Assessment For Learning: Roles, Characteristics, And Importance

Compare and contrast the roles of the teacher and the learning support practitioner in assessment of learners' achievements

1.1 Compare and contrast the roles of the teacher and the learning support practitioner in assessment of learners’ achievements

1.2 Summarise the difference between formative and summative assessment

1.3 Explain the characteristics of assessment for learning

1.4 Explain the importance and benefits of assessment for learning

1.5 Explain how assessment for learning can contribute to planning for future learning carried out by:
a) the teacher

1.5 Explain how assessment for learning can contribute to planning for future learning carried out by:

b) the learners

1.5 Explain how assessment for learning can contribute to planning for future learning carried out by:

c) the learning support practitioner

2.1 Obtain the information required to support assessment for learning

2.2 Use clear language and examples to discuss and clarify personalised learning goals and criteria for assessing progress with learners

2.3 Use assessment opportunities and strategies to gain information and make judgements about how well learners are participating in activities and the progress they are making

2.4 Provide constructive feedback to learners to help them understand what they have done well and what they need to develop

2.5 Provide opportunities and encouragement for learners to improve upon their work

3.1 Use information gained from monitoring learner participation and progress to help learners to review their learning strategies, achievements and future learning needs

3.2 Listen carefully to learners and positively encourage them to communicate their needs and ideas for future learning

3.3 Support learners in using peer assessment and self-assessment to evaluate their learning achievements

3.4 Support learners to:

a) reflect on their learning

3.4 Support learners to:

b) identify the progress they have made

3.4 Support learners to:

c) identify their emerging learning needs

3.4 Support learners to:

d) identify the strengths and weaknesses of their learning strategies and plan how to improve them

4.1 Provide feedback to the teacher on:

a) learner participation and progress in the learning activities

4.1 Provide feedback to the teacher on:

b) learners’ engagement in and response to assessment for learning

4.1 Provide feedback to the teacher on:

c) learners’ progress in taking responsibility for their own learning

4.2 Use the outcomes of assessment for learning to reflect on and improve own contribution to supporting learning.

A teacher is responsible for developing the guidelines for the learning process in the educational organization. The learning support practitioners do not make any rules for the learning process. They follow the guidelines developed by the teachers and support the students in their learning process. Both of the teacher and learning support practitioners have the responsibility of encouraging the students in their educational field. They need to motivate the students for learning new things by conducting motivational and interesting activities within the educational organizations. The teachers have the responsibility of organizing motivational activities and the support practitioners have the responsibility of ensuring the effective participant of all the students (Arends 2014). The teachers’ role in an educational organization is to deliver the learning materials to the students and give the instructions for learning form the materials. They are also responsible for providing lecture to the class regarding the different topics of the lessons. The learning support practitioners’ duty is to provide effective level of support in case of any problem found in the area of studying the learning materials among the students (Gardner and Gardner 2012).

Summarize the difference between formative and summative assessment

Formative assessments have the aim of monitoring the learning process of the students and providing ongoing feed backs for their improvement. Formative assessment helps the students to identify the strengths and weaknesses and the targets for further improvements. This assessment helps the faculties to recognize the points where the students are struggling and to identify the necessary steps for resolving the problems. These assessments are generally low stakes (Hooker and Denker 2014).

Aim of the summative assessment is to evaluate the learning of the students at the end of an learning unit by comparing the progress of the students with some standard or benchmark. The summative assignments are generally high stakes and associated with midterm exam, final project, senior recital, paper etc.

Sharing the objectives of the learning process with the students: The teachers should share the objectives of the course or learning process with the students at the beginning of any course. The student should have a clear idea about what they are learning and what is the purpose of the learning.

Developing awareness about the aims and standards of the learning process among the students: The student should have a clear idea of the way of achieving the aim or objectives of the learning course. They should also understand the required criteria for fulfilling the objectives (Harrison et al. 2014).

Involvement of the students in the learning process: The student should know that they are responsible for their learning and progress. The teachers should give some time after delivering the lecture for understanding if the students are able to understand the objectives of the lecture or not. In case of having any genuine issue, the students can decide the next step of learning process for further improvement.

Constructive feedback: Every type of feedback of the students is important for understanding the problems of the students. Feedbacks help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of both of the students and the learning process.

Reflection for improvement: At the end of an unit, the reflective comments of the students help to decide the future steps for both the students and the teachers for the further improvement of the learning process.

