English Language Schools Association of France

Professional Development Matters

March 13, 2021

Session 4: Formative Assessment Feedback

Feedback from our Session, and Further Reading

Thank you for your participation!

​

Some questions and comments from our session:

Diagnostic = Formative?  Not necessarily. You can have an assessment that informs you of what students DID learn, but not tell you for sure what they did NOT learn, or worse, what was mis-understood. A diagnostic assessment catches misunderstandings before they go any further.

​

Is fill-in-the-blank ok in a language class, for vocabulary? I suppose it can be appropriate if you are coaching the students in how to respond to those types of questions and they are familiar with what type of answer you are expecting. The more transparency and guidance about what to do to succeed, the better, but overall this type of assessment is at its core a guessing game.

​

Concern: I can't return marked work in 3 days. Reply: In theory the sooner the feedback, the better, and while immediate is the best, and 3 days is ideal, it may not be realistic. Just be sure to return work within 2 weeks, and perhaps return it alongside the task instruction sheet and the rubric.

​

Concern: My school requires numbers on formative assessments, perhaps I can delay giving them but not for long. Reply: The more delay, the better, but even if you just delay by 20 minutes and give the time to reflect first, it makes a huge impact. I usually ask students to guess the number based on their reflection, and then I tell them at the end of class (or the end of the week, or end of the unit) what my recommended number would be for that assessment. It raises great discussion about self-esteem, and what exactly the rubric is representing at each level (and how harsh a marker I am).

​

*Also I hate to wage war against the red pen, (as you can see from my logo I rather like red), but if the research says that it causes aggressive subconscious tendencies in the teacher when marking, and low self-esteem in the student, then I should probably save it for another purpose and use green, orange, pink or purple for formative comments.

​

Hattie, John and Helen Timperley. The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. March 2007.

​

Rutchick, Abraham et. al. The Pen Is Mightier Than The Word: Object Priming Of Evaluative Standards. European Journal of Social Psychology. 40, 704-708. 8 May, 2010. Wiley InterScience. Online. Columbia University. Viewed 10 March, 2021. Available at: http://www.columbia.edu/~ms4992/Pubs/2010_Rutchick-Slepian-Ferris_RedPen_EJSP.pdf

​

Stiggins, Rick and S. Chappuis. Classroom Assessment For Learning. Educational Leadership Journal. September 2002. Online. Researchgate.net. Viewed 1 March, 2021. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293560052_Classroom_assessment_for_learning

Wiliam, Dylan and Paul J. Black. Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through classroom assessment. Kings College, London. 1998