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20 Ways To Provide Effective Feedback For Learning

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One way to provide effective feedback for learning is a ‘feedback sandwich’ to structure your feedback: Compliment, Correct, Compliment.

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Vol. 70

No. 1

Abstract

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

Feedback Essentials

Progress Toward a Goal

"But There's No Time!"

Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning?

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Abstract

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

Feedback Essentials

Progress Toward a Goal

"But There's No Time!"

Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement.

Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

The term feedback is often used to describe all kinds of comments made after the fact, including advice, praise, and evaluation. But none of these are feedback, strictly speaking.

Basically, feedback is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal. I hit a tennis ball with the goal of keeping it in the court, and I see where it lands-in or out. I tell a joke with the goal of making people laugh, and I observe the audience's reaction-they laugh loudly or barely snicker. I teach a lesson with the goal of engaging students, and I see that some students have their eyes riveted on me while others are nodding off.

Here are some other examples of feedback:

A friend tells me, "You know, when you put it that way and speak in that softer tone of voice, it makes me feel better."

A reader comments on my short story, "The first few paragraphs kept my full attention. The scene painted was vivid and interesting. But then the dialogue became hard to follow; as a reader, I was confused about who was talking, and the sequence of actions was puzzling, so I became less engaged."

A baseball coach tells me, "Each time you swung and missed, you raised your head as you swung so you didn't really have your eye on the ball. On the one you hit hard, you kept your head down and saw the ball."

Note the difference between these three examples and the first three I cited-the tennis stroke, the joke, and the student responses to teaching. In the first group, I only had to take note of the tangible effect of my actions, keeping my goals in mind. No one volunteered feedback, but there was still plenty of feedback to get and use. The second group of examples all involved the deliberate, explicit giving of feedback by other people.

Whether the feedback was in the observable effects or from other people, in every case the information received was not advice, nor was the performance evaluated. No one told me as a performer what to do differently or how "good" or "bad" my results were. (You might think that the reader of my writing was judging my work, but look at the words used again: She simply played back the effect my writing had on her as a reader.) Nor did any of the three people tell me what to do (which is what many people erroneously think feedback is-advice). Guidance would be premature; I first need to receive feedback on what I did or didn't do that would warrant such advice.

In all six cases, information was conveyed about the effects of my actions as related to a goal. The information did not include value judgments or recommendations on how to improve. (For examples of information that is often falsely viewed as feedback, see "Feedback vs. Advice" above and "Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades" on p. 15.)

Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback, we can produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Compare the typical lecture-driven course, which often produces less-than-optimal learning, with the peer instruction model developed by Eric Mazur (2009) at Harvard. He hardly lectures at all to his 200 introductory physics students; instead, he gives them problems to think about individually and then discuss in small groups. This system, he writes, "provides frequent and continuous feedback (to both the students and the instructor) about the level of understanding of the subject being discussed" (p. 51), producing gains in both conceptual understanding of the subject and problem-solving skills. Less "teaching," more feedback equals better results.

Feedback Essentials

Whether feedback is just there to be grasped or is provided by another person, helpful feedback is goal-referenced; tangible and transparent; actionable; user-friendly (specific and personalized); timely; ongoing; and consistent.

1. Goal-Referenced

Effective feedback requires that a person has a goal, takes action to achieve the goal, and receives goal-related information about his or her actions. I told a joke-why? To make people laugh. I wrote a story to engage the reader with vivid language and believable dialogue that captures the characters' feelings. I went up to bat to get a hit. If I am not clear on my goals or if I fail to pay attention to them, I cannot get helpful feedback (nor am I likely to achieve my goals).

Information becomes feedback if, and only if, I am trying to cause something and the information tells me whether I am on track or need to change course. If some joke or aspect of my writing isn't working -a revealing, nonjudgmental phrase-I need to know.

Note that in everyday situations, goals are often implicit, although fairly obvious to everyone. I don't need to announce when telling the joke that my aim is to make you laugh. But in school, learners are often unclear about the specific goal of a task or lesson, so it is crucial to remind them about the goal and the criteria by which they should self-assess. For example, a teacher might say,

The point of this writing task is for you to make readers laugh. So, when rereading your draft or getting feedback from peers, ask, How funny is this? Where might it be funnier?

As you prepare a table poster to display the findings of your science project, remember that the aim is to interest people in your work as well as to describe the facts you discovered through your experiment. Self-assess your work against those two criteria using these rubrics. The science fair judges will do likewise.

