Talking of the quality of human interactions, more space for talking about learning, and having the confidence to recognise a good one when we see it, the last event in the current AifL networking series was in Stirling on 18 March.  

This one was for AifL ‘graduates’ - people from schools, authorities, universities and our various partner organisations who have been involved in the programme in the past (some of them even starting in the heady days of 2002) but have now moved on.   The AifL team provided the space to talk and there was lots of quality human interaction – they were obviously pleased to see one another and had plenty to talk about, including assessment and learning. 

They also had very clear ideas about what good assessment looks like, and what we need to do next to achieve it, even if they didn’t come across it as often as they would like in authorities and schools.  They understand that we need to assess what we value in learning – all of it - and that we will value what we assess. 

The day was another great example of the power of networking – we’ve seen it again and again over the past few years, and it gets better and better.  Put a group of well-informed, intelligent people together to reflect on their own experience and learning, with a clear focus for the discussion, and you will have a great model of formative practice – ‘using information as feedback to inform planning for improvement’. 

There was also obviously a basis of trust and respect for each other which seems to me to be crucial for partnership working – unless people have personal regard for one another’s professional competence and integrity, it’s hard to see how real partnerships can be built. So those of us who are still wrestling with getting ideas about assessment and learning out into schools took considerable comfort from the day, as well as gathering some very sound advice about what needs to be done next, and by whom.  Words that came up in just about every group and every context were precisely the ones you would hope for: learning together, dialogue, sharing practice, partnership, time for thinking, reflection, valuing achievements, celebrating success, active participation, range of evidence, validity……  When we’ve spent nearly six years trying to get these ideas into practice, it’s great to hear them coming back from partners as advice and directions for the next stage in the journey.     

In the end, talking about assessment and learning with colleagues is something that we can all do, and will in time have a ‘ripple out’ effect across our learning communities.  As we move into 2008-2009, perhaps we should think bigger than ripples – go forth and make big waves!    �

Categories: Events, Learning Communities, Networking, Professional judgements

For over six years now, I’ve been part of the Assessment is for Learning team in Scotland.  It’s been a fascinating journey, and we’ve all learned a huge amount about assessment and above all about learning – how people learn, and how assessment can be part of that learning.  Now that the Curriculum for Excellence and Journey to Excellence are here, it seems like a good time to look back on the AifL journey – where we’ve been, where we are now – and to think about where we’re going next with assessment.  This first blog will take a look at a key idea at the heart of assessment – ‘Knowing What a Good One Looks Like’. 

The AifL programme has been supporting Scottish teachers to work together in their own classrooms, to explore ideas about assessment as part of what they do from day to day.  Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been out and about with the AifL team at the third and final round of networking meetings for the groups of schools involved in 2007-08 projects – over 200 of them this session, to add to all the others from previous years (surely by now most schools must have been involved one way or another, unless they’ve been living in a parallel universe!)

The practitioners who come along to the networking meetings are talking about their AifL projects and what they’ve done for learners and learning in their classrooms – some of it intended, some quite unexpected.  As always, I’ve been hugely impressed by the quality of the thinking and discussion at these meetings.  What a fantastic bunch of professional people, enthusiastic about engaging with the ideas and sharing their own learning, and totally committed to improving the learning and lives of children and young people.  They certainly know what a good one looks like……. 

 Why is it, then, that I still hear authoritative voices claiming that we can’t trust teachers, let alone pupils, to make judgments about progress and achievement that we can trust?  Why do ‘we’ (whoever ‘we’ are) still insist on using only scores from short, narrowly-focused tests to make judgements about how much and how well children are learning and schools are teaching them? We know perfectly well from research and AifL feedback that teachers’ and pupils’ judgements using a range of evidence can and do give us a better quality of information about learning that can help all of us to plan for improvement. Perhaps part of the answer is that people think that making professional judgements about the amount and quality of learning is a difficult and complex skill, which many teachers, and certainly pupils, don’t have.  I’m not so sure about that.  I think we can all use a range of evidence very confidently to decide ‘what a good one looks like’ in some parts of our lives, and perhaps the trick is to gain the confidence to adapt and use and those skills for the classroom.   Take computer dating, for example.  If you’re looking for a date, you’ll have a pretty good idea about the kind of person that suits you, based on your previous learning and experience of relationships - through being with people, talking with them, listening to them, watching them. So you fill in a form and tick some boxes, and do a bit of extended writing about yourself, and let the computer make a match, often given as a percentage score.  It’s just like a test…..  (and like a test, you know the answers everyone gives are what they think whoever’s reading it will want, rather than what they really think).  So as evidence about what someone’s like, it’s just the start - you don’t stop there and set a date to move in with them.  There’s other much more revealing evidence you need to think about.   So you look at your match’s little essay, and perhaps a carefully composed photo or two, and your clever brain starts to make some pretty sophisticated and complex judgements about the person you’re looking at, by reading and seeing between and beyond the words and images.  You might go on to exchange a few e-mails or texts or phone calls, and gradually what they say and write, and how they say and write it, tells you a whole lot more about them.  If you’re still interested, then comes the acid test: you meet up for a drink, and it doesn’t take more than five minutes for you to make a ‘best fit’ judgement, interacting face-to-face, which you couldn’t have made before and no-one else could have made for you.  You realise either that it’s a match made in heaven (unlikely) or that however good they seemed on paper, your match doesn’t look like a such good one after all……  (And they probably feel the same about you!) 

So we can all make pretty accurate judgements about ‘what a good one looks like’ in some quite ‘high-stakes’ parts of our lives, based on a range of different kinds of evidence.  Why not in classrooms, about learning?  In the end, it’s the quality of the human interactions that really matters, in learning and in life.  With a bit more time for focused discussion, teachers, pupils and their families could develop a better shared understanding about what good learning looks like, how they know, and how they could do things better.  So let’s make more space in our schools and classrooms for talking about learning, sharing expectations in our learning community, and building the confidence to recognise good learning when we see it.  Are you up for it? (professional discussion, that is, not computer dating, at least not in working hours).  Let me know what you think!

Categories: Events, Professional judgements
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