1. Researcher Panel on AFL May 13, 2016
Lyn M. Shulha,
Assessment and Evaluation Group
Queen’s University

2. What trends have you observed in formative assessment?
1. Better at Knowing Why Need to Do It
Feedback improves quality of teaching and learning activities (Black & Wiliam, 1998 – meta analysis)
AfL guides students toward achievement standards (Stiggins, 2005)
AfL shapes methods of instructional scaffolding (Shepherd 2005)
Afl allows explicit linkages between curriculum and assessment (Shavelson et al., 2008)
Quality feedback enhances student motivation and cognitive effort (Wiliam 2011)
Afl serves learning, not simply a check on learning (Earl, 2012)
The first trend is that we have become pretty conversant in why we do it!
This is well established in hundreds of articles in the research and practice literatures
If you think of sawing through a log, you can imagine how, depending on the angle you choose for your cut, you’ll get a different picture of the tree’s rings.
In the same way, depending on how you are trying to inform yourself about the practice, you will choose different examples to read from this collection
As I was sawing through the material again I was looking for any long term trend that might help us understand how we got to the ideas and practices that we heard about today.
I’m only going to cite 6 articles but these represent the kind of conversations that we had over the last 20 years. See if you can see any trend.
For me, the first 4 are really speaking to how to be a better teacher, in the sense that if you are doing AfLfor these purposes, you are being more accountable to your students and to the educational system.
What seems to be appearing in the last 2 is the notion that AFL is an integral part of students learning how to learn
As such AfL needs to be woven into instructional episodes –‘on the fly’ not only as a distinct activity.
This trend is not a straight line advancement in thinking . .Ideas appear and percolate . .Some take hold and others fade.
Lori Shepherd was talking about the role of assessment in a learning culture in 2000
Lorna introduced the notion of assessment as learning in 2003
and in 2014 Righard Stiggins published his latest book on how to use AfLto promote achievement
At the very least what this tells us is that we need to decide what we value about AfL,
What we want to work towards with our students
And we are not independent actors in making this decision.
We don’t make these decisions in a vacuum
What we value as professionals is easily shaped – especially for new teachers- by the policy, curricular and cultural expectations of the systems we work within.

3. 2. Better at Choosing What to Do & Use
What trends have you observed in formative assessment?
2. Better at Choosing What to Do & Use
Sharing success criteria with learners
Eliciting evidence of student understanding
Providing feedback that moves learning forward.
Activating students as instructional resources for one another.
Activating students as the owners of their own learning
(Black & Wiliam, 2011)
(and students’ learning about
their own learning) ⌃
But even here there is a pitfall,
It’s only enough to say that we are using these strategies and tools if we are focused on what we are doing as teachers,
The question is HOW are we using these and are they making a difference.
This, I would argue is not something that can be learned at a PD workshop or in a grad course.
These are actually prime questions for context embedded ongoing professional learning.
This could be something earmarked as a school improvement project
But it is also the kind that can happen using instructional rounds, with pedagogicial documentation,
by joining communities of practice,
or working with critical friends in self-study or action research
The next question we were asked to consider was What innovative thinking/research is emerging around AfL and pedagogy?

4. What innovative thinking/research is emerging around AfL and pedagogy?
How would you explain to your students,
- in about 2 minutes-
what learning looks like?
ICE
Ideas
Connections
Extensions
Cognitive scaffolding
Nurtured by
. . . from ‘surface’ to ‘deeper’ learning - ‘on the fly’!

5. References
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom living. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy, and Practice, 5(1), 7-74.
Earl, L. M. (2012). Assessment as learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning. Corwin Press.
Earl, L. (2003) Assessment as learning (Thousand Oaks, Corwin Press).
Fostaty-Young, C. S. F., & Wilson, R. J. (2000). Assessment and learning: The ICE approach. Portage & Main Press.
Shavelson, R. J., Young, D. B., Ayala, C. C., Brandon, P. R., Furtak, E. M., Ruiz-Primo, M. A., & Yin, Y. (2008).On the impact of curriculum-embedded formative assessment on learning: A collaboration between curriculum and assessment developers. Applied Measurement in Education, 21(4),
Shepard, L. A. (2005). Linking Formative Assessment to Scaffolding. Educational leadership, 63(3),
Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational researcher, 29(7), 4-14.
Stiggins, R., Chappuis, S., & Arter, J. (2014). Classroom assessment for student learning. Pearson.
Stiggins, R. (2005). From formative assessment to assessment for learning: A path to success in standards-based schools. The Phi Delta Kappan, 87(4),
Wiliam, D. (2011). What is assessment for learning?. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 37(1), 3-14.