Page 32 - Learning for All – A Guide to Effective Assessment and Instruction for All Students, Kindergarten to Grade 12, 2013

30 • Learning for All
The reliability of assessment for learning depends on:
• the identification, clarification, and sharing of learning goals in student-friendly language;
• the student’s understanding of the success criteria of these goals in specific terms – what successful attainment of the learning goals looks like;
• descriptive feedback that helps students consolidate new learning by providing information about what is being done well, what needs improvement, and how to take steps towards improvement; and
• self-assessment that motivates students to work more carefully and recognize their own learning needs, so that they can become effective advocates for how they learn best.
Assessment for learning involves collaboration among teachers, parents, and students, and enables students to experience the successes that come with timely intervention and with instructional approaches and resources that are suited to the ways they learn best. Both factors help build students’ confidence and provide them with the incentive and encourage- ment they need to become interested in and focused on their own learning.
Drawing on a Variety of Achievement Measures to Support Assessment for Learning
School boards found that a focus on “assessment for learning”, as opposed to “assessment of learning”, along with ongoing support of teachers’ assessment practices, resulted in a greater emphasis on helping students develop higher- order thinking skills and critical literacy skills. Boards discovered benefits in aligning assessment tools and creating a continuum of practices from Kindergarten through Grade 12, and made progress through increased target setting.
Boards apply a wide range of tools to measure student achievement, and many found that data collected through such tools supported assessment for learning. Some boards found ways to consolidate student data generated or gathered in connection with a number of different initiatives and programs or for different purposes. Consolidating the data had clear benefits for instructional and assessment planning.
The various contexts for collecting data included:
• Student Success programs and other programs for students at risk
• programs for English Language Learners (ELLs)
• developing Individual Education Plans (IEPs)
• preparing report cards
• developing student/class profiles
• determining graduation rates
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