Tag: AfL

Goal Setting Research – ‘Can we fix it’ is the right question to ask

AssessmentPublished on1 Comment on Goal Setting Research – ‘Can we fix it’ is the right question to ask
An interesting article by Daniel Pink referring to research about changing the way we might set our goals from “I will…” to “Will I…?”

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In a nifty set of experiments, three social scientists explored the differences between what they call “declarative” self-talk (I will fix it!) and “interrogative” self-talk (Can I fix it?). They began by presenting a group of participants with some anagrams to solve (for example, rearranging the letters in “sauce” to spell “cause”.) But before the participants tackled the problem, the researchers asked one half of them to take a minute to ask themselves whether they would complete the task – and the other half to tell themselves that they would complete the task.

The results?

The self-questioning group solved significantly more anagrams than the self-affirming group.

The researchers – Ibrahim Senay and Dolores Albarracin of the University of Illinois, along with Kenji Noguchi of the University of Southern Mississippi – then enlisted a new group to try a variation with a twist of trickery: “We told participants that we were interested in people’s handwriting practices. With this pretence, participants were given a sheet of paper to write down 20 times one of the following word pairs: Will I, I will, I, or Will. Then they were asked to work on a series of 10 anagrams in the same way participants in Experiment One did.”

The outcome was the same. People “primed” with Will I solved nearly twice as many anagrams as people in the other three groups. In subsequent experiments, the basic pattern held. Those who approached a task with questioning self-talk did better than those who began with affirming self-talk.

“Setting goals and striving to achieve them assumes, by definition, that there is a discrepancy between where you are and want to be. When you doubt, you probably achieve the right mindset,” researcher Albarracin explained in an email to me.

“In addition, asking questions forces you to define if you really want something and probably think about what you want, even in the presence of obstacles.”

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Taken from ‘Can we fix it’ is the right question to ask – Telegraph http://tgr.ph/H6zSqt


Some good counterpoints to discussions about the importance of learning outcomes and setting goals. Could this be done in the way we verbalise or talk about our targets or what we are learning in the classroom? How do you think this idea would play out in the classroom?

#ukedchat Assessment Special

Assessment, TwitterPublished on1 Comment on #ukedchat Assessment Special

ukedchat logoI am delighted to finally have the opportunity to take the moderator’s hotseat for this week’s #ukedchat – in which we will be running a special discussion all about assessment.

UKedchat is a Twitter based discussion group that meet every Thursday evening between 8-9pm GMT. It is a fantastic example of narrowing the use of Twitter to allow educators to discuss a specific topic, and I am excited to be moderating this week’s session.

If you have never taken part in a discussion, no fear! Just take a look at this handy information about how to get involved. Everyone is welcome. Explore some of the previous discussion sessions on the summary blog.

Assessment is such a broad issue that I grappled and struggled to come to terms with as a teacher, in this week’s conversation I hope that you will join me in exploring this rich topic.

We will be looking at the wider pressures of an ageing assessment agenda; how summative assessment may blinker our understanding of success; why failing is good and also tips and ideas for implementing formative assessment in the classroom.

So join me @tombarrett on Twitter for the #ukedchat Assessment Special on Thursday 20th October 2011, 8-9pm GMT.

How Do We Change A Cultural Fascination With Grades?

AssessmentPublished onUpdated on31 Comments on How Do We Change A Cultural Fascination With Grades?

Assessment graph1

Over on Google+ I have conducted a short survey to further explore the challenges that educators face when attempting to implement assessment for learning strategies in schools. By which I mean a focus on the process of learning, improving student’s metacognition, sustained opportunities for reflection and a general effort to assess “for” learning not “of” learning.

With over 100 responses this short straw poll indicates that it is not the lack of time or issues around timetabling that make this process a challenge, but a cultural focus on levels and grades. 58% of those who responded felt that it was this single factor that was influenced assessment implementation within schools.

I was surprised that this proved so conclusive (even within such a small sample) – I was expecting the other more practical factors to play a part for educators such as timetabling, a lack of training or indeed a curriculum that does not flex to accommodate changes brought about by assessment for learning.

In fact the second highest response again is a reference to summative assessment – taken together nearly 75% of responses point the finger at the ongoing fascination with summative assessment, grades and levels.

But how do we alter such an entrenched view? When we think of our own schools, is there a lack of appetite for anything other than grades and levels?

I think that one thing that would begin to change this perception of what is important in the classroom would be a concerted effort to better understand assessment in total. This is especially important for parents and pupils so that they do not skew the value they place on end of year assessments or reports. Also the message that the school puts out about what is important and how this plays out day to day.

This is not so clear cut the older children get and the further they get into education – you could argue that as a student gets older the focus on their grades and levels becomes more intense. It becomes less about how they have learned something or what the journey was like, and more about the net result – the grade.

What do you think? There is no overnight fix, but what steps could teachers and schools take to shift the focus away from simply a grade or level? If this is such a clearly perceived barrier, how do we change it?

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Survey: What is the biggest challenge to implementing assessment for learning?

I Don’t Have Time For Formative Assessment

Assessment, CurriculumPublished onUpdated on10 Comments on I Don’t Have Time For Formative Assessment

assessment challenges

Although a fairly narrow view on the barriers to implementing assessment for learning, the cross section of views shared on the Google Document have been excellent as a starting point for discussion.

The above Wordle is a helpful representation of those contributions. I have removed the following words from the visual: assessment, formative, teachers, learning and students in an effort to focus on the other language more readily used to describe the issues.

“Time” appears as a perceived barrier to quality formative assessment or assessment for learning – but is it really such an issue? Is curriculum time often shunted and pinched too readily? Do we not protect our curriculum time, and so time for reflection, fiercely enough from the other pressures in school?

Less Coverage; Deeper Learning

Assessment, CurriculumPublished onUpdated on18 Comments on Less Coverage; Deeper Learning

deep

My own research and interest into the issues swirling around assessment in schools coincides with the new purpos/ed campaign. Below is another comment left on the Google Doc from which I am highlighting and instigating some further debate around the subject.

Teachers and leaders need to see this as a change in philosophy and pedagogy and that will take good cpd and leadership to embed. It is a shift in balance of teachers’ skills; requires planning which doesn’t depend on fixed SOW as has to flex and bend to meet the needs of young people, there can be no ‘one size fits all’. Also time has to given for reflection which means less ‘coverage’ but deeper learning.

this was commented on by another contributor:

reflection is especially important to give children the time to comment on how they feel about their learning; all too often the time given for plenary/reflection is painfully short. Also, reflection needs to be modelled and focussed to be effective…

An approach being unique to each individual school, even each class and child is something that must be baked into assessment for learning. This malleability must also be reflected in the curriculum that is being used as a foundation and also validated by senior staff in school. There must be a clear message that if assessment takes a curriculum or project into an unexpected direction it is ok, there must be space for the students to feel this and for the teacher to know it is OK.

All too often we are worried about “coverage”, and our supposed accountability to that, to ever venture from the well trodden path – but it is often on the edges where we find the most powerful learning opportunities.

One size will not fit all, as the contributor rightly points out and we all will face different challenges in the classes we work with – where there is a need for consistency is in the space provided to do it well.

The second comment touches on this point. Reflection is all to often an after-thought, nor is it actively taught, demonstrated and explicitly modelled. There needs to be more discussion about learning and the process we go through and this needs to be brought to the surface by the teacher.

Teachers and pupils alike need the space (from school leaders,from local authorities, from government) to adapt what they are doing to improve the learning process: the curriculum space to explore the edges; the timetable space to reflect on the process and the professional space to make judgements about where learning is heading.

Pic: Deep under