Why is Assessment for Learning important??

Two months ago I have attended assessment workshop, in one of the session I had to read a journal and tried to make summary. Here is the summary for us. The tittle of the journal is Classroom Assessment for Learning. It was written by Stephen Chappuis and Richard J. Stiggins on September 2002.

The journal gives us information about assessment that we can apply in the recent days. Assessment should involve students in the process and focused on increasing learning. These condition can motivate students. Traditional paradigm believes that increasing anxiety of students will increase learning and comparison will motivate students. The fact, it doesn't work effectively because the result of anxiety and comparing can make the students under pressure. So that, this journal tried to explain about assessment for learning.

Assessment for learning is an instructional tool to promote learning. It occur during learning process and teaching. It focus on the ongoing improvement of learning for all students, day to day classroom assessment activities. The purpose are to involve students directly and deeply in their knowledge, increasing their confidence and motivation to learn by emphasizing progress and achievement.

There are some information that can we use to assess the students.
1. Pre-test
2. analyze students who need more practice
3. revise instruction
4. reflect on the effectiveness teaching
5. discuss with students about their strength and areas that need improvement
6. Facilitate peer tutoring

Students involvement
Since assessment for learning needs students involve is not the same meaning as students can control decisions regarding what will be learned or tested. The right thing is students use information to manage their own learning. The purpose is they can understand how to learn best, know the position according the target, and plan next step in learning. We can support students involvement by (1) finding out the attributes of good performance, (2) using scoring guides to evaluate real work, (3) revising anonymous work samples, (4) creating practice test based on their understanding of learning targets, (5) communicating with others about their growth .

This is first part that can we learn from this journal. There is feedback and the skill of self assessment that can we learn from this journal, but I will continue it in the next entry. I hope this summary can help us to know how far students involve in their learning.