It is no secret that an area of education in which I am passionate is assessment – in particular Assessment For Learning or Formative Assessment. The work of Dylan Williams, Ruth Sutton, Rick Stiggins, John Hattie, Ken O’Connor and Anne Davies have had a significant impact on my thoughts around assessment but since last year, I have had the opportunity to work closely with another local (BC) educator around assessment and grading: Tom Schimmer.
Tom and I met through Twitter and since then, have met face to face as well as over the phone a number of times (see
my notes from his presentation here). His mentorship around creating change in schools in the area of assessment will help me for years to come as we move away from the traditional practices to more current ones that benefit student learning. His book “10 Things That Matter From Assessment to Grading” is highly recommended as a practical way to encourage shifts in your classroom and schools.
In our recent #BCEd Chat on Monday November 4, the topic was “the link between assessment and learning”. It was a great discussion and at the end, I asked “So we all agree that AFL (assessment for learning) is one of the most powerful tools for student learning; why is this practice not in every school and every classroom?”. HOW can we work to changing the mindset so AFL is the norm in each classroom?
To help me with this question, I have asked Tom to chat with me on Twitter this Thursday, Nov 17 at 4:00 PST (7:00 EST). The hashtag for the conversation will be #AFLSchim and
I invite you to join us on Thursday to ask Tom, and engage with others, any questions about implementing AFL into your classroom or school. If you have any questions you would like Tom to focus on, please leave them in the comments below. Here are some that I will be looking to ask:
- In a system in which class sizes are not getting smaller, and money and time is tight, HOW can we implement changes so that AFL becomes more of the norm in BC schools?
- How do we move toward Assessment For Learning in a system that requires grades, percentages, and report cards?
Hope you can join us Thursday at 4:00pm PST! #AFLSchim
Tom will also be joining us at Edcamp Fraser Valley on December 3 in Maple Ridge. Hope you can join us there to continue the dialogue around topics including assessment and grading. www.edcampfv.ca
Question for Tom:
I tweeted that “Measurement scales such as “not meeting”, “meeting”, “exceeding” are the equivalent to grading — but you disagreed and then later stated that with comments and context these scales are good.
My questions are two-fold: (1) are you aware that the negative effects of grading, on both performance and interest, are not mitigated by the addition of a comment? (2) if formative assessment is about formative feedback, why would we ever reduce our feedback to a symbol such as a number, letter or descriptor?