Student self-assessment
[from: www.curriculum.edu.au/assessment]
Student self-assessment involves the concept of students critically examining their own work and judging their performance against a set of predetermined indicators.
The focus will be on:
• the benefits of student self-assessment for both students and teachers
• the implications for ongoing learning in terms of outcomes that are both content and learning based
• the link between self-assessment and self-evaluation
• strategies that students could use to assess their own work.
What is student self-assessment?
• Student self-assessment may take place at any time in the teaching and learning cycle. As long as students know the qualities that their work is expected to demonstrate, then they can, with practice and initial assistance, judge for themselves whether their work in fact does demonstrate those qualities.
• Self-assessment might take place while students are undertaking a task. For example, students can check their progress against a model or set of examples; write reflectively in a journal outlining their achievements, frustrations and needs; or refer to a rubric which provides descriptions of the expected qualities at various levels of performance. Students then have the opportunity to self-correct and thereby to refocus their efforts to demonstrate the indicators of student performance. Self-assessment during a task may happen many times.
• When students have a clear understanding of the indicators of student performance, they can assess their completed work. This might be at the completion of a single task or topic or at the end of a whole unit of work.
• Closely aligned to student self-assessment is peer assessment. Armed with a clearly-defined set of indicators, peers can not only provide feedback to each other, but can also have another opportunity to reflect on the quality of their own work. (Bruce, 2001)
Why should student assess their own work?
• Students’ skills and knowledge are continually developing. When students appreciate that classroom activities and experiences support the continuous improvement of their skills and knowledge, they are seeing themselves as learners. Assessing their own work helps students to recognize the development of their skills and knowledge and to understand that the rate at which they learn may be different to that of others.
• Students can self-assess in all areas of the curriculum. When they do, they appreciate their strengths and areas for focus. With this in mind and suitable opportunities, students can extend their learning in all areas as they know what they need to do to develop and hone their skills and knowledge.
• When students hand in their work to be marked by teachers, they could be said to lose control over the assessment process. They feel no ownership of the outcomes, as evidenced by the often asked question, ‘What did you give me for this piece of work?’. Students who look at their work critically in terms of a set of indicators of student performance are empowered as judges of that work. When they then submit that work for teacher judgment, they are more engaged with the process and subsequent conversations between teacher and students have the potential to be more meaningful because they occur between more equitable participants in the assessment, and therefore the learning process.
• Students who are trained in the process of self-assessment are trained to critique their work. Through reflection on all aspects of the assessment process, from the description of the task and the establishment of expected qualities, to ranking or scoring, students develop the capacity to be reflective learners. With this capacity, students are more likely to accept some responsibility for their learning, to evaluate their progress and plan future goals.
• Students understand the purpose of activities in the broader scheme of their learning development. Instead of asking ‘Why are we doing this?’, they are more likely to see the longer term value.
• If students understand how their work is assessed and feel that they are participants in the learning process, they are building the capacity to be life-long learners.
• Students are more likely to take risks in their work if they know they will be able to judge that work as well as have it judged by their teacher.
• Pride in achievement is invaluable when it is earned and acknowledged through a process which is equitable, empowering and shared.
Benefits for teachers
Teachers will also benefit from student self-assessment.
• When students are assessing their own work they are more likely to be focused on that task and not as likely to be distracted. The sense of ownership inspires students to assume more responsibility for their learning behavior.
• When students are on task, there is less likelihood that they will engage in disruptive or time-wasting behaviors. Interpersonal relationships within the learning environment are thus improved.
• Engaged students are more likely to be responsible students. Teachers will find they are sharing the responsibility for learning and the learning environment. A sense of partnership is being fostered between students and teachers.
• Teachers are constantly seeking to develop learning pathways for students. Students who understand where they are placed on those pathways provide teachers with extra information which they can add to their professional judgments. The partnership in learning is reinforced.
• An outcome for students who understand their own learning is that their achievement is likely to be accelerated as they understand the next steps to be taken. Teachers thus find it is possible to provide further opportunities for extension and interesting tangents may be built into learning programs.
• Students who assess their own work are more likely to be self-directed learners. The reliance on the teacher is reduced and teachers have the opportunity to focus on individual student needs.
Self-assessment – Self-evaluation
• When students assess their own work, they judge their performance against a set of indicators of student performance.
• The expected qualities and associated performance indicators may be developed by the students themselves, by students in collaboration with the teacher, or by the teacher who informs students of these before the task is undertaken. (The professional learning module ‘Designing and using rubrics’ explores this more fully.)
• Students use their judgment of performance in an assessed activity to evaluate their learning. They gain an understanding of how they are learning as opposed to what they are learning. They can formulate plans for the focus of future learning. Students become reflective learners.
• Self-assessment informs and leads to self-evaluation of learning.
Self-evaluation
• When students develop habits of self-evaluation, they are developing the learning habits of life-long learners. They use the feedback they construct for themselves, and understand and use the feedback from others, including their peers and their teachers.
• Students understand the purposes of learning and will engage in dialogue about their learning with their teachers. Thus they become an important resource for their teachers in planning future learning pathways.
