Research into Practice: Edition 3 Linking academic expertise with professional wisdom Focus: Responsive teaching - how can assessment for learning have impact?
Introduction What is responsive teaching? The seminal piece ‘Inside the Black Box’ (Black and Wiliam, 1998) outlined the importance of assessment for learning (AfL) as formative assessment which is used to bridge the gap between what we have taught and what students know and understand. In more recent years as Wiliam has stated that he would prefer that people did not call formative assessment ‘formative assessment’ but rather than something like ‘responsive teaching’. That is, assessment for learning should be about responding to the gaps in learning that are elicited through the many forms of assessment and learning checks that we use in every lesson (verbal, written, multiple choice, mini WB, formal, low stakes etc…). Whichever method we are using for AfL it is essential that as teachers we respond to the information that we gather to plan, reteach and then recheck that learning has taken place. Click here for a walkthrough of learning checks at each point in the cycle. Dylan Wiliam on Hinge questions and how to create effective hinge questions. ‘If feedback isn’t helping the student do a better task and a better job the next time they are doing a similar task, then it is probably going to be ineffective’ - Wiliam 1