Teachers' and students' roles in formative assessment
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Assessment for Learning
What sort of marking and grading really helps students' learning?
Teachers' concerns about the quality of marking of written work echoed the comment by OFSTED (1998)(click to Where can I find out more?): 'Marking is usually conscientious but often fails to offer guidance on how work can be improved.' Other research illustrated the complexity of this issue by reporting that students tended to ignore teachers' written comments if they were accompanied by marks or grades. One of the project teachers had noticed the same effect in her class:
'Previously I would have marked the work and graded it and made a comment. The pupils only saw the mark and/or credit. After a credit they lost any motivation to improve. Now they get credit only after we have gone over the work so they have an incentive to understand the work.'
Another teacher also moved away from giving grades in favour of written comments only:
'Comment only marking has made a difference in that students do now read what I write....I am not aware of a single parent expressing concern over a lack of grades/levels/marks.'
With the new focus on comment only marking and on students' responding to the comments, teachers were led to consider both the quality of their comments and the monitoring of the students' actions. The following comment illustrates the way the first problem impacted on teachers and how one teacher dealt with it:
'The extra thought needed when making these more relevant comments meant that marking took longer than it had previously. However, after several weeks of this, the time taken decreased. The reason for this...is that I have built up a series of 'good' phrases to use and, more importantly, I realise what makes an effective comment...Knowing the students very well now has also meant that my comments are much more personal.'
Checking to see if students did indeed act on teachers' comments called for new approaches. One teacher adopted an approach which involved students' tracking their own responses:
'I implemented a comment sheet (in) my Yr 8 classes books, the left-hand side is for my comments and the right-side is for the pupil to demonstrate by a reference to the page in their books where I can find the evidence to say whether they have done the work. The comments have been useful for the LSA (Learning Support Assistant) that works with the group.'
