across the school, and to develop strategies for
improvement. At the policy level, officials use information gathered
through national or regional tests, or through monitoring of school
performance, to guide investments in training and support for schools
and teachers, or to set broad priorities for education. In this way,
summative information is used formatively at each level of the system.
Teachers, school leaders and policy officials are more likely to use
assessment information when assessments are well coordinated, and it is
clear why and how the information is relevant to their work. 
 
One very valuable example of how formative principles can be applied at
school and system level is found in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Since 2001, schools in this province have been developing action plans
based on the provincial test results. School boards manage the planning
process. Each school board brings principals together for two days.
Consultants from the Department of Education review all test results
with the district programme staff and school principals. Through this
review and subsequent discussions, principals identify learning needs
and incorporate them into their school development plan. The consultants
are then available to help plan and implement teacher professional
development programmes for schools that have identified teacher training
as part of their action plan.
 
Another example may be found in Finland.  Finland does not have an
inspectorate, and does not sponsor national examinations, except for the
matriculation examination at the end of upper secondary general
education. Instead, the National Board of Education tracks school
quality through random sample evaluations of different subjects in each
comprehensive school every third year. The results of these evaluations
provide information on the quality of learning outcomes, and are
utilised in ongoing development of the education system and core
curricula, as well as in practical teaching work.
 
 

> I’m not sure how the systems you studied are funded/supported, but  

> is formative assessment used for reporting purposes to funders or  

> government agencies?  How is this achieved?

 
Formative assessment within the classroom is used to inform teaching and
learning and is not be used for reporting purposes in any of the systems
we studied.  I would classify information used in this way as “summative
assessment”. 
 
 

> In the systems that you researched, how are formative assessments  

> developed and used?  Are they uniform or standardized?  Are there  

> guidelines for development?  Who develops the assessments?  Is  

> special training involved for administrators, teachers, or others  

> using the assessments?

 
We found a variety of strategies for promoting formative assessment.
I’ll provide just a few examples to illustrate the range of approaches
(note that this is by no means a thorough list of each country’s
approach): 
1.    legislation promoting and supporting the practice of formative
assessment and establishing it as a priority.   Italy first introduced
the national “valuation form” in national legislation in 1977. Teachers
are required to use the valuation form to compile data on their
students, including information on what has been taught, any discipline
issues, and results of assessment (including social, behavioural,
cognitive and metacognitive factors). The form, which has been revised
several times since 1977, is intended to facilitate communication
between school leaders, teachers and students.
 
1.    efforts to encourage the use of summative data for formative
purposes.  In Canada, all provinces and territories participate in a
national programme to assess student achievement in mathematics, reading
and writing, and science on a four-year cycle. Each province and
territory receives its own results as well as an analysis by sub-test.
Provinces may then conduct a secondary analysis to shape teaching
practices. The three Canadian provinces participating in the OECD study,
Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, and Québec, encourage schools
to use school-level data in school planning. 
 
In the early 1990s Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education in Scotland
published school self-assessment and development planning guidelines
that schools could use on a voluntary basis. Since 2001, all schools
have been required to use these guidelines to develop school plans. The
plans are to refer to data on student performance as gathered in
national examinations for 16-year-olds and on attainment levels for
students between the ages of 5 and 14 (as established in official
targets). School plans are expected to evaluate teaching and learning
practices and to include strategies for improvement. The plans are
shared with parents and published in school outreach materials and on
websites.
 
2.    Guidelines on effective teaching and formative assessment have
been embedded in the national curriculum and other materials. 
In 2000, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in England
introduced the Assessment for Learning (AfL) programme, targeting pilots
to Key Stage 3 schools – that is, lower secondary schools. AfL provides
teachers, school leaders, local education authorities and other
stakeholders with guidance and resources on the principles of good
classroom assessment, as supported in research. DfES promises also to
provide a repertoire of teaching strategies and tools from which schools
and teachers may choose, based on students’ needs and the school’s goals
and priorities.
3.    provision of tools and exemplars to support effective formative
assessment. 
The New Zealand Ministry of Education has also supported the development
of a number of tools for formative assessment. These include Assessment
Tools for Teaching and Learning (asTTle) for assessing literacy and
numeracy from years 5 to 10, in English and te reo Maori, and national
curriculum exemplars for students in years 1-10 in all curriculum areas.
The asTTle are a key component of both the government’s literacy and
numeracy assessment strategies. Teachers use the tools to evaluate the
impact of teaching approaches on student achievement, and when
necessary, to adjust teaching to better meet student needs. The national
exemplars include annotated work samples and feature sample
teacher-student dialogues and written teacher comments, showing how
teachers might assess the student work in a formative manner, and in a
way that is sensitive to different learning and communication styles of
students. They are available in print form and on-line. Many are also
supported by video clips.
 
4.  investments in special initiatives and innovative programmes
incorporating formative assessment approaches. 
 
Several schools included in the case study countries participated in
pilot or other special projects before deciding to adopt formative
assessment teaching methods. Certainly, their participation in special
projects signals that these are schools that are more open to innovation
and change, and is likely one of the reasons the schools have come to
the attention of researchers. Their participation in these projects also
helped to prepare the ground for further change. 
 
5.    Investments in teacher professional development for formative
assessment. 
 
Queensland has a variety of in-service workshops and professional
development opportunities for teachers on assessment. At the senior
secondary school level, professional workshops assist teachers in
implementing assessment in the subjects they teach. Teacher practice is
supported by strong professional networks and professional subject-based
organisations. Service on moderation panels (discussed above) is
recognised as providing powerful professional development for
panellists, and many schools encourage their staff to seek panel
membership. Feedback from moderation panels to schools involves teachers
in discussions on their assessment practices, both within their school
and with the relevant panel. Being wholly responsible for student
assessment, teachers continually reflect on their assessment practice
and consider how it can be improved. Assessment practice is therefore
always evolving. 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Marie Cora
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 11:28 PM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 174] Questions on formative assessment
Ms. Looney,
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your findings and respond
to some of our questions.  This is an extremely timely topic for us to
explore here in the U.S.  I am very interested in hearing you discuss in
some detail these two points of the study:
 
“The study shows how teachers have addressed barriers to systematic
practice, and how school and policy leaders may apply the principles of
formative assessment to promote constructive cultures of assessment and
evaluation throughout education systems.”
 
Specifically:
Can you discuss further how formative assessment is not practiced
systematically in secondary schools?  Does this refer to certain schools
using the practice and others not, or rather, that formative assessment
is used for certain purposes within a school or school system, but is
not practiced in all aspects of the school (system)?
 
Formative assessment is an excellent approach for informing the teaching
and learning process.  Can you discuss how formative assessment is also
useful at the evaluation level – for example, for purposes of examining
success on the program or system level?  
 
I’m not sure how the systems you studied are funded/supported, but is
formative assessment used for reporting purposes to funders or
government agencies?  How is this achieved?  
 
In the systems that you researched, how are formative assessments
developed and used?  Are they uniform or standardized?  Are there
guidelines for development?  Who develops the assessments?  Is special
training involved for administrators, teachers, or others using the
assessments?
 
Thank you for your responses.
 
Marie Cora
 
 
Marie Cora
NIFL Assessment Discussion List Moderator
marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com
Coordinator, LINCS Assessment Special Collection
http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/assessment/
 
 
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