Well planned assessments are able to encourage active learning when the assessment delivery is innovative and engaging. It helps to identify the effective use of technology and learning methods by understanding the requirements of the students. Discussing the way of improving the capabilities of the students in the assessment process helps to develop an effective learning environment for the students. The students are able to get the information about their own progress through the assessment process (Lobo and Galloway 2013.). At the initial level of the learning course, aims and objectives are set for the students. The assessment process helps to identify if the students are able to fulfill the aims and objectives of the learning process. If they are not able to fulfill these, then the assessment process again helps to identify the cause of the problem, i.e., whether the course designing is inefficient or it is the fault of the students (Conrad, Clarke-Midura and Klopfer 2014).

a) The teachers will be able to identify the level of efficiency of the infrastructure they have developed for the learning course and the way of teaching the students. They are also able to understand the loopholes of the system by gathering the information from the feedbacks of the students. This information helps them to develop the strategy for the further improvement of their teaching process. They are able to develop a better infrastructure and teaching scheme for the next session (Hopfenbeck and Stobart 2015).

Explain the characteristics of assessment for learning

b) The learners are able to take part in the learning course by giving their valuable feedbacks. They are also able to understand their own ability through the assessment, which helps them to develop themselves for better learning in future. If they have some problems with the infrastructure then they can identify the facts at the time of assessment. They can mention the issues as the form of feedbacks and are able to get the relevant improvements in the strategy in the next learning section (Suskie 2016).

c) The learning support practitioner can understand the efficiency level of the students. As they work closer to the students for supporting them in their education. They are able to understand the level of each of the students and provide them effective level of support as per their level. Individual assessment and care of the students will be more effective for supporting the students in their learning sessions (Xing et al. 2015).

One of the most important roles of the teachers is to monitor the class and assess the relevant information regarding the progress of the students. The summative and formative assessments are helpful for collecting this information. At the end of the lesson, the teachers should collect the information about the understanding level of the students. Sometimes students do not give proper feedbacks to the teachers; rather they used to talk to their parents regarding the problems. Therefore, the teachers should meet the parents and collect the relevant information regarding the progress of the students (Boud 2013).

There should not be any type of communication gap between the teachers and the students at the time of teaching. They should use simple and clear language in which the students feel better to understand what the teacher wants to say. Using practical examples is the best way of educating the students. In this area, the teachers should use examples from real life scenario for clarifying the goals of the learning course. Different types of practical examples should be sued by the teachers for making the topic more understandable to the students. After conducting the assessments the teachers should understand the ability of the students and then they should discuss the progression of the students (Fancsali, Nixon and Ritter 2013).

Day to day monitoring of the students will allow to identify the students who are the best learners and participating in the learning activities enthusiastically. There are several strategies for collecting relevant information regarding the participation and progress of the learners. The strategies are conversation, observation and testing by setting tasks. The teachers should interact with the learners about their activities in the educational organization and observe their day to day activities in their classrooms and other activities within the organization. They can also test the enthusiasm of the students by arranging some activities and observing the participation of the learners (Tigelaar and Beijaard 2013).

Explain the importance and benefits of assessment for learning

The feedbacks given by the teachers should be constructive which will be able to clarify the fulfilled objectives of the students. The feedbacks should be clear enough to ensure that the students will understand the different objectives they have already achieved during the assessment period and what are the drawbacks. The gaps identified by the teacher during this period should be communicated with the students and they should also give some recommendation to them for developing proper strategy to fulfill the incomplete objectives in a better way (Earl 2012).

The teachers have the responsibilities of motivating the students in their education related work. In order to motivate the students they need to use some encouraging activities which will attract the students towards the better performance in their education field. These activities may include giving some prizes or some better opportunities to the students who are performing better in their educational field. The students who are lagging behind should be motivated by the teachers for performing better in future and achieve the rewards and opportunities like the better performers (Falchikov 2013).

The information collected through the monitoring process should be used by the teachers for help the students to learn better in the course. The feed backs collected from the students and the parents should be summarized and the key issues should be discussed with the students for providing them advices for achieving the future needs from better learning. The teachers are responsible for providing the advices for developing the self assessment and development strategies for the students to overcome the weaknesses and achieve the objectives. The information will help to identify the strength and weaknesses of the individual students and then providing proper suggestions to them (Yin and Kawachi 2013).

While collecting the feedbacks from the students and providing lectures to them, the teachers should listen to them carefully. All the students should be given the same level of priority by the teachers. While taking the suggestions from the students, all the suggestions given by them should be listened with priority and actins should be taken with giving proper justifications to the students. These activities will help the students to be motivated at the learning and understand their needs with the effective level of help of their teachers (Arevalo et al. 2013).

The peer assessments are helpful for the students to understand their own capabilities for learning. The guidelines mentioned in the below section will help the teachers to develop conduct the peer assessments for evaluating the learning progress of the students (Chueachot et al. 2013).

Explain how assessment for learning can contribute to planning for future learning carried by:

Develop the guidelines easy for implementing.

Completely train students about the implementation and significance of the guidelines.

Assessors are required for justifying their judgments.

