Design for Classroom Assessment

Feedback is only effective if it is a catalyst for change in student learning. Effective feedback is timely, descriptive, and specific to both the work and the student’s needs. In effective feedback episodes, both the teacher and student learn something. Effective feedback is coupled with immediate opportunities for students to use it. Participants in this session will analyse examples of feedback and learn feedback strategies that help students answer the question, “Where am I now, and what do I do next?”

Objectives and Outcomes:

• Looking at feedback through three lenses

• Providing effective feedback messages to students

• Creating opportunities for students to use feedback and improve

The first thing students need to learn is what it is that they are supposed to be learning. Sharing learning targets and criteria for success is the fundamental formative assessment method, upon which all the others depend. Learning targets are often characterized as simply instructional objectives in student-friendly language. This is not true! A learning target is only a target if students are aiming for it, and a learning target is tied to what students actually do in an individual lesson. Participants in this session will discover strategies for helping students answer the question “What am I supposed to be learning?”

Objectives and Outcomes:

• Viewing a learning target from the student’s point of view

• Making learning targets “live” in a lesson: the performance of understanding

• Developing assessment-capable students: student look-fors