2. Tangible and Transparent

Any useful feedback system involves not only a clear goal, but also tangible results related to the goal. People laugh, chuckle, or don't laugh at each joke; students are highly attentive, somewhat attentive, or inattentive to my teaching.

Even as little children, we learn from such tangible feedback. That's how we learn to walk; to hold a spoon; and to understand that certain words magically yield food, drink, or a change of clothes from big people. The best feedback is so tangible that anyone who has a goal can learn from it.

Alas, far too much instructional feedback is opaque, as revealed in a true story a teacher told me years ago. A student came up to her at year's end and said, "Miss Jones, you kept writing this same word on my English papers all year, and I still don't know what it means." "What's the word? " she asked. "Vag-oo," he said. (The word was vague!)

Sometimes, even when the information is tangible and transparent, the performers don't obtain it-either because they don't look for it or because they are too busy performing to focus on the effects. In sports, novice tennis players or batters often don't realize that they're taking their eyes off the ball; they often protest, in fact, when that feedback is given. (Constantly yelling "Keep your eye on the ball!" rarely works.) And we have all seen how new teachers are sometimes so busy concentrating on "teaching" that they fail to notice that few students are listening or learning.

That's why, in addition to feedback from coaches or other able observers, video or audio recordings can help us perceive things that we may not perceive as we perform; and by extension, such recordings help us learn to look for difficult-to-perceive but vital information. I recommend that all teachers videotape their own classes at least once a month. It was a transformative experience for me when I did it as a beginning teacher. Concepts that had been crystal clear to me when I was teaching seemed opaque and downright confusing on tape-captured also in the many quizzical looks of my students, which I had missed in the moment.

3. Actionable

Effective feedback is concrete, specific, and useful; it provides actionable information. Thus, "Good job!" and "You did that wrong" and B+ are not feedback at all. We can easily imagine the learners asking themselves in response to these comments, What specifically should I do more or less of next time, based on this information? No idea. They don't know what was "good" or "wrong" about what they did.

Actionable feedback must also be accepted by the performer. Many so-called feedback situations lead to arguments because the givers are not sufficiently descriptive; they jump to an inference from the data instead of simply presenting the data. For example, a supervisor may make the unfortunate but common mistake of stating that "many students were bored in class." That's a judgment, not an observation. It would have been far more useful and less debatable had the supervisor said something like, "I counted ongoing inattentive behaviors in 12 of the 25 students once the lecture was underway. The behaviors included texting under desks, passing notes, and making eye contact with other students. However, after the small-group exercise began, I saw such behavior in only one student."

Such care in offering neutral, goal-related facts is the whole point of the clinical supervision of teaching and of good coaching more generally. Effective supervisors and coaches work hard to carefully observe and comment on what they observed, based on a clear statement of goals. That's why I always ask when visiting a class, "What would you like me to look for and perhaps count?" In my experience as a teacher of teachers, I have always found such pure feedback to be accepted and welcomed. Effective coaches also know that in complex performance situations, actionable feedback about what went right is as important as feedback about what didn't work.

4. User-Friendly

Even if feedback is specific and accurate in the eyes of experts or bystanders, it is not of much value if the user cannot understand it or is overwhelmed by it. Highly technical feedback will seem odd and confusing to a novice. Describing a baseball swing to a 6-year-old in terms of torque and other physics concepts will not likely yield a better hitter. Too much feedback is also counterproductive; better to help the performer concentrate on only one or two key elements of performance than to create a buzz of information coming in from all sides.

Expert coaches uniformly avoid overloading performers with too much or too technical information. They tell the performers one important thing they noticed that, if changed, will likely yield immediate and noticeable improvement ("I was confused about who was talking in the dialogue you wrote in this paragraph"). They don't offer advice until they make sure the performer understands the importance of what they saw.

5. Timely

In most cases, the sooner I get feedback, the better. I don't want to wait for hours or days to find out whether my students were attentive and whether they learned, or which part of my written story works and which part doesn't. I say "in most cases" to allow for situations like playing a piano piece in a recital. I don't want my teacher or the audience barking out feedback as I perform. That's why it is more precise to say that good feedback is "timely" rather than "immediate."

A great problem in education, however, is untimely feedback. Vital feedback on key performances often comes days, weeks, or even months after the performance-think of writing and handing in papers or getting back results on standardized tests. As educators, we should work overtime to figure out ways to ensure that students get more timely feedback and opportunities to use it while the attempt and effects are still fresh in their minds.

