Title : Assessment for Learning

Author : Dr Cher yl A Jones

Publisher : Learning and Skills Development Agency

City : London

Year : 2005

Summary of the book :

- The concept of assessment

1. The working group on 14-19 reform, led by Sir Mike Tomlinson (2004), was
introducing assessmenr for learning to provide the opportunities for the teachers to
develop their assessment and feedback skills while promoting confidence in their
personal judgement and fostering an effective learning environment, by putting the
learner at the heart of the assessment process and refocusing the objective.
2. Ofsted stated that assessment for learning is a proven strategy that can and help
teachers to meet these important challenges, as is evident in institutions that are
deploying these strategies to best effect.
3. David Millband at the 2004 North of England Conference stated that without
effective assessment for learning strategies, which involves high-quality feedback to
learners being embadded within every teaching and learning session, the personalised
agenda is a dream that will never be realised.
- A personalised offer depends on really knowing the strength and weaknesses of
individual children and young people. A key means of doing so is assessment for
learning and the use of evidence and dialogue to identify every pupils learning
needs. But whatever the contextual practice, the rationale is always the same:
clear evidence about how to drive up individual attainment; clear feedback for
and from pupils so there is clarity on what they need to improve and how best
they can do so; and a clear link between learning and lesson planning.
 - Assessment as part of classroom activities is a fundamental process required to
promote learning and ultimately achievement. Assessment for Learning is all about
informing learners of their progress to empower them to take the necessary action
to improve their performance. Teachers need to create learning oppor tunities where
learners can progress at their own pace and under take consolidation activities
where necessary. Assessment for Learning strategies should be implemented in such
a way that quality feedback provided to learners based on, for example, an interim
assessment decision.

- Kinds of Assessment for learning

1. Formative Assessment (assessment used by the teachers on an ongoing basis to help
their students achieve to the best of their abilities and is a ver y impor tant par t of
the learning process)
2. Summative Assessment (summative assessment takes place on completion of a
topic or unit and often contributes to the grading and assessment of a qualification).
3. Interim Assessment ( assessment that will help to challenge the more able learner
to reach new levels of achievement and, in doing so, reach their full potential. The
individuality of feedback, by its ver y nature, has the facility to support weaker
learners and challenge more able learner).

Conclusion :

- Assessment refers to the wide variety of methods or tools that educators use to
evaluate, measure, and document the academic readiness, learning progress, skill
acquisition, or educational needs of students.
- From this book, we have known that the classification of assessment is devided into
three: formative assessment, interim assessment, and summative assessment. Based
on the definition and the fuction of each assessment, in fact there are similiarities and
differences with what our lecturer have told us before about kinds of assessment,
which are; artificial and authentic assessment.
- The similiarities are; first, artificial assessment has the same fuction as summstive
assessment; that is to test the students knowledge about what they have learnt by
standardized test and to evaluate learning progress and achievement at the conclusion
 of a specific instructional period, second, authentic assessment is the same as
formative assessment which is used to test students ability which reflect the real
activity in using English for example. It is used to monitor student learning to
provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching
and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments
help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
and to help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems
immediately.
- There is interim assessment which considerably falls between formative and
summative assessment. It is a form of assessment that educators use to (1) evaluate
where students are in their learning progress and (2) determine whether they are on
track to performing well on future assessments, such as standardized tests or end-of-
course exams. Interim assessments are usually administered periodically during a
course or school year (for example, every six or eight weeks) and separately from the
process of instructing students.
- This book only focuses on how to make a good assessment for learning to ;
promoting effective assessment ; how to plan for learning ; how to establish the
learning goals ; how to communicate the assessment criteria ; how to create
effective session learning plans etc. They also discuss about how to assess learning
by giving feedback to the learners and by using self and peer assessment which is
very useful to evluate learner understanding and consolidating learning.