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Week 3

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24 views6 pages

Week 3

Uploaded by

meriamkasraoui
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Success criteria and learning objectives

Last week we discussed the importance of sharing success criteria with


learners, or allowing them to set their own success criteria. There are many
ways that learners can set their own success criteria:

 whole-class discussion
 group discussion followed by feedback to the whole class
 group discussion where the task is differentiated, and learners work
with an adult on their own task
 using talk partners.

You can explore this further in Section 3.3 of the Teacher Guide.

Let’s think about how we know when learning has happened. How do we
know if a learner has achieved or even exceeded a learning objective? How
can we identify learners who have not understood a learning objective? What
do we do with this information?

Learning objectives describe what learners should:

 know
 understand
 be able to do.

The learning objectives for Cambridge Primary Science cover a wide range of
skills, knowledge and understanding and it is important to know how to
measure learners’ progress against these objectives.

The evidence for learners' progress will be in many forms. Some examples of
evidence include:

 the completion of an investigation


 the responses learners give to other learners’ questions or teacher
questions
 the contributions learners make in group discussion
 the completion of activities using a scientific model
 self-assessment or peer-assessment activities.

Once you know how to identify whether your learners have achieved,
exceeded, or not met an objective, you can think about how this can inform
your planning of future teaching and learning in the classroom.
Formative assessment (Assessment for Learning) is all about making an
informed judgement. You will be doing this continuously with your learners all
the time

If you have any questions or observations about any of the information in this
lesson, please come and share them in the Week 3 class discussion.

Why do we assess learners?

There are lots of answers to this question:

 to help learners take responsibility for their own learning


 to recognise what learners can do
 to help teachers plan the next steps.

To be able to do this teachers need to know:

 their learners’ current knowledge, skills, and understanding so they can


plan the next steps
 how to best support learners.

In addition, learners need to know:

 where they are in their learning


 where they are going
 how to get there.

Formative assessment is also known as Assessment for Learning (AfL). This is


an approach to teaching and learning that uses specific feedback to improve
learner understanding and performance. The idea is that the feedback
provided to learners about their progress and performance allows them to be
more involved in the learning process. As a result they should gain
confidence in knowing what they are expected to learn, how to achieve it,
and what is the required standard.

Learners should be given the tools to become more active in their learning,
thinking about where they are in their progress, where they want to be and
how they are going to get there. Teachers should help learners to identify
their next steps of learning.

Here are some core principles of formative assessment from the Teacher
Guide:

 Share learning intentions and success criteria, both long-term and


short-term.
 Activities must match the learning objectives.
 Develop success criteria with learners.
 Make the focus of the success criteria how they will achieve the
intended learning objective.
 Effective questioning needs to fit the purpose, giving learners thinking
time.
 Learners should be actively involved in self-evaluation.
 Learners should receive high-quality, specific feedback which will help
them improve.

Some key ways to gather information on what learners can do are:

 ask questions
 monitor learner discussions and dialogue
 engage learners in discussion to find out what they think and where
they are in their learning.

The formative assessment cycle:

Effective questioning and feedback

60 minutes

Feedback is a fundamental part of formative assessment. To be able to


provide effective feedback, teachers need to be able to understand what
learners can and cannot do. Effective questioning is one way that you can do
this. Effective questioning and feedback are the focus of this lesson.
Effective questioning

Questions are an effective way for you to review the learning of your
learners. How to use questions to check learners’ knowledge and
comprehension, and when to pose different question types all need to be
carefully considered. You can ask questions before an area of learning to find
out what your learners already know and to monitor progress during a lesson
or series of lessons. This will help you to decide what to do next (for example,
deciding when to move on to a new topic, concept or skill).

As well as planning what questions you may ask your learners in the lesson,
you may also want to think about the questioning strategies you use, for
example how you distribute questioning and the level of challenge you use.

Question distribution:

 If you ask your learners questions in an obvious systematic order,


those who have answered tend to relax a little, and sometimes ‘switch
off’. Try to use a technique which means that it is not obvious which
student may be asked.
 Be conscious of the tendency to choose the same learners when asking
questions. It is common to concentrate on particular learners. Make
sure you pay attention to those who may be reluctant to take part and
support their contributions.

Questions may be asked at various levels to challenge learners, for example:

 ‘What is the main parts of a flower?’


 'What does this row in the table mean?’
 ‘Predict what would happen if we used water that was hotter.’

Here are some tips and examples to help you make your questioning more
effective. Most of the questions you ask will be verbal, but you can also use
these tips for written questions:

 Know your purpose


 Use open questions more often than closed questions
 Ask one thing at a time
 Determine the focus, but do not assume a particular answer
 Do not give options unless they are the only options
 Allow thinking time
 Listen actively
 Help learners to express their ideas fully
 Encourage learners to ask you questions.
You can find more information and subject-specific examples in this extract
from the Teacher Guide.

Effective feedback

In order to support our learners as their understanding develops, we need to


be able to provide them with effective feedback.

What is effective feedback?

 It is specific to each student so that it meets the needs of the


individual.
 It is directly linked to observable evidence, for example a student’s
written or practical work or a performance of a given task.
 It focuses on individual action points that the learner should do to
improve their performance.
 It deals with one point at a time.

There are some key principles that we can follow to ensure that the feedback
we give (both written and verbal) is useful for learners:

 Feedback alone is more effective than marks or feedback with marks


 Feedback should relate to learning objectives and success criteria
 Feedback should cause learners to think and prompt action
 Feedback offered too soon can interfere with thinking
 Prompt elaboration and discussion e.g. ‘Tell me more about that…’
‘Why do you think that?’ ‘Does anyone disagree with what Ali has just
said?’
 Feedback should offer increased support when a student needs it
 Feedback should offer challenge and extension where appropriate
 Learners must be given time to think and act on feedback.

This is not an exhaustive list but by thinking carefully about the principles of
effective feedback we can support our learners to progress rapidly.

Differentiation

As teachers, the most important decision we make is to decide the next steps
in learning.

Using assessment formatively means we can make better next steps by


deciding:

 what feedback would be the most useful to individual learners or the


class
 when to move on to the next topic, skill or concept
 to give more support to some learners
 to give more challenge to some learners
 to change learner groupings
 to change learner tasks.

This is not an exhaustive list but a suggestion of some of the decisions we


may make as a result using formative assessment.

These are examples of differentiation techniques. Differentiation techniques


allow you to make your lessons more inclusive. This means that all learners,
no matter the level of support they need, in any situation should have the
opportunity to succeed. Read about differentiation in this extract from the
Teacher guide to find out more.

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