Before you say that this is impossible, remember that feedback does not need to come only from the teacher, or even from people at all. Technology is one powerful tool-part of the power of computer-assisted learning is unlimited, timely feedback and opportunities to use it. Peer review is another strategy for managing the load to ensure lots of timely feedback; it's essential, however, to train students to do small-group peer review to high standards, without immature criticisms or unhelpful praise.

6. Ongoing

Adjusting our performance depends on not only receiving feedback but also having opportunities to use it. What makes any assessment in education formative is not merely that it precedes summative assessments, but that the performer has opportunities, if results are less than optimal, to reshape the performance to better achieve the goal. In summative assessment, the feedback comes too late; the performance is over.

Thus, the more feedback I can receive in real time, the better my ultimate performance will be. This is how all highly successful computer games work. If you play Angry Birds, Halo, Guitar Hero, or Tetris, you know that the key to substantial improvement is that the feedback is both timely and ongoing. When you fail, you can immediately start over-sometimes even right where you left off-to get another opportunity to receive and learn from the feedback. (This powerful feedback loop is also user-friendly. Games are built to reflect and adapt to our changing need, pace, and ability to process information.)

It is telling, too, that performers are often judged on their ability to adjust in light of feedback. The ability to quickly adapt one's performance is a mark of all great achievers and problem solvers in a wide array of fields. Or, as many little league coaches say, "The problem is not making errors; you will all miss many balls in the field, and that's part of learning. The problem is when you don't learn from the errors."

7. Consistent

To be useful, feedback must be consistent. Clearly, performers can only adjust their performance successfully if the information fed back to them is stable, accurate, and trustworthy. In education, that means teachers have to be on the same page about what high-quality work is. Teachers need to look at student work together, becoming more consistent over time and formalizing their judgments in highly descriptive rubrics supported by anchor products and performances. By extension, if we want student-to-student feedback to be more helpful, students have to be trained to be consistent the same way we train teachers, using the same exemplars and rubrics.

Progress Toward a Goal

In light of these key characteristics of helpful feedback, how can schools most effectively use feedback as part of a system of formative assessment? The key is to gear feedback to long-term goals.

Let's look at how this works in sports. My daughter runs the mile in track. At the end of each lap in races and practice races, the coaches yell out split times (the times for each lap) and bits of feedback ("You're not swinging your arms!" "You're on pace for 5:15"), followed by advice ("Pick it up-you need to take two seconds off this next lap to get in under 5:10!").

My daughter and her teammates are getting feedback (and advice) about how they are performing now compared with their final desired time. My daughter's goal is to run a 5:00 mile. She has already run 5:09. Her coach is telling her that at the pace she just ran in the first lap, she is unlikely even to meet her best time so far this season, never mind her long-term goal. Then, he tells her something descriptive about her current performance (she's not swinging her arms) and gives her a brief piece of concrete advice (take two seconds off the next lap) to make achievement of the goal more likely.

The ability to improve one's result depends on the ability to adjust one's pace in light of ongoing feedback that measures performance against a concrete, long-term goal. But this isn't what most school district "pacing guides" and grades on "formative" tests tell you. They yield a grade against recent objectives taught, not useful feedback against the final performance standards. Instead of informing teachers and students at an interim date whether they are on track to achieve a desired level of student performance by the end of the school year, the guide and the test grade just provide a schedule for the teacher to follow in delivering content and a grade on that content. It's as if at the end of the first lap of the mile race, My daughter's coach simply yelled out, " B+ on that lap!"

The advice for how to change this sad situation should be clear: Score student work in the fall and winter against spring standards, use more pre-and post-assessments to measure progress toward these standards, and do the item analysis to note what each student needs to work on for better future performance.

"But There's No Time!"

Although the universal teacher lament that there's no time for such feedback is understandable, remember that "no time to give and use feedback" actually means "no time to cause learning." As we have seen, research shows that less teaching plus more feedback is the key to achieving greater learning. And there are numerous ways-through technology, peers, and other teachers-that students can get the feedback they need.

So try it out. Less teaching, more feedback. Less feedback that comes only from you, and more tangible feedback designed into the performance itself. And, of course, send me some feedback on this article at gwiggins@authenticeducation.org.

Feedback vs. Advice

› You need more examples in your report.

› You might want to use a lighter baseball bat.

› You should have included some Essential Questions in your unit plan.

These three statements are not feedback; they're advice. Such advice out of the blue seems at best tangential and at worst unhelpful and annoying. Unless it is preceded by descriptive feedback, the natural response of the performer is to wonder, "Why are you suggesting this?"

