The Spirit of AfL by Tom Sherrington

Learning Lessons The Research Publication of King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford www.kegs.org.uk

The Spirit of AfL Bringing Formative Assessment Alive in Every Classroom @ KEGS This purpose of this issue of Learning Lessons is to support teachers in taking their bearings as we proceed on our journey to embed formative assessment in our everyday practice. As we explore the various aspects of our ‘Zest for Learning’ statement it is crucial to recognise the central role AfL plays in outstanding classroom practice. Importantly, it is the 'spirit of AfL' that we are seeking to embed. We should not think of formative assessment as a series of activities that we dip into, or show-case lessons that we turn on when necessary; truly embedded AfL should manifest itself in every lesson, in the minutiae of every student-teacher interaction as it becomes ingrained in our educational philosophy at a fundamental level. There are, of course, specific activities and strategies than enable us to develop our AfL practice but it is always the spirit of AfL that we are searching for. The distinction is described well by Marshall, Carmichael and Drummond in ‘Improving Learning How to Learn, Mary James et al, (2007). In their research they found that there is a definite difference between lessons in which teachers run through a series of set-piece ‘Afl activities’ and those where the teacher models this practice at a more intuitive/philosophical level. Importantly, they suggest that where the ‘spirit’ of AfL predominates, lessons are more successful than those that only follow ‘tick-box’ procedures – the ‘letter’ of AfL. Teachers who capture the spirit of AfL, talk of the value they place on pupil autonomy – this is a key characteristic of the ‘spirit’ vs ‘the letter’. An example might be where a teacher spontaneously, naturally encourages students to discuss and share the successful features of a piece of work—the success criteria— as opposed to always giving out a ‘tick-box’ template with pre-set criteria determined by the teacher without student input. Significantly, the research also found that teachers who appear more ready to embrace the spirit of AfL, when asked to identify impediments to learning, tend to proffer their own responsibility for

The KEGS ‘Zest for Learning’ Jigsaw: motivating or helping pupils. These teachers see the potential to improve learning outcomes as coming from within them; it is in their power to do this. By contrast, teachers who do not fully embrace the AfL spirit, tend to look outside their own practice for the impediments to learning; This ties in with the wealth of research evidence into effective learning by Hattie (eg Hattie, 2004) and the ideas promoted by Dylan Wiliam; it isn’t the school, the Headteacher or the class size that makes the most difference—it is the teacher. Actually, it is the teaching. Further more, the aspects of effective teaching that make the very biggest difference according to Hattie include effective feedback and questioning which are fundamental elements of AfL. The implication is clear enough. If we all strive to embrace the spirit of Afl in our everyday practice, we will become more effective teachers. More than that, given that a wealth of anecdotal and research evidence points us in this direction, it really is an imperative for all of us to embrace the spirit as far as we possibly can; it isn’t an option to say ‘no thanks; not for me’! It is just a question of how far and how fast we can go.

“Teachers who capture the spirit of “Teachers who know about AfL AfL, talk of the value they place on strategies and choose not to use pupil autonomy.” them, are choosing to widen the achievement gap in their classrooms” (in Mary James et al) Dylan Wiliam

Volume 3 Issue 1 Author: T Sherrington Editor: J Breen

October 2011

Assessment for Learning Self-Evaluation Statements 1 2 3 4

I routinely take time to establish what all my students already know or can already do and use this to plan subsequent lessons and differentiation strategies. I establish explicit success criteria for an extended task and share this with students before they make a start. If students are going to be given grades for work, I make explicit what is required for each grade in advance. I often use an all-student response system like mini-whiteboards so that I can see how each student has responded to a question. (Do you have a set of whiteboards to hand at all times?)

I usually ask students to discuss answers in pairs or groups rather than asking for hands up and use strategies that ensure all students answer all questions.

I usually select students randomly to answer questions instead of them putting hands up. (Do you have lollisticks, dice, etc that help make this process easy?)

