Student Learning

Prep to Year 10 Assessment – Assessment Advice

Discussion starter 3

Read the following quote and consider the discussion starter questions

… we should first note that the main problem that those who are developing self-assessments encounter is not a problem of reliability and trustworthiness. Students are generally honest and reliable in assessing both themselves and one another; they can even be too hard on themselves. The main problem is that students can assess themselves only when they have a sufficiently clear picture of the targets that their learning is meant to attain. Surprisingly, and sadly, many students do not have such a picture, and they appear to have become accustomed to receiving classroom teaching as an arbitrary sequence of exercises with no overarching rationale. To overcome this pattern of passive reception requires hard and sustained work. When students do acquire such an overview, they then become more committed and more effective as learners. Moreover, their own assessments become an object of discussion with their teachers and with one another, and this discussion further promotes the reflection on one's own thinking that is essential to good learning.

Thus self-assessment by students, far from being a luxury, is in fact an essential component of formative assessment. When anyone is trying to learn, feedback about the effort has three elements: recognition of the desired goal, evidence about present position, and some understanding of a way to close the gap between the two. All three must be understood to some degree by anyone before he or she can take action to improve learning.

Such an argument is consistent with more general ideas established by research into the way people learn. New understandings are not simply swallowed and stored in isolation; they have to be assimilated in relation to pre-existing ideas. The new and the old may be inconsistent or even in conflict, and the disparities must be resolved by thoughtful actions on the part of the learner. Realising that there are new goals for the learning is an essential part of this process of assimilation. Thus we conclude: if formative assessment is to be productive, students should be trained in self-assessment so that they can understand the main purposes of their learning and thereby grasp what they need to do to achieve.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1998. Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College London

Discussion starter questions

  • Does this happen in your school or class?
  • How can students know and articulate more of what and why they are doing something?
  • What forms of self-assessment do you use in your classroom? What is the effect on student learning?