Students who evaluate their own learning ask questions
• Students develop the skills of being critical thinkers. They acknowledge that there are various ways to tackle tasks and develop the higher order thinking skills of problem solving and problem reframing.
• Students take on responsibility for their learning through examination of the approaches they take to learning. This may include their own time management, collaborative learning skills or personal organization. Students become efficient learners.
• By seeing the connections between the learning that happens today and future learning, students are more likely to value their own role in the learning process. They become self-determined learners.
• Students who are in the habit of self-evaluation have created for themselves the space and legitimacy for creative thinking. They are more likely to ‘think outside the square’ and solve problems in new and exciting ways.
Strategies for self-assessment and self-evaluation
• These are some strategies to enable students to examine their own work, measure it against a set of indicators of student performance and reflect on the learning that has taken place.
• We will explore these in some detail in the next few slides.
Modeling the task
Students respond well to examples of finished or partly completed tasks. They compare their work with that of the example and decide whether it is at a standard that meets the criteria for success. This strategy can be used in all learning areas.
Teachers can provide students with models:
• by displaying them in the classroom for student reference
• by using a model on an overhead transparency as a focus for class or group discussion.
The annotated work samples on the Assessment for Learning website provide an excellent source of tasks that could be used with students to model various levels of performance. If students are provided with the student rubric for the task, they can engage in a peer-assessment exercise as a class, a group, in pairs or individually.
Questions to elicit reflections and response
Teachers have a role to play in developing student skills of self-assessment. Often students simply do not know what questions to ask of their work, and so, in discussing students’ work, teachers can model the kind of questioning that leads to analysis and reflection.
These questions should:
• explore alternatives
• seek explanations
• clarify meaning and
• hypothesize.
Reflective journals or other writings
Students can write their thoughts about the progress of a task during or at the end of a session of work on that task.
They should be encouraged to consider their progress in terms of the goals of the task or the criteria for success.
Students can acknowledge their achievements to a particular point and identify tasks for the next lesson or time frame. They should be encouraged to identify areas where they need support and share this with their teacher. In some cases teachers might also write in the journal.
All students will need to have the strategy of using reflective journals modeled for them, and when they first start to use the strategy it might be useful to provide guiding questions to shape their writing, for example:
• Has something gone well?
If so, why do you think this was and what can you learn as a result?
• Did something go badly?
If so, why do you think this was and what can you learn as a result?
Younger students could be provided with headings under which to write their comments, or checklists.
Using rubrics
• Rubrics provide students with a series of indicators of student performance arranged under performance levels.
• An in-depth exploration of how rubrics can be used and how to involve students in their development is found in the professional learning module, ‘Designing and using rubrics’, on this website.
• The next slide shows an example of a rubric.
Using graphic organizers
Graphic organizers are visual tools used to organize and demonstrate knowledge and understandings. They come in many forms and some have quite specific purposes, for example, to compare and contrast information about two entities, to sequence information, to explain, to explore aspects of a concept or idea.
Graphic organizers are particularly useful for students who are logical and structured in their approach to learning, or who are visual learners, and can also be valuable for students whose control of written language is limited.
Example of a graphic organiser
The concept map is a common example of a graphic organiser.
It has the following uses:
• to access prior knowledge
• to develop an understanding of a body of knowledge
• to explore new information and its connection with other pieces of information
• to assist in designing a structure for a text – oral, written or electronic
• to examine possible solutions to problems.
For students, it is primarily a planning tool, which enables thinking to be clarified, understanding to be reinforced and new knowledge integrated. It could also be used as a checklist against which to measure progress.
For teachers, it is an insight into student understanding, and can be used as the basis for further discussion.
Student-led conferences
Students invite other students, parents, teachers to a conference about their learning. They lead the conference and talk about the tasks they have completed, refer to the indicators of student performance and reflect on their learning. The conference is interactive with guests asking questions about the task, activity or unit of work, as in the following example.
Health and Personal Development
• Students may have completed a unit of work on lifestyle choices. At the conference students talk about the methods they used in information location, collection and analysis as well as the information itself. They reflect on the approach to their work and aspects that may be improved in the future. In discussion with their guests they celebrate their progress in a supportive environment.
• Students may have carried out investigations about the need for cleanliness. They can present their findings and the processes they used in their investigations at a student-led conference.
Student-led conferences – student self-assessment in practice
• An example of student self-assessment, leading to self-evaluation, is seen when students lead their own conferences about their learning.
• Students who undertake tasks where the expected qualities and indicators of student performance are comprehensively understood are well placed to talk about their learning with a group of people that they trust. The element of trust is very important as the student will feel relaxed and is more likely to talk about his or her learning.
• The level of involvement of students in student-led conferences will depend on the age and confidence of the students. Teachers may need to take on a major role in this process or scaffold the process, especially for younger students.
Student-led conferences – the invitation list
The invitation list might look something like this:
• A significant adult – another teacher or a parent. Often students choose to have a parent present and in many cases both parents attend. It is important that the adults have a significant and trusted role in the student’s life as students will talk about their learning in a dignified way rather than trying to show off to peers.