Four aspects of assessment

When talking about assessment for learning, it can be useful to think of it as divided into four aspects, which all need to be taken into consideration. These are: learning objectives, involvement, feedback and timing.

1: Learning objectives

● Learners must understand while they are in the learning process what is expected of them in the end.

● Goal orientation to know what to assess against/towards.

● Goals as scaffolding.

2: Involvement

To engage the learners actively in their own learning, the teacher should try to involve the learners as much as possible.

Student involvement is essential both in the process of designing learning tasks and objectives, and in the process of assessing. For assessment purposes student involvement benefits in two ways, self-assessment and peer assessment. (Hartberg, Dobson, & Gran, 2012)

Participation

It is crucial that the learners are familiar with the learning objectives from the start. When they understand “where they are going” (what learning outcome they are expected to achieve), they are more likely to get there. The teacher needs to start from the learners existing understanding.

Learners participate in interpret the goals.
Learners participate in designing the tasks.
There should be multiple ways to approach both the information to build knowledge and how to express the competence.

Self-assessment

When the learners are involved in assessing their own learning throughout the learning period, they will develop a deeper understanding of the knowledge and it will influence the quality of the learning process.

For self-assessment to be the best possible, the timing is crucial, that is when self-assessments are done. The feedback must relate to the goals and criteria of the task/activity, and it must be given in the learning process to be useful for the learners

Peer-assessment

When assessing cooperative learning it is a big advantage to see formative assessment not only as teacher-led but is also as the learners’ interaction with peers and as self-assessment. In cooperative learning interaction with learning peers is a critical part the learning. Peer tutoring can generate effective learning because of the even power relation between learners. E.g. a student would ask the peer to slow down or repeat something until it is understood. Your peers can give you feedback, questions or insight that help you learn. As a learner, you can regulate your own learning and are responsible for it. Peer assessment can help the learners to make the decisions on how to adjust their learning.

3: Feedback

Feedback can focus on the specific learning objectives, it can focus on the process, on the learner’s ability assess themselves (meta perspective), and on personal level.

“What teachers do each and every day is a longer project; it is a dripping tap and never a one-stop, one fix-it course. It is the daily and continual feedback that adjusts and calibrates the views of children and adolescents as they grow. It is about noticing the important things and acting.» (Dobson, 2019)

Professor Stephen Dobson, Dean of Education at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand is talking the power of feedback and feed forward as part of the learning process.

4: Timing

The teacher must plan their assessment in relation to different time cycles, -: short, medium and long-time cycles. The short time cycle is a day, or even within a lesson. The medium time cycle is a longer period, perhaps 2-6 weeks when the student is working on a topic. The long-time cycle can last a semester or a year.

In order to give appropriate feedback and assessment it is important to be clear about the cycle in which the assessment or feedback is taking place.

Short time cycle: Open questions preferable.

Medium time cycle: Rests on criteria and product.

Long-time cycle: Relevance. No criteria to rest on. Feedback varies with type of student.

Teachers and learners are most often in the short and medium time cycle. It is important that they share common language about assessment, criteria and learning objectives – both process and product. (Dysthe, 2008)

Figure 6: Consequences on motivation & learning (Engh, 2010)

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