The purpose of this diagram is to convey what Assessment for, as and of Learning (AFL) looks like in the classroom. It is an interactive image. Rolling your cursor over the words will cause definitions to pop up, providing a quick reference to the central concepts of AFL.
“Assessment that is used to identify a student’s needs and abilities and the student’s readiness to acquire the knowledge and skills outlined in the curriculum expectations. Diagnostic assessment usually takes place at the start of a school year, term, semester, or teaching unit. It is a key tool used by teachers in planning instruction and setting appropriate learning goals.”
- Growing Success, p. 146
“Teachers will obtain assessment information through a variety of means, which may include formal and informal discussions, learning conversations, questioning, and conferences.”
-
Growing Success, p. 28
“…the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to get there.”
- Growing Success, p. 31
As part of assessment for learning, teachers provide students with descriptive feedback and coaching for improvement.
- Growing Success, p. 29
“…focuses on the explicit fostering of students’ capacity over time to be their own best assessors, but teachers need to start by presenting and modelling external, structured opportunities for students to assess themselves.”
- Growing Success, p. 31
When students participate actively in the Diagnostic, Formative and Summative assessment experiences, they are able to learn assessment skills that they can continue to use as they become life-long learners.
“…the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ futures.”
- Growing Success, p. 29
“The ongoing process of watching, listening, and being attuned to students’ behaviour, emotional state, interests and abilities, patterns of development, and progress in learning in order to meet the needs of students and assess and evaluate their development and learning.”
- Growing Success, p. 150
“Evaluation that occurs at the end of important segments of student learning. It is used to summarize and communicate what students know and can do with respect to curriculum expectations.”
- Growing Success, p. 155
“The ongoing process of watching, listening, and being attuned to students’ behaviour, emotional state, interests and abilities, patterns of development, and progress in learning in order to meet the needs of students and assess and evaluate their development and learning.”
- Growing Success, p. 150
“Teachers will obtain assessment information through a variety of means, which may include formal and informal discussions, learning conversations, questioning, and conferences.”
- Growing Success, p. 28
“Assessment that takes place during instruction in order to provide directions for improvement for individual students and for adjustments to instructional programs for individual students and for a whole class. The information gathered is used for the specific purpose of helping students improve while they are still gaining knowledge and practising skills.”
- Growing Success, p. 147
“Students and teachers share a common understanding of what is being learned. Learning goals clearly identify what students are expected to know and be able to do, in language that students can readily understand. Teachers develop learning goals based on the curriculum expectations and share them with students at or near the beginning of a cycle of learning. Teachers and students come to a common understanding of the learning goals through discussion and clarification during instruction.”
- Growing Success, p. 33
“Success criteria describe in specific terms what successful attainment of the learning goals looks like. When planning assessment and instruction, teachers, guided by the achievement chart for the particular subject or discipline (see Chapter 3), identify the criteria they will use to assess students’ learning, as well as what evidence of learning students will provide to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. The success criteria are used to develop an assessment tool, such as a checklist, a rubric, or an exit card (i.e., a student’s self-assessment of learning).”
- Growing Success, p. 33
Learning partners share “ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement; providing feedback in relation to goals, and developing students’ ability to self-assess – as a way of increasing students’ engagement in and commitment to learning.”
- Growing Success, p. 28
“As the teacher provides feedback, and as the student responds to it, the assessment information gathered is used to improve learning as well as instruction. Multiple opportunities for feedback and follow-up are planned during instruction to allow for improvement in learning prior to assessment of learning (evaluation). The focus of the feedback is to encourage students to produce their best work by improving upon their previous work and, at the same time, to teach them the language and skills of assessment, so they are able to assess their own learning and that of their peers.”
- Growing Success, p. 34
“Feedback provides students with a description of their learning. The purpose of providing feedback is to reduce the gap between a student’s current level of knowledge and skills and the learning goals. Descriptive feedback helps students learn by providing them with precise information about what they are doing well, what needs improvement, and what specific steps they can take to improve.”
- Growing Success, p. 34
“The process by which a student, with the ongoing support of the teacher, learns to recognize, describe, and apply success criteria related to particular learning goals and then use the information to monitor his or her own progress towards achieving the learning goals, make adjustments in learning approaches, and set individual goals for learning.”
- Growing Success, p. 154
Diagnostic Assessment
“Assessment that is used to identify a student’s needs and abilities and the student’s readiness to acquire the knowledge and skills outlined in the curriculum expectations. Diagnostic assessment usually takes place at the start of a school year, term, semester, or teaching unit. It is a key tool used by teachers in planning instruction and setting appropriate learning goals.”
- Growing Success, p. 146