Embedding Formative Assessment Online Course

Embedding Formative Assessment - Overview

There is now a large and growing evidence base that helping teachers develop their use of minute-to-minute and day-by-day assessment is one of, if not the most powerful ways to improve student learning. However, adopting formative assessment, or assessment for learning as it is sometimes called, involves far more than adding a few “quick fixes” to teachers’ classroom repertoires. It involves a fundamental shift in focus, from what the teacher is putting in to the process to what the students are getting out of it. In this series of five 90-minute online workshops, participants will learn:

• What formative assessment is (and isn't)
• Practical techniques for implementing formative assessment in classrooms – 3 sessions
• How to sustain the development of formative assessment with teacher learning communities

Topics include:

Formative Assessment: what it is and what it isn’t—when it works and when it doesn’t

A number of studies have shown that helping teachers develop their use of formative assessment can have significant impact on the achievement of their students. However, these studies are today often cited in support of formative assessment practices that bear no relation to those that the research shows make a difference. In this session, participants will learn to distinguish between different kinds of formative assessments (including benchmark, interim, and common formative assessments) and, more importantly, know when to use which to make the most difference to student learning.

Eliciting Evidence—the starting point for good feedback

Questioning, and a range of related techniques for eliciting evidence about student achievement, is a staple in classrooms all over the world, but in most classrooms, the greater part of the “intellectual heavy lifting” is performed by the teacher, with students delegated to a supporting role, or even, in many cases, “absent without leave.” In this session, participants will learn about a range of classroom techniques to improve questioning, including how to create, and capitalize upon, more “teachable moments” and the defining characteristics of effective diagnostic questions.

Providing Feedback that moves learning forward

Feedback can have huge impact on learning, but most of the feedback received by students in schools is, at best, useless, and can, in many situations, actually lower student achievement. In this session, participants will learn about different kinds of feedback, the eight possible kinds of responses that students can make, and why only two of them will actually improve learning. As well as learning about a number of ready-to-use classroom techniques for providing effective feedback, participants will also learn how effective day-to-day feedback practices can be integrated into a classroom grading system that can be used both formatively and summatively.

Formative Assessment—The learner’s role

Although the teacher has a key role in the creation of effective learning environments, ultimately, learning is optimized only when students come to “own” their own learning. This session provides participants with a number of practical techniques for teachers to increase learner involvement in the direction, pace and structure of their own learning, including ways of sharing learning intentions and success criteria, peer assessment and self-assessment.

Supporting professional development with teacher learning communities

Teacher professional development has been a national priority in most developed countries for well over twenty years, and yet the results have been modest at best. Although the reasons for the failure of teacher professional development to increase student achievement are complex, the most significant factor appears to be that they have mis-diagnosed the problem. Teacher quality is assumed to be a matter of knowledge, and sessions of professional development have been focused on giving teachers they knowledge they are assumed to lack. Such sessions have been largely unsuccessful in increasing student achievement because the “problem” is not lack of knowledge—it is how to change practice. In this session, participants will learn about five key elements of effective professional development (choice, flexibility, incrementalism, accountability, and support), and how these can be enacted with building-based teacher learning communities.

 Professor Emeritus Dylan Wiliam

Dylan Wiliam is Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at University College London.

After a first degree in mathematics and physics, and one-year teaching in a private school, he taught in urban schools for seven years, during which time he earned further degrees in mathematics and mathematics education.

In 1984 he joined Chelsea College, University of London, which later became part of King's College London. During this time he worked on developing innovative assessment schemes in mathematics before taking over the leadership of the mathematics teacher education program at King’s.

Between 1989 and 1991 he was the Academic Coordinator of the Consortium for Assessment and Testing in Schools, which developed a variety of statutory and non-statutory assessments for the national curriculum of England and Wales.

After his return to King’s, he completed his Ph.D., addressing some of the technical issues thrown up by the adoption of a system of age-independent criterion-referenced levels of attainment in the national curriculum of England and Wales.

From 1996 to 2001 he was the Dean and Head of the School of Education at King’s College London, and from 2001 to 2003, he served as Assistant Principal of the College. In 2003 he moved to the USA, as Senior Research Director at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ. In 2006 he returned to the UK as Deputy Director of the Institute of Education, University of London. In 2010 he stood down as Deputy Director to spend more time on research and teaching.

His recent work has focused on the use of assessment to support learning (sometimes called formative assessment). He was the co-author, with Paul Black of a major review of the research evidence on formative assessment published and since then has worked with groups of teachers all over the world on developing formative assessment practices.

Registration

Course Code: DWEFAOC12891522

Topic: Embedding Formative Assessment Online Course

Presenter: Professor Dylan Wiliam

Mode of delivery: via Zoom

Closing date: 28 October 2022 Friday

Click here to register

Workshop Fee: S$300.00 per participant. If 2 or more participants from the same school/organization attend the same webinar, the discounted fee will be S$250.00 per participant for that particular webinar. Fees are subject to GST and include all training materials.

For special whole school rates, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Registration is on a first-come-first-serve basis. No refunds will be made for cancellations or in the case of absentees. The Academy accepts replacements for registered participants who are unable to attend for whatever reasons.

Please contact Joseph Loy at email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you need further information.