Assessment as Learning

Assessment as learning focusses on students and emphasizes assessment as a process of metacognition (knowledge of one’s own thought processes) for students. Assessment as learning emerges from the idea that learning is not just a matter of transferring ideas from someone who is knowledgeable to someone who is not, but is an active process of cognitive restructuring that occurs when individuals interact with new ideas. Within this view of learning, students are the critical connectors between assessment and learning. For students to be actively engaged in creating their own understanding, they must learn to be critical assessors who make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and use it for new learning. This is the regulatory process in metacognition; that is, students become adept at personally monitoring what they are learning, and use what they discover from the monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations, and even major changes in their thinking. Assessment as learning is based in research about how learning happens, and is characterized by students reflecting on their own learning and making adjustments so that they achieve deeper understanding. P. Afflerbach (2002) notes (in the context of reading assessment):

Too many students have reading assessment done to them, or for them. Only reading assessment that is done with students and eventually by students can foster true independence and success in reading. Accomplished

readers are flexible in their routines of metacognition and comprehension monitoring, as demanded by the particular act of reading. The ability to self-assess is multifaceted, and good readers apply their self-assessment strategies on demand (p. 99, emphasis added).

Although Afflerbach’s comment is specifically about reading, it is applicable to many other areas of learning as well. Students become productive learners when they see that the results of their work are part of critical and constructive decision-making. If young people are to engage in continuous learning in environments where knowledge is always changing, they need to internalize the needing-to-know and challenging-of-assumptions as habits of mind. The ultimate goal in assessment as learning is for students to acquire the skills and the habits of mind to be metacognitively aware with increasing independence. Assessment as learning focusses 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.

A high level of student participation in the assessment process does not diminish teachers’ responsibilities. Rather, assessment as learning extends the role of teachers to include designing instruction and assessment that allows all students to think about, and monitor, their own learning. Assessment as learning is based on the conviction that students are capable of becoming adaptable, flexible, and independent in their learning and decision-making. When teachers involve students and promote their independence, they are giving them the tools to undertake their own learning wisely and well. To become independent learners, students must develop sophisticated combinations of skills, attitudes, and dispositions. Self-monitoring and evaluation are complex and difficult skills that do not develop quickly or spontaneously. Like any other complex set of skills, becoming metacognitively aware requires modelling and teaching on the part of the teacher, and practice on the part of the student. The teacher’s role in promoting the development of independent learners through assessment as learning is to

• model and teach the skills of self-assessment

• guide students in setting goals, and monitoring their progress toward them

• provide exemplars and models of good practice and quality work that reflect curriculum outcomes

• work with students to develop clear criteria of good practice

• guide students in developing internal feedback or self-monitoring mechanisms to validate and question their own thinking, and to become comfortable with the ambiguity and uncertainty that is inevitable in learning anything new

• provide regular and challenging opportunities to practise, so that students can become confident, competent self-assessors

• monitor students’ metacognitive processes as well as their learning, and provide descriptive feedback

• create an environment where it is safe for students to take chances and where support is readily available

Students need to experience continuous and genuine success. This does not mean that students should not experience failure but, rather, that they need to become comfortable with identifying different perspectives and challenge these perspectives; they need to learn to look for misconceptions and inaccuracies and work with them toward a more complete and coherent understanding. Students (both those who have been successful—in a system that rewards safe answers—and those who are accustomed to failure) are often unwilling to confront challenges and take the risks associated with making their thinking visible. Teachers have the responsibility of creating environments in which students can become confident, competent self-assessors by providing emotional security and genuine opportunities for involvement, independence, and responsibility.