Develop a classroom environment that feels safe for interpersonal risk-taking so that students will feel more confident in evaluating their peers.

Share the significance of the final grade between the teacher and students.

Give emphasis to students about the fact their peer assessments can be used as important feedback, not grading.

Use simple and clear guidelines for this purpose.

Monitor the using of the guidelines by the students.

Use small feedback groups for ensuring that the feedbacks can be discussed with the receivers.

Encourage the students to be as helpful as possible in critiquing the work of other students.

a) Reflect on their learning will help them to evaluate their self skills in their learning. The reflective assessments will identify the weaknesses and barriers they are facing in their own learning process. The teachers should help them to identify their own problems by showing the examples of failures and progress they have made in the previous time (Moldovan 2014).

b) Identify the progress they have made should be understood by the students for evaluating the self capability of the students. The teachers will monitor the progress of the students and should discuss with the students. In this process the students will be aware about the progress they have made in the previous time (Liaw et al. 2012).

c) Identify their emerging learning needs of the students is also very important for identify the gaps in their learning and adaptive skills. After identifying the gaps of their own skills, they will be able to identify what are the requirements for improving their learning ability (Popova-Gonci 2013).

d) Identify the strengths and weaknesses of their learning strategies and plan how to improve them will be conducted by the collaborative efforts given by both of the students and teachers.

The assessment conducted by the teachers and the self evaluation of the students will help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the students (Cebrián and Bergman 2014). a) Feedback about the participation and progress of the learners in the learning activities will be gathered by the class teachers and the learning support practitioners and should be provided to the teachers. The details of the activities performed by the students, the number of successful students and the number f students who have failed to achieve their objectives should be gathered by the teacher. The detailed knowledge about the way of getting succeeded in their desired objective by the students should be provided to the teachers. The teachers will be able to understand the reason of succeeding the students and the reason of failing some of the students. This information will help the teachers for taking superior decisions for the improvement of the students and the learning environment (Choi, Kim and Lee 2012).

Obtain the information required to support assessment for learning

b) Learners’ engagement in and response to assessment for learning will also be collected by the teachers for identifying the students who are learning the lessons very actively and participating in all the activities of the educational organization. This will help the teachers to identify the facts that are helping them to motivate their students. The self motivated students will help the teachers to motivate other students. In this way all the students will be able to self motivated and will be able to learn the lessons very actively which will help the organization and the students to fulfill all the aims and objectives. In order to achieve these objectives the teachers are required to collect all the relevant information regarding the feedbacks given by the students and their supportive practitioners about the effective level of participations of the students in the various types of educational and other activities performed in the organization (Heritage and Popham 2013).

c) Learners’ progress in taking responsibility for their own learning is the most important part if their learning process. According to Knight (2012), the best way of learning is the self learning process. How the students are taking the responsibilities about their own responsibilities should be understood by the teachers. The feedbacks of the students will help the teachers identify how the individual students are taking the responsibilities and how their class mates are doing the same thing. This information will help the teachers to identify the preferred choice of the students for taking the responsibilities regarding their education. After understanding the choices the teachers will be able to encourage them in the most effective way.

1.	Share Learning goals at beginning of session Normally in the mornings or during lunch I discuss with the class teacher about the learning process and how we aim to achieve this. When I start an activity with a group of children I make an effort to say what we are going to do and what are the learning processes.
2.	Summarise the key points (Success Criteria) and relate to child’s individual targets
3.	Use effective questioning ·         How did you get that answer? I do this allot during maths checking especially if a child has just written an answer with no sign of working. ·         Can you explain your idea? I use words like why, how, what, when,where etc to get the children to elaborate their ideas ·         Tell me what you are going to do next? I could improve on this by asking the children what could you do to improve your work rather than saying I think you should do this now.
4.	Peer Assessment – help child to judge peer’s work positive/constructive criticism/praise I sometimes get the children to stop their task and leave their work to look at what others have done. This can help children who maybe finding the task difficult, and can also he reinforce and reinsure the L.O.
5.	Self Assessment – support child to reflect on own work  What could you do better? I believe this is an aspect I perform well. I always try to ask the student '' is there anything else you could do to improve your work?'' I often ask them this when they feel they have finished the work they are doing.   ·         Which strategies would help you to do better? Support student to admit mistakes without risk to self-esteem
6.	Use feedback strategies according to school procedures ·         Praise sandwich I often do this especially during P.E as we have just been doing gymnastics during which we have been practicing forward rolls. When they roll I often say well done for reaching at the end try and see if you can stay tucked up really tight and I like how you stood up with feet together at the end. ·         help child to set new targets This is an area I could improve as I often know what the group are aiming to achieve although don't necessarily individual targets. ·         use school marking policy I know how we use a smiley face and traffic colour system so children can show how they felt they did on their work.

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