Shah Imtiyaz
This is the term used in NEP 2020 for assessmet of a learner during teaching learning process so that a learner gets involved in the teaching learning process. (School Based Assessment)
Assessments for learning – also described as assessments as learning – assess a student’s comprehension and understanding of a skill or lesson during the learning and teaching process.
Assessment for learning (AFL) is actually a new approach to teaching and learning that creates reflective students and is used to enhance student performance. This type of assessment increases the involvement of students in learning process. This type of assessment increases the confidence of learners in what they are expected to learn and to what standard. AFL aims to ‘ close gap’ between a learner’s current situation and where they want to be in their learning achievement (learning gap). It is only effective teacher who plans task which help learners to do this. Actually students needs to be active participant in teaching and learning process. They should become able to think more actively about where they are now, Where they are going and how to get there.AFL is only such type of concept that every teacher can not utilise it effectively but only effective teacher can integrate it in his lesson as a natural part of what they do, while adapting this method a teacher needs to keep the level and age of the student in mind.
The stratgies of AFL are directly linked to improvements in students performance in summative tests and examinations.
AFL and the relationship with formative and summative assessment
As for as CCE (Continous andcomprehensiveEvaluation) is concerned , AFL has been related with formative assessment because of its practices such as questioning and providing feedback help to ‘form’ or ‘shape’ students learning. This differs from summative assessment which typically is an attempt to measure student attainment at the end of a period of learning.Summative assessment sometimes leads to rote memorisation
"In AFL, it is the purpose of assessment, rather than the nature of it, that is important."
There are some main processes that take place in assessment for learning: (School Based Assessment)
(i) Questioning enables a student, with the help of their teacher, to find out what level they are at.
(ii) The teacher provides feedback to each student about how to improve their learning.
(iii) Students understand what successful work looks like for each task they are doing.
(iv) Students become more independent in their learning, taking part in peer assessment and self-assessment.
(v) Summative assessments (e.g. the student’s exam or portfolio submission) are also used formatively to help them improve.
What is the theory behind AFL?
Different thories are behind the Assessment for leaning.
AFL helps in making understanding and knowledge, as John Hattie describes it, 'more visible'. AFL helps learners understand what excellence looks like and how they can develop their own work to reach that level. Feedback has a positive effect on learner achievement.
Black and Wiliam argue that if teachers use formative assessments as part of their teaching, students can learn at approximately double the rate. Hattie's research also shows that using formative assessment in the classroom brings about real-world differences in learner achievement.
Attribution theory
Attribution theory says that people explain their own successes or failures to themselves in different ways. Some factors that lead to success or failure are controllable and some are not.
Examples of factors that a learner might feel able to control include how much effort they make and how interested they are in the subject. Non-controllable factors include luck or the amount of help the learner receives from the teacher.
Metacognition
Metacognition is a term used to describe ‘thinking about thinking’ and supports the idea of self-assessment. Metacognition suggests that all learners need to be able to reflect on their own learning, to understand how they learn best and to reinterpret any new knowledge, skills and conceptual understandings that they have acquired.
Learning happens when students are given opportunities to build upon previous knowledge and experiences. Research consistently shows that only telling learners what they need to know is much less effective than helping them construct meaning for themselves.
AFL improves learner outcomes
It has been seen through reasearhes that effctiveformative assessment helps alearner to sucess in summative examination. This is because learners have a clear idea of what good work looks like and what they need to do to reach this standard.
AFL increases confidence
AFL increases the confidence of a student. It alsoincreases the self efficiency of a student to achieve his goal.
A student who receives a poor grade for a test may withdraw from learning, preferring to be thought ‘lazy’ rather than ‘stupid’. With an AFL approach, teachers give learners task-specific feedback that focuses on the work rather than ego-specific feedback that focuses on personal qualities of the learner. This encourages every learner to feel that they can improve.
AFL techniques, such as peer feedback, can help more able learners to reinforce their learning by explaining ideas to less able classmates. Furthermore, peer feedback helps learners to develop diplomacy and communication skills that will be essential in many aspects of later life.
AFL increases independence
AFL makes a lerarner more active in class espacially when active learning techniques. This develops skill of self assessment among students then they become resposible towards learning. AFL also helps a learner tobecome life long enthusiadtic learner. The learner becomes confident, reflective, innovative and engaged. AFL is very helpful for terachers. Students remain more active in learningand teachers get ,more time to talk to them individually. It saves time for reflection and improvement. AFL approach is that it helps students to do better in summative assessnt. They both are linked and both inform future learning.
Assessment for learning in practice
AFL focusses on the creation of a learner-centred classroom with a supportive clasroom enviroment. In such type of assessment student shoud not be afraid of mistsakes. For this a teacher can use different stratgies in classroom.
1. Questioning
Questions are a quick and important way of finding out what your learner understands about a subject. You can use this information to plan their teaching.
There are two main types of question: closed and open.
A closed question requires a short answer, such as remembering a fact. The answer is usually right or wrong.
For example, a Geography teacher might ask: ‘Which is tallest building of world?’
In order to get proper feedbac a teacher should wait for 3 seconds but on average teachers wait only for 0.9 seconds to get answer.
One way to help increase ‘wait time’, and to ensure the whole class is actively engaged, is to ask your learners to write down the answer to a closed question on a piece of paper, mini whiteboard or tablet, and hold it up. This immediately gives you feedback about who understands, who does not, and therefore what the next steps in the learning might be.
A good strategy to use if a learner gets the answer wrong is to make this into a positive event. You could say: ‘I’m glad you said that, as I’m sure lots of other students have the same misunderstanding.’
Open questions need longer answers, and often require the learner to provide an opinion.
E.g. A biology teacher might ask: ‘what will happen if air gets polluted?’
This type of qoestion will help learners to discuss the the impacts of air pollution in this way a teacher can facilitate disscussion.
This is two way process of communication between teacher and student in which on going is between teacher and student it leads to effective learning in the process of dialogue teachers discuss ideas with their learners and teachers get a clearer view of understanding their learners have about a topic, and put right any misunderstandings..
At last it is clear that
Assessment for learning (AfL) is an approach, integrated into teaching and learning, which creates feedback for students and teachers in order to improve learning and guide their next steps. AfL is concerned with maximising the feedback process (teacher to student and student to teacher) to optimise student learning.
Author is teacher in education department
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