As coaches, teachers, and parents, we too often jump right to advice without first ensuring that the learner has sought, grasped, and tentatively accepted the feedback on which the advice is based. By doing so, we often unwittingly end up unnerving learners. Students become increasingly insecure about their own judgment and dependent on the advice of experts-and therefore in a panic about what to do when varied advice comes from different people or no advice is available at all.

If your ratio of advice to feedback is too high, try asking the learner, "Given the feedback, do you have some ideas about how to improve?" This approach will build greater autonomy and confidence over the long haul. Once they are no longer rank novices, performers can often self-advise if asked to.

Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades

› This is a weak paper.

› You got a C on your presentation.

› I'm so pleased by your poster!

These comments make a value judgment. They rate, evaluate, praise, or criticize what was done. There is little or no feedback here-no actionable information about what occurred. As performers, we only know that someone else placed a high or low value on what we did.

How might we recast these comments to be useful feedback? Tip: Always add a mental colon after each statement of value. For example,

"Good work: Your use of words was more precise in this paper than in the last one, and I saw the scenes clearly in my mind's eye."

"This is a weak paper: Almost from the first sentence, I was confused as to your initial thesis and the evidence you provide for it. In the second paragraph you propose a different thesis, and in the third paragraph you don't offer evidence, just beliefs."

You'll soon find that you can drop the evaluative language; it serves no useful function.

The most ubiquitous form of evaluation, grading, is so much a part of the school landscape that we easily overlook its utter uselessness as actionable feedback. Grades are here to stay, no doubt-but that doesn't mean we should rely on them as a major source of feedback.

References

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York: Routledge.

Mazur, E. (2009, January 2). Farewell, lecture? Science, 323, 50-51.

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Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning?

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Since the Assessment Reform Group in England coined the term Assessment for Learning (AfL) in 1998, it has become ubiquitous in educational systems around the world. A quick Google search yields over 11 million hits; countless books have been written about it; and it has become a stalwart of assessment policy statements and professional development sessions. Virtually every Canadian province and territory has a policy directive and/or has developed resources and offered professional development that supports AfL. For example, Ontario's The Growing Success policy document (2010) explicitly notes its importance by actively encouraging teachers to "provide students with descriptive feedback and coaching for improvement." Similarly, British Columbia's Accountability Framework "promotes evidence-based, data-driven decision making with a focus on AfL. Some jurisdictions such as Saskatchewan have gone so far as to develop AfL units. Collectively, a broad scan of the Canadian landscape suggests a growing recognition of the central importance of policies that support AfL practices in 21 st century schools.

The Promise of Assessment for Learning

The idea of AfL arose out of a 1998 landmark research paper by Black and Wiliam in which they synthesized over 250 studies linking assessment and learning and found that the intentional use of assessment in the classroom to promote learning improved student achievement.This meta-analysis supported previous research showing that classroom assessment had both short- and long-term effects on learning.

In the short term, it showed that classroom assessment could:

focus attention on important aspects of the subject;

give students opportunities to practice skills and consolidate learning;

guide further instructional or learning activities.

In the medium and long term, assessment held the possibility of:

influencing students' motivation as learners and their perceptions of their capabilities;

communicating and reinforcing teaching goals, including performance criteria and desired standards of performance;

influencing students' choice of and development of learning strategies, skills, and study patterns;

influencing students' subsequent choice of courses, activities, and careers.

Since that time, it has become obvious that assessment can be a powerful catalyst for learning. Over and over again, research studies have demonstrated that, if learning is the goal, assessment for learning is very powerful.

Recent reviews of more than 4,000 research investigations show clearly that when [formative assessment] is well implemented in the classroom, it can essentially double the speed of student learning...it is clear that the process works, it can produce whopping gains in students' achievement, and it is sufficiently robust so that different teachers can use it in diverse ways, yet still get great results with their students.

From Promise to Reality (or not)

We have all spent much of our professional lives thinking about and studying classroom assessment - the kind of assessment that is carried out by teachers every day. In recent years, we have had the pleasure and privilege of participating in international invitational assessment seminars focused on AfL. This group is made up of researchers, policymakers, professional development providers, and educational leaders from Australia, Canada, continental Europe, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. One of the recurring themes for the group is the same issue that we have been pondering in our own research. We know that formative assessment, done well, is very powerful. But we find repeatedly that AfL is not evident or is only superficial in most classrooms. So, why, after several decades of evidence, is it not a fundamental part of classrooms in Canada and around the world?

