E-assessment - The ICT Eureka moment

E-assessment The ICT Eureka moment

A new method of assessing Key Stage 3 ICT could lead to a better understanding of how pupils learn, and establish a rewarding dialogue between teacher and pupil

Progress in the development and understanding of assessment and its processes is, as with much else in education, composed of small, incremental improvements rather than great leaps forward. Eureka moments are rare. It comes as a surprise, then, to hear of an assessment breakthrough described in these terms ¬ a development that offers learners and teachers new insight into the learning process itself and, as a result, could radically transform what happens in the classroom. That is what is envisaged, at least, from the National Assessment Agency's (NAA) new tasks for Key Stage 3 ICT. The tasks are designed to help teachers determine young people's competence at different points on the journey through ICT, thereby producing a much more detailed understanding of the learning process. "They can be used in day-to-day assessment to build up students' confidence, for example, or to encourage them to pose questions to their teacher," says Jim Brant, a curriculum adviser on the NAA project. "They help the teacher and the student to identify strengths and weaknesses in the student's knowledge and skills and, in that way, can inform the learning objectives and shape the structure of subsequent learning and teaching. Fundamentally, they enable the teacher to establish a dialogue with the students and to extend students' thinking." Importantly, the tasks enable teachers and pupils to reflect, not only on their outcomes, but also the thinking that led to them. And that is the great revelation.

The benefits

Brant says: "We can look back at the process the pupil has gone through to answer a question, track their reasoning and bring out the evidence from it. That, for the teacher, gives independent, standardsbased formative assessment, and in assessment terms, that's gold dust." The tasks cover modelling, data handling, presenting and handling information and sequencing instructions and are designed to comfortably fit into a 50-minute lesson. The system is computerised from start to finish: materials are delivered electronically to schools, are carried out by students onscreen and are marked automatically. They were originally designed as test materials but that idea was scrapped after a ministers' decision in January 2007 to abandon a planned statutory ICT testing programme for all 14-year-olds. The emphasis now is on formative assessment and the materials complement Assessing Pupils' Progress, the national approach which puts assessment at the heart of learning by helping teachers to fine-tune their understanding of learners' needs. As such, using the tasks can help schools to meet a key requirement of the Children's Plan that: "Effective teachers are continually updating what they know about each child's progress and using the information to plan the next steps of the progression." Once a child has completed a set of tasks, the system generates two reports: an individual one and a group report for the teacher. The pupil can examine theirs, note what they did correctly and where they need to rethink, compare it with their neighbour's or use it as a benchmark to track their progress. For the teacher, the group report can highlight unexpected dips in performance or other inconsistencies. Brant explains: "For example, if only 10 per cent of a class has achieved a particular aspect of a task correctly, there is clearly something wrong. The teacher can see that at a glance."

Path to consistency

Key to these judgments is the progression grid that comes with the tasks and gives teachers a guide against which their students' development can be plotted. Support materials accompanying the tasks include `Task support', which gives details of the mark scheme, notes for teachers and any prior knowledge requirements, and `General support', an overview of the assessment tasks, including the background to the assessment process, pupil preparation, reporting options and options for visually impaired students. Brant says: "They help teachers to break down the activities and give a rationale for why that kind of evidence has been achieved. But they could also help with standardisation across a department because the progression grid and the questions and activities associated with it help teachers to understand and consistently apply the assessment criteria. And they give a common dialogue for teachers, some of whom may have come to ICT from a different specialist background, to understand what assessment of ICT actually means." Materials tailored for use by visuallyimpaired pupils in accordance with RNIB guidelines, including graphs in Braille and tasks for use specifically with screen readers, have been especially in demand, he adds. "These materials have been developed using Microsoft Office applications so although they are not computer-marked the task support materials allow the teacher to mark in the same way as the onscreen versions." Schools are not compelled to use the tasks, although 700 have taken them up and the number is rising. But Brant believes the technology and the approaches derived from it could have wider application. "The principles used here could be extended to other Key Stages, provided the assessment criteria is detailed enough to be used in the on-screen computer-marked process." For details go to: www.naa.org.uk/ks3ict

Case study: The Grammar School for Girls Wilmington

The Grammar School for Girls Wilmington, in Kent nt had taken part in pilots for the planned statutory online KS3 ICT tests and opted to continue with the materials after the plans for statutory testing were dropped. "We decided to continue, as we realised that the test materials could be used not just to assess learning summatively, but also as a formative tool to give us a baseline assessments to work from and target learning," says Chris Love, teacher in charge of Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 ICT at the school. The tasks have been built into ICT schemes of work, Love explains. "We use them as a diagnostic tool at the start of the unit and students use them to identify particular targets. Then students do the tests again at the end of the units to help us judge progression and level. "I do not see the tests as a replacement to teacher assessment," he adds, "but as an additional tool to help us set targets and to personalise learning." By the end of Key Stage 3 the majority of the school's students achieve levels 6 and 7 according to teacher assessments and the tasks have provided additional evidence to support this teacher analysis, as well as helping to highlight areas where more work is needed. For example, says Love, "Our initial attempts at the control (renamed `sequencing') materials with students showed that some found it hard to access higher levels, confirming that it is an area for teaching to focus on." The individual reports produced by the system also bring out students' competitive instincts so they want to re-do the test in order to try to improve their results. And he sees another use for the reports further down the line. "What I hope to do is get students to keep an e-portfolio of the test reports on our school's virtual learning environment. This will allow teachers and parents to see their progression, rather than reports simply being either saved into their user areas or filed in their folders. It will also make it easy for the students to refer to them."