By Jaya Carrier
I hope you’re all having a good week so far. As we start to think about processes of exam feedback and review and improve for YR11, I was interested to read the following Edutopia article on assessment.
Objectives: To provide effective three strategies for learning from assessments
Summary:
Tests offer insights into both students’ content mastery and study skills.
The author suggests doing a ‘test replay’ as part of the post-exam debrief in order to gain insights into both of these two areas.
The author recommends three things as part of this ‘test replay’:
1) An instant ‘brain dump’ after the test whereby students capture the questions and any surprises from the test. Some guiding questions for this might include; ‘What was I well prepared for?’ and ‘How did this test compare with my expectations?’
2) A ‘slow-motion replay’ whereby when students get their tests back, they have a deeper probe of their thinking and studying. Questions you could ask students at this point include; ‘What clues are built into the test question?’ and ‘What strategies did you use to make sure you understood the prompt?’
3) Encourage students to think about their preparation for future exams in light of the one they’ve just received back. This supports building metacognitive skills.
How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:
When am I next doing test feedback?
What elements of the ‘test replay’ am I doing already? What could I improve or sharpen?
What support do I need for this?
Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!
Of course, not all assessments have to be tests, which have decreasing relevance in real life (not that they were ever particularly relevant!). I encourage teachers to consider how they might make use of authentic assessments or of simple assessment tasks that students co-design. That can be a hugely valuable aspect of student-centred learning: Asking students "Here's what we want you to learn and be able to do in the next unit. How might you demonstrate that you have been successful at the end of the unit?" Great for promoting metacognition, engagement, and connecting learning to students' interests. As always, I'm not suggesting for one second that this should be the dominant assessment approach, esp in KS4, but it's a great complement to more "traditional" assessment tasks.
ReplyDelete