We know that formative assessment, done well, is very powerful...So, why, after several decades of evidence, is it not a fundamental part of classrooms in Canada and around the world?

The Learning How to Learn (LHTL) Project in England has provided the international seminar group with a major source of evidence and fuelled our deliberations. In its work, the LHTL team found that teachers implementing AfL in their classrooms often reflected what they called the "letter" of formative assessment, focusing on the surface techniques, rather than the "spirit", based on a deep understanding of the principles underlying the practices. Only about 20 percent of the teachers in their LHTL study were using formative assessment in ways that were designed to help students develop as learners.

Through our ongoing conversations and research, we have identified several key issues that can interfere with AfL fulfilling its promise: misunderstanding of what AfL means and requires; superficial professional learning; and competing policy expectations.Here, we focus on the first issue, with reference to the importance of the others in creating a positive context for teacher learning.

What Is Unique About AfL?

Although many teachers would say that they do "assessment for learning" there is considerable evidence that their assessment practice does not really reflect the intentions and principles that make AfL powerful. At the international assessment seminars, we have talked about how the ways in which the words have been interpreted and translated into practice reveal both a misunderstanding of the principles and a distortion of the practices that the original ideals sought to promote. For example, "deciding where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there", has sometimes been (mis)interpreted as an exhortation to test students frequently, using prescribed national/state scales, in order to fix their failings and target the next level. In this scenario, scores - which are intended to be indicators of, or proxies for, learning - become the goals themselves. Real and sustained learning is sacrificed to performance on a test. In contrast, the primary aim of AfL is to contribute to learning itself. Although true learning will manifest itself in performance, the converse does not hold. Performance on a test does not necessarily mean that learning has occurred. Learners can be taught how to score well on tests without much underlying learning.

In the LHTL project, the researchers found many teachers who were attempting to engage in AfL by adding strategies to their existing assessment repertoire without shifting the purpose towards enhanced learning. This finding echoed a finding from a Canadian study in which we used the metaphor of creating an audio recording to describe the different ways in which teachers incorporate ideas of assessment for learning into their practices.For some teachers, the process of incorporating new assessment strategies was like laying new sound tracks onto an existing audiotape. Their original approach to teaching and assessment remained intact, but some additional material was superimposed upon it. The other end of the spectrum was like working with a sophisticated digitized recording system. This was rare in our study. These teachers had a sense of the components of the work and the mood they wanted to create, but operated using an open and changeable approach, skipping to anywhere in the work, adding little flourishes, and maneuvering all the bits to keep the whole production flowing. The teachers who used this digital approach were able not only to use a variety of techniques every day but also to move beyond them to circumnavigate what other teachers had experienced as obstacles. The third and most prevalent production style was a mixed one - some of it audiotape, some digitized - where teachers played with the digitized approach but kept coming back to the original tape. The transitions back and forth weren't always smooth, and these teachers frequently expressed frustration and uncertainty about their practice.

As a result of common misunderstandings about how AfL works, teachers often engage in practical implementation based on limited understanding and superficial adoption of the ideas. Over and over, teachers incorporate the techniques associated with AfL, including peer and self-assessment and routine assessments throughout a course to track students' progress. But just adding these bits is not AfL. Certainly the tools or techniques are useful, but teachers implementing the "letter" of AfL are in the early stages of understanding and embedding the concept into their practice; they still depend on rules and embed the new ideas as add-ons.

Becoming more proficient means developing a deep understanding of the underlying theory and learning to use the ideas to solve problems and make ongoing adaptations automatically. Teachers with this "spirit" of assessment for learning do not just add strategies to their existing assessment repertoire; they internalize the underlying principles, have a strong belief in the importance of promoting student autonomy, articulate a clear conviction that they are responsible for ensuring that this takes place, and take this empowering philosophy into the classroom and communicate it to students. The LHTL project demonstrated that:

although advice on specific techniques is useful in the short term, longer-term development and sustainability depends on re-evaluating beliefs about learning, reviewing the way learning activities are structured, and rethinking classroom roles and relationships.

AfL is a way of thinking and a set of beliefs about the nature of learning and the rhythm of interactions in classrooms. Its primary aim is to contribute to learning by identifying aspects of learning as it develops, using both informal and formal processes, so that learning itself can be enhanced. This focuses directly on the learner's capabilities as they are developing.

AfL means seeking out, analyzing, and reflecting on information from students themselves, from teachers, and from the learner's peers as it is expressed in dialogue, learner responses to tasks and questions, and observation. AfL is part of everyday teaching, in everyday classrooms. A great deal of it occurs in real time, but some of it is derived through more formal assessment events or episodes. What is distinctive about it is not the form of the information or the circumstances in which it is generated, but the positive effect it has for the learner. And therein lies the dilemma: How to move from techniques and activities to genuine new learning by teachers?

