Assessment for Learning in the curriculum

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Assessment for Learning in the curriculum

• Liz McDowell
• CETL Assessment for Learning (AfL)
• Northumbria University

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Curriculum design problems

• Playing safe
• Systems promoting conformity
• Collective rather then collaborative approach
• Keeping up appearances

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Curriculum emerges from

• Experiences of and experimentation by the
  teaching team
• The collective knowledge and capabilities of
  academic teachers
• The observed experiences of students
• External reference points
• Formal frameworks
• and the role of assessment ?

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Alignment 1

• Assess what you want to assess, what is
  important

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Alignment 2

• A balanced system which aligns
• The curriculum
• The teaching methods
• The assessment
• The climate in the classroom
• The institutional climate
• (Based on Biggs (2003) p. 26)

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Alignment 3

• Encouraging students to learn the right things,
  in the right kinds of way with the right kinds of
  outcomes.
• Backwash!

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• In normal exams you learn a whole essay and it
  doesnt come up so it seems to the examiners that
  you know nothing
• Youre just writing it down then you forget all
  about it until it comes to revising for the exam
• An assignment just goes into a black hole. No
  one actually sees it and you can forget about it

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Assessment for learning

Centre for Excellence in Teaching
Learning Assessment for Learning
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This gives you much more chance to express your
ideas. You can actually put more into your work
and promote yourself into your work. Also you
can certainly demonstrate how much more you know,
and how you can interpret things
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Re-engineering

• a radical reconstruction of curricula since
  any increase in resources given to formative
  assessment will have to be paid for elsewhere
  (Yorke, 2003, p. 497)
• Substantial modification to the learning
  environment through changes to regular classroom
  practice involving turning the learning culture
  around
• (Sadler, quoted in Yorke, 2003)

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Powerful learning environments

• good tasks that afford plenty of
  opportunities for judgment and conversations
  about judgment
• Knight (2006) p 441

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How to promote good curriculum design ?

• Increase awareness of opportunities
• Provide space for experimentation
• Promote use of feedback
• Build on intrinsic motivation
• Build on social motivation