Assessment/Feedback

Introduction

One of the focuses in education is effective use of assessment. The use of effective assessment is essential for our pupils to know how to progress and for the teachers to provide a challenge in our lessons and enhance the learning experience. It could also be used to improve each activity using teacher and pupil feedback.

What is assessment?

Generally, in education there are 2 main types of assessments – formative assessments and summative assessments. Summative assessments are usually used to evaluate student learning progress and achievement at the end of a specific project or year. Summative assessments are assessment of learning where formative assessments are for learning. Or as assessment expert Paul Black explains it “When the cook tastes the soup, that´s formative. When the customer tastes the soup, that´s summative assessment.”

Many teachers believe that formative assessment is an integral part of effective teaching. The general goal of formative assessment is to evaluate pupils progress and to improve instruction and pupil learning while it’s happening. Formative-assessment technique could be as simple as a teacher asking students to raise their hands if they feel they have understood a newly introduced concept. Pupils can take responsibility for formative assessment through self-assessment. This often helps pupils to develop a clearer understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses and thus motivates them to take greater responsibility for improving their skills and knowledge.

The following are a few examples of formative assessments: • Questions that teachers pose to individual students and groups of students during the learning process to determine success or /difficulties with specific concepts or skills. • Spoken or written feedback may be used to revise or improve a work product. • Self-assessments that ask students to think about their own learning process, to reflect on what they do well or have difficulties with. • Peer assessments that allow students to use one another to evaluate and improve their learning. For example, using a list of success criteria to evaluate a computer task is one common form of peer assessment.

Formative assessment tend to go through a specific process:

Understand target / targets
Produce work
Compare with target / targets
Evaluate strengths and weaknesses
Identify action for improvement
Take action form improvement

Why formative assessment?

While teaching and carrying out activities in class we need to check informally the pupils’ progress. From this information the teacher is able to change the lesson as required: from the speed of the lesson to any additional resources required for pupils in following lessons. In this project we want to make assessment a fun and enjoyable process that the pupils and teachers can implement with ease. We have used many methods of assessment including check sheets and handouts. What we hope to promote in this project is a playful approach to learning but also suggestions on a more interactive and playful method of assessment. In the HTML coding task our partners in Wales used a net which can be modified to show different steps of the task and what the pupils need to do in order to achieve a specific level. Example of an assessment pyramid that pupils would have to tick as they carry out the instructions.

The advantage of this method of assessment is it gives your students a role in their learning and it also develops them as an independent learner. You will find attached to this guide two examples of using the assessment templates, but also blank templates if you prefer to make your own.

Example 1: Example 2:

When should summative assessment be used?

Summative assessment should be used to assess the pupils at the end of an activity to ensure they have understood the objectives of the lesson, but it could also be used to assess the pupils’ computational thinking and their ability to apply the skills learnt independently in the future.

Assessment Templates

Template Formative Assessment Sheet Example (PDF and Publisher format)
Template Formative Assessment Sheet (PDF and Publisher format)
Template Formative Assessment - Pyramid Grid (PDF and Publisher format)

Template Formative Assessment - Cube Grid (PDF and Publisher format)

How to gather feedback

Pupil feedback

After carrying out the activity it is always beneficial to do pupil feedback in order to not only provide formative assessment on the lesson outcomes, but to take a snapshot at the start of the lesson of pupils’ understanding of the topic and to compare that with the results at the end. Pupils are also able to provide a different perspective to the lesson, resources and teaching with advice to improve the lesson in the future. To help with pupil feedback we have created 2 templates. The first which is suitable for pupils 6-11 and the second which is suitable for pupils 12+

Pupil Feedback Form Template Age 6 - 11

Pupil Feedback Form Template Age 12+

Teacher Feedback

To help improve the resources and if you would like feedback from your colleagues or partner institutions on using the resources, the playful coding team has a generic feedback form which is used online. A PDF version of this form is also available in the download section of the www.playfulcoding.eu website.

Downloads and templates available on the website:

Teacher Feedback Form (PDF)
Pupil Feedback Form Template Age 12+ (PDF and Publisher format)
Pupil Feedback Form Template Age 6 – 11 (PDF and Publisher format)
Template Formative Assessment Sheet Example (PDF and Publisher format)
Template Formative Assessment Sheet (PDF and Publisher format)
Template Formative Assessment - Pyramid Grid (PDF and Publisher format)
Template Formative Assessment - Cube Grid (PDF and Publisher format)

Assessment and Feedback