Moving from the "Letter" to the "Spirit"

AfL depends on the knowledge and expertise of teachers - their knowledge of students, of unlocking students' thinking, of feedback, of curriculum, of teaching, of pedagogical content knowledge, and of learning theory. Why? Because AfL is not a tool; it is a shift in thinking about what matters in schools. It moves the focus from categorizing students to learning for students. And it often involves conceptual change on the part of teachers as they rethink what assessment is for and how to do it.

Becoming an expert in AfL is hard work, as teachers come to understand the theory behind it and examine how these ideas are both similar to and different from their current beliefs and practices. It requires teachers to engage in high quality professional learning that helps them explicate their preconceptions about assessment and internalize an approach to assessment - and even to learning - that may run counter to current expectations in their schools.

This kind of change will not happen without policy expectations that honour the essential role of teachers' expertise and opportunities for serious job-embedded professional learning.

Teachers with the "spirit" of AfL are continually building their expertise so that they are in a position to carefully and intentionally apply their professional knowledge on a moment-by-moment basis. They, and their students, are routinely engaged in seeking, reflecting upon, and responding to information from dialogue, demonstration, and observation, with ideas and feedback that are immediate and directed at learning, in real time. They need policy support, organizational structures, and professional learning that gives them deep engagement with the new ideas associated with AfL, so that they can use this knowledge and its application in practice to enhance learning for all students.
EN BREF - Beaucoup d'enseignantes et d'enseignants affirment effectuer une " évaluation au service de l'apprentissage ", mais souvent, leurs pratiques ne reflètent pas les intentions et les principes qui rendent ce type d'évaluation efficace. Le personnel enseignant qui comprend l'" esprit " et la " lettre " de l'évaluation au service de l'apprentissage rehausse constamment ses compétences afin de mieux utiliser ses connaissances professionnelles à tous les instants. Les renseignements obtenus de dialogues, de démonstrations et de l'observation stimulent sans cesse leurs réflexions et leurs réactions, engendrant des idées et une rétroaction immédiates qui sont axées sur l'apprentissage, en temps réel. Ces enseignantes et ces enseignants ont besoin de politiques claires, de structures organisationnelles et de perfectionnement professionnel afin que ces connaissances et leurs applications améliore l'apprentissage de tous les élèves.
2 See www.bced.gov.bc.ca/policy/policies/accountability_framework.htm

3 See www.education.gov.sk.ca/Assessment-for-Learning

4 P. Black and D. Wiliam, "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment," Phi Delta Kappan 80, no. 2 (1998).

5 T. Crooks, "The Impact of Classroom Evaluation Practices on Students," Review of Educational Research 58, no. 4 (1998): 438-481.

6 J. Popham, "Formative Assessment - A Process, Not a Test," Education Week, February 2011.

www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/23/21popham.h30.html

7 M. James, Learning How To Learn - in Classrooms, Schools and Networks (Teaching and Learning Research Brief. Teaching and Learning Research Programme., 2006). Downloaded March 20, 2010 from www.tlrp.org

8 M. James and D. Pedder, "Beyond Method: Assessment and Learning Practices and Values," The Curriculum Journal 17 (2006): 109-138.

9 L. Volante, "Assessment of, for, and as Learning Within Schools: Implications for Transforming Classroom Practice," Action in Teacher Education 31, no. 4 (2010): 66-75.

10 L. Earl and S. Katz, "Changing Classroom Assessment: Teachers' Struggles," in The Sharp Edge of Educational Change, eds. N. Bascia, and A. Hargreaves (London: Falmer Press, 2003).

11 P. Black, "Formative Assessment: Promises or Problems?" Unpublished paper, 2007. Downloaded March 14, 2010. www.mantleoftheexpert.com/studying/articles/Paul%20Black2007.pdf

12 James and Pedder.

13 M. James, and A. Pollard, TLRP's Ten Principles for Effective Pedagogy: Rationale, Development, Evidence, Argument and Impact (London: Research Papers in Education, 2011 in press).

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Unleashing the Promise of Assessment for Learning | EdCan Network

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The idea of AfL arose out of a 1998 landmark research paper by Black and Wiliam in which they synthesized over 250 studies linking assessment and learning and found that the intentional use of assessment in the classroom to promote learning improved student achievement.