Reflection on AFL tool

Although as teachers we use many student activities and teaching procedures in

our classroom teaching, all students in the class do not fully achieve the learning
objective of the lesson. Therefore, assessments could also be employed for the
aim of evaluating student attainment, planning future work, assigning student
grades and comparing performance. There are many sorts of assessment that we
use for this purpose. Summative and formative are some of the assessments that
are commonly used among the teachers. Summative assessment is an assessment
which is frequently used at the end of a lesson or a particular period for
‘summarizing the achievement status of a student'(Sadler, 1989, p. 120).

Although it gives us a pointer about the students' subject knowledge, sometimes

it is too late thus action cannot be taken to improve the learning of the student.
Earnestly teachers continue without really observing the real setback of the child,
thus the need for a more effective assessment tool arises. Black & William (1998a)
state that ‘Assessment for learning’ which is also known as ‘Formative
Assessment’ is one of the key factors that help the students to improve their
standard of achievement.

In a recent lesson, I used these three AFL tools out of many suggested by Thomas
A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross.
• Background Knowledge Probe
• Categorizing Grid
• One sentence summary
Background Knowledge Probe
Before starting my lesson on the comparison between different time periods
(Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age). I asked students to share what they
already know about these ages. The reason I chose this AFL tool was that it helps
teachers determine the most appropriate level at which to begin instruction. It
also identifies under-prepared students for whom remedial work may be needed
and extremely well-prepared students who may benefit from tasks that are more
challenging.
Categorizing Grid
I gave them some words and phrases and I asked them to quickly sort the terms
into the correct categories in the grid. This approach allows students to be precise
and thus interrogate the distinctions they see within a field of related items.
One sentence summary
Students write a sentence summarizing their knowledge of a subject. This strategy
encourages students to make a concise summary of what they have learned by
writing only one sentence to capture the most important elements. In this
particular lesson, by the end of the lesson, they were able to explain the human
progression from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.
A one-sentence summary takes your complex topic with multiple concepts and
boils it down into a simple statement that can be quickly conveyed and
understood.