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Spotlight on Assessment for Learning
If you are a teacher the term 'assessment for learning' may be familiar, but can you sum up what it means? Quite simply, it is an approach which you, as a Nord Anglia educator, can take to help continuously improve your teaching practice. As you are probably aware, assessment is one of the most powerful education tools when it comes to promoting effective learning, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that it isn’t simply a case of the more assessments, the more students will learn. At Nord Anglia, we want to put a focus on helping our teachers use assessment, both as part of teaching and as a part of learning. The long-term impact of this will be a much more productive classroom experience for everyone.
Assessment isn’t necessarily there for the sole purpose of accountability/student ranking. Assessment for learning is an approach that is far more consistent with current, constructivist pedagogical practices. It is time we refocus the learner as the main beneficiary of assessment. Teachers need to place emphasis on using the data collected from assessment to better their students. How can this be done? Firstly, we must use assessment to work out what our students are good at, and where their strengths lie. With this information at hand, it is possible to create a tailored learning environment for our students, whereby we can help them develop their skills in specific areas.
So how do we know when we are using assessment for learning? The key here lies with our teachers; it is important that you understand what you are learning about your students each time they carry out an assessment. You must keep asking yourself, ‘so what can I do with this information to help this pupil?’. If you are asking yourself this, you are already taking the first step on the road to successfully utilising assessment for learning. From here, it is simply a case of tailoring a personal approach to helping students fill in the gaps in their knowledge. This, of course, is no easy task; you must use your creativity as a Nord Anglia educator to think up innovative ways to ensure your students maintain an interest in the subject, and find alternative means of helping them on their route to success. If you follow these simple steps, you will see a massive long-term impact on not only your students’ results, but an increase in their motivation and overall interest in the subject.
For a more detailed look at the subject, please have a look at the below video.
We’re about to relaunch our Assessment for Learning core course with a brand
new version which includes the latest research in this area. If you’d like to
get involved and review the course before it goes live for everyone else
please get in touch with us at [email protected].