smata-note: ownership of learning
The New Zealand Curriculum Online says there are four things that support every student to take ownership of their learning
Teacher observations
Learning conversations
Self and peer assessment
Learning stories
Peer assessment and learning conversations are pretty common in contexts outside of ECE, but the others? And I find it interesting that observations is top of the list. I’d argue that’s not an accident - at the very least there are no learning stories without observation. Observation is great in supporting teachers to understand what a student can do, and see ways to reach them, to support their learning, to help them grow. It reveals the tiny clues I’m big on.
It’s really important that this is viewed as assessment data, which is exactly how it’s framed on the website, with this quote from the New Zealand Curriculum opening the page
"Assessment for the purpose of improving student learning is best understood as an ongoing process that arises out of the interaction between teaching and learning. It involves the focused and timely gathering, analysis, interpretation, and use of information that can provide evidence of student progress. Much of this evidence is 'of the moment'.”
I would argue the primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning. Sure, every now and then some ‘markers’ may be needed to get a guage on where students ‘sit’. But let’s not fool ourselves the types of assessment that provides those markers is for the student - really, it’s for the school so they can judge how well students are progressing.
For me, the difference comes down to there being two different kinds of assessment: one is for growth - it’s for the teacher and student with the purpose being to improve learning, and it’s often ‘in the moment’ or near to and happens daily; the other is for judgement - it’s for schools and boards, and helps quantify progress, or serves as qualification data, and should happen now and then.
Should there be more value place on assessment for growth? I think so.
Perhaps this is something we could discuss in the live-chat, which this week will be on Thursday night, between 7:30 and 8:30. Hopefully you can join me then.