I routinely demand extended answers from students and ask them to explain why or how they came to that answer. I regularly use student exemplars to model learning outcomes e.g. using a visualiser. (Is there a visualiser to hand at all times?)

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I structure group work so that everyone has a role in the group, contributes to the task and has to prepare to give feedback to the class if asked.

I routinely use peer and self assessment activities to help students gauge their progress and identify areas of uncertainty.

I give students opportunities to act on any feedback I give to improve their work including redrafting work, making corrections or re-running presentations or discussing wrong answers in tests.

Have you got the spirit? Each subject has different learning modes that work best and teachers have personal preferences and styles but here is a list of questions you might find helpful in prompting you to think about your own practice. If you feel you often adopt these strategies without thinking too much, then you are likely to be someone for whom the spirit of AfL comes naturally. However, that normally emerges after a period of planned experimentation. For example, once it becomes second-nature to insist that every student answers every question in pairs before sharing with the class – instead of responding to students putting their hands up—it seems ludicrous that you ever did anything else. However, the first step is to make the decision that this is how you will ask questions from now on. In all of these areas, a deliberate plan to adopt the strategy is the fore-runner to developing the practice to the point that it is routine.

The Tools of AfL: some routines and some bits of kit. Think—Pair –Share: ensure everyone answers every question, with time to think, time to struggle, and space to say ‘I don’t get it’ if they need to. Mini-whiteboards: get feedback from everyone in the class- rights answers, wrong-answers, alternative answers, misconceptions and cries for help. Create a risk-free wipe-clean ephemeral space for trying out ideas and practicing. Visualisers: provide instant feedback, model standards using current student work—as well as being a versatile visual aid, eg for going over exam papers or showing stimulus material. The ability to annotate and highlight resources or student work is powerful.

The beauty and the challenge of formative assessment lie in the diversity of the concept. A helpful way to examine the concept in the context of lessons is to think about Dylan Wiliam’s five key strategies which are always worth revisiting: • • • • •

Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning Providing feedback that moves learners forward Activating students as learning resources for one another Activating students as owners of their own learning

Narrowing the gap between the showcase and the routine: ‘Integrity means doing the right thing when no-one is looking’ Alistair Smith. ‘Accelerated Learning’ Conference

This covers just about everything we might think of doing in a lesson! Essentially AfL has three components:

AfL @KEGS: Year 11 RE

First, learners need to establish where they are in their knowledge and understanding. “What do I know already?”

The class is preparing for an examination with very specific guidelines for ‘six mark answers’ in response to questions in the form: Some Christians believe that X is true. Do you agree? Instead of writing answers directly, they first write a mark-scheme for the specific question. They then write their answer, swap with a partner and use their own mark scheme to evaluate peer assess and give a mark out of six to their partner, with associated feedback. The feedback is then acted on to secure improvements. This process leads to very strong responses, combining an interest in the question itself with a deeper understanding of the assessment process.

Then, they need to establish clearly where they want to go. “What are the standards or skill levels I am aiming for?” Finally they need to know how to get there from where they are. “What, exactly, do I need to do now to make progress?” Obviously, this goes beyond working harder; it is a technical understanding of the specific learning required. Crucially, these steps take the learners’ viewpoint— not the teacher’s; our role is to enable students to make this journey; we cannot make it for them. They might be able to do it without us but we certainly can’t go without them!

AfL @KEGS: Year 9 German Students practice writing new grammar structures on white-boards. They feel free to express their ideas, sharing them openly with a partner, knowing any errors will soon be wiped away. They then show their answers to the teacher who receives instant feedback on how well each pair has done. Various issues are discussed and then the process is repeated; the second time around there is evident progress—more sophisticated responses with fewer errors. Year 10 students sharing ideas prior to feeding back.

