Chapter 10: Self-Assessment and Assessment for/as Learning

Author(s): Catherine Milne

Source: Counterpoints , 2014, Vol. 380, Teacher Educators Rethink Self-Assessment in
Higher Education: A Guide for the Perplexed (2014), pp. 145-148
Published by: Peter Lang AG

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/42981555

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Counterpoints

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 Chapter 10

Self- Assessment and

Assessment for/ as Learning

Catherine Milne

We Live in Interesting Times

From an educational perspective, we live in interesting times as interna-

tional competitions such as Trends in International Math and Science
Studies (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA) grab the headlines and the performance of students on such tests
becomes a focus of policy and legislative reform efforts. Efforts such as
those included in the US Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which
has focuses on student college and career readiness, vising data to track
student progress pre-K-12, improving teacher effectiveness, and devel-
oping interventions for low-performing schools, with the goal of tying
economic recovery to educational interventions, that is, tying accountabil-
ity to assessment. Such an emphasis highlights the conundrum experi-
enced by classroom teachers of the multiple roles ascribed to assessment.
In his chapter on assessment in acting, Joe Salvatore highlighted the
learning that is required for students that have never been asked to self-
assess, to develop the skills they need in order to be able to do just that.
As Cheryl Blonstein noted in her chapter, clinical psychologists also face

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146 TEACHER EDUCATORS RETHINK SELF-ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

multiple challenges when using instruments designed to evalu

patient's psychological well-being. As she observes, self-assessment
such challenges to be acknowledged and addressed through practic
the US, the notion of what constitutes an effective teacher has supp
a focus on feedback as one of the key elements of effectiveness (
Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2004). Not just feedback thr
grading, but feedback from peer and self-assessment. One of the
highlighted by Noonan and Duncan (2005) and implemented by
authors in this edited volume is the importance of developmental c
ria (wholistic rubrics) to provide a context for self-assessment. T
chapters illustrate that for students to become competent and realistic
evaluators they need to be taught the skills and practice of self-assessm
and self-evaluation. Such practices include, "developing self-monit
mechanisms to validate and call into question" their judgments, whi
taught and develop over time, dependent on structures and resourc
support this learning (Earl, 2005, p. 105).
By adopting and adapting the model for self-assessment and se
evaluation outlined in Chapters Two and Three of this book,
authors of these chapters show how tools, such as response cards
discussion boards, provide structures for descriptive and asynchr
reporting for learning which become evidence for learning gr
over time and for identifying milestones in students' learning dev
ment. Additionally, these tools allow the instructor or professor t
vide targeted feedback, which Earl (2005) also identifies as the cu
glue between a student's individual beliefs and the "collective wis
of the culture as it is captured by teachers" and the resources use
references (p. 89). Additionally, self-assessment is an essential com
nent of formative assessment because it is integral to a learner's
ity to set personal goals, have access to evidence of a lear
knowledge of their beginning place in a learning context, and
strategies will help her or him to move from where they are to
desired goal state (Black & Wiliam, 1998).
As we have shown in this collection of edited chapters, reflecti
also a key element of self-assessment because reflection supports
dents to identify whether their work meets the identified criteria

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 course of study, how effect
better (Rolheiser & Ross, n
authors acknowledge the im
comes from reflection on a
cards and reflective journals
on themselves by taking n
another time (Foucault, 198
there is also learning involv
these developing discourse
resources for communication
uation. In a way, these text
to capture the disciplinary
uation. According to Earl (20
number of these chapters (s
element of effective self-assessment and self-evaluation.

These authors also emphasize that the educator who opens herself
up to providing space and time for students to engage in self-assessment
and self-evaluation is placed in a position of dealing with the dialecti-
cal relationship between power and vulnerability. In a self-assessment
context, transparency is needed for both instructor and students to
acknowledge when they may have made mistakes. Salvatore and
McVarish see vulnerability as a necessary element of self-evaluation
but at the same time they acknowledge how being asked to self-evalu-
ate can make students feel vulnerable. Such a feeling can be especially
an issue when students are dealing with studies in fields, like mathemat-
ics education, where their previous experiences, from their perspective,
may not have been all that satisfactory. But as they also argue, vulnera-
bility associated with self-assessment provides an open temporal and
physical space for self-reflection and discourse. Of course, J. Blonstein and
Catherine Milne were dealing with students for whom the status quo in
university education had generally served them well. They come to sci-
ence education with degrees or majors in science most commonly
achieved in a system that valued, and continues to value, codified final
exams and laboratory reports that were prepared by the instructor. In such
disciplines, to give up that power and ask students to self-evaluate might

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148 TEACHER EDUCATORS RETHINK SELF-ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

lead to students feeling very uncomfortable because it is not clea

them what the instructor wants. Such experiences led Milne to fram
students self-assessment as an argument dependent on claims and
dence. However, one would not want her or her students to lose s
of the importance of emotion to learning and the importance of con
ing with other learners in classroom situations. The authors of th
chapters have also provided evidence of how self-assessment also a
students from a diversity of experiences to engage in meaningful
with the content of a course, while at the same time allowing the p
sor to "follow" the learning of each student.
The move to embedded assessment or assessment for/ as learni
suggests that the time might be right for more educators to take o
implement this model of self-assessment and self-evaluation becau
resources and tools support the development of self-assessment le
ers while at the same time providing the flexibility for instructo
implement the model in a variety of discipline areas and with lea
in a developmental range of self-assessment capabilities.

References
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in
Education , 5, 7 - 74.
Black, P., Harrison, C, Lee, C, Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2004). Working inside the Black
Box: Assessment for learning in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 86, 8-21.
Earl, L. M. (2005). Assessment as learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student
learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Foucault, M. (1988). The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom. In J. Bernauer,
& D. Rasmussen (Eds.), The final Foucault (pp. 1-20). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Milne, C. (2009). Assessing self-evaluation in a science methods course: Power, agency,
authority, and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 758-766. doi:10.1016/
j.tate.2008.11.008
Noonan, B., & Duncan, C. R. (2005). Peer and self-assessment in high schools. Practical
Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 10(17). Available online: http://pareonline.net/
getvn.asp?v=10&n=17
Rolheiser, C., & Ross, J. A. (no date). Student self-evaluation: What research says and what
practice shows. Accessed at: http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/self_
eval.php (on September 23, 2012).

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