AfL @KEGS: Year 8 Art Students hang their paintings up around the class. (The great bonus for Art is that the outcomes are immediately visible -you don’t need a mini whiteboard to see how every student is getting on all at once.) Each student is asked to evaluate a number of other students’ work, on the basis of the criteria that were discussed earlier. They use post-it notes to peer assess, giving constructive feedback. The students then return to their own pieces and use the remainder of the lesson to act on the suggestions and comments from their peers. The teacher’s role is to facilitate the student-led progress.

AfL @KEGS: Year 13 English Students are asked to prepare short performances of their chosen poems in groups. The aim is to use the performance to demonstrate their understanding of the meaning of the text, as preparation for a writing task. Each group performs for the class before being asked to self-assess how they could have improved. Crucially, the groups are then asked to repeat their performances. Without any direct teacher feedback, the second performances are far superior as the self-assessment has yielded significant improvement.

The Tools of AfL: some materials, more routines and more kit The Big Picture: topic overview, exam specification, project outline. Give students all the information they need to learn independently. Assessment Criteria: provide access to the most explicit criteria you can to enable students to know about the standards they are aiming to meet. What, exactly, is required for an A* grade? It shouldn’t be a mystery. Exemplar Material: show students what an A* essay/paragraph/answer/composition looks like in order to tease out the precise meaning of standards or assessment objectives Time to act on feedback: ensure lesson routines include the process of acting on feedback from marking, tests or peer assessment. Feedback In Hattie’s work, teacher-student feedback is identified as the factor with the greatest impact on student outcomes. Naturally, a key element of AfL practice surrounds the nature of feedback and the way it is woven into loops of continuous improvement. Observations and discussions with teachers and Heads of Department suggest that a possible weak link in working with students to secure exam success —and hence an area for making gains— is in ensuring that feedback loops are closed, especially with weaker students. What does this mean?

AfL @KEGS: Year 12 Philosophy Students, working in pairs and then groups, discuss responses to a some stimulus material. Students are asked to respond at random with names selected by being picked from a pot of labelled lollisticks. The responses are then organised to form a ‘spoken essay’ as exam preparation, using the assessment objectives as reference.

AfL @KEGS: Year 10 Maths

It is relatively straightforward to set out the standards. Now, at every level, students should know the expected standards at KEGS. Our new KS3 Assessment Criteria do an excellent job in this regard. The next stage is then to make sure AfL strategies continually provide both feedback to the teacher about how each student is performing and feedback to the student about how they are performing. This should flush out a set of ‘next steps’ that the student needs to take. The crunch comes in making sure that each student actually takes those steps. This is what it takes to ‘close the feedback loop’.

Students work in groups to solve a series of linked problems. They can choose the order of the problems, and self-assess against solutions as they go along. Some solutions are deliberately wrong to add challenge. The process leads to a deep level of understanding and highlights some students who are stuck and others who are flying.

This process shouldn’t be optional so, clearly, this is where motivational factors come into play. If a student is highly selfmotivated, they will act on feedback and strive to improve. Teachers obviously play a key role in fuelling that motivation – with positive reinforcement of every gain coupled with a level of expectation that is non-negotiable. AfL is not woolly and wishful; at the sharp end the teacher-student relationship needs to involve an unequivocal understanding that if we have taken the trouble to map out the next steps in a student’s learning, they had better take them!

Groups of students have been asked to plot graphs from data gained from an experiment. A range of numerical skills are needed to scale the axes. In order to gauge skill levels early in the course, each group’s graph is shared on the visualiser and discussed. ‘Success criteria’ are agreed and the next graphs produced are far superior.

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Feedback activities should enable pupils to understand how to improve their work Teachers should systematically and effectively check pupils’ understanding throughout lessons

Outstanding Teaching; OfSTED Framework 2012

AfL @KEGS: Year 12 Physics

Instant feedback from Y12 and Y10 Physics students

References Marshall, Carmichael and Drummond in ‘Improving Learning How to Learn, Mary James et al, 2007 Hattie: Teachers Make a Difference: What is the Research Evidence? University of Auckland, Australian Council for Educational Research, October 2003