Editorial
The landscape of education and…
by Chia Shu Hui
Abstract
This paper examines the use of natural comparison processes (Nicol, 2020) to generate internal feedback in two-stage exams (Efu, 2019) and make the internal feedback explicit to deepen learning in high-ability students. When learning in students deepens, they are better able to transfer their learning into novel situations, and therefore improve their grades, as evidenced by their answers to Integrated Topics Question (ITQ) in Lower Secondary Science examinations in my school. This pedagogical strategy can be used in Assessment for Learning (AfL).
In my context, the ITQ takes up a section of ten marks in Lower Secondary Science examinations. It was introduced in my school in 2020, with the primary purpose of equipping students to transfer and apply their learning in novel situations that are integrative. Several topics appear in ITQ which requires students to integrate their learning across topics (see Annex). The introduction of ITQ is also intentional to align with the learning outcomes of O Level and A level Science syllabus, for instance in O Level Biology and A Level H2 Physics, where students are anticipated to utilize the knowledge acquired to handle new situations or solve related problems, along with applying that same knowledge to unfamiliar scenarios (See Annex).
The assessment challenge in my context is this: students often do poorly in the ITQ section even though they are high-ability students and our Lower Secondary Science curriculum lacks AfL opportunities to prepare them specifically for this section. As students learn and are given worksheets as practice, these worksheets serve as opportunities for students to identify any existing learning gaps for them to work on before the high-stakes examinations. Hence, a lack of AfL opportunities to identify and work on the learning gaps can potentially cause poor performance in high-stakes examinations. There could be potentially other factors that cause poor performance in high-stakes examinations, but these factors are not the focus of this paper. Rather, this paper focuses on how having more AfL opportunities through the use of two-stage exams can support students in deeper learning and transfer of knowledge in novel situations necessary for ITQ.
Besides encountering ITQ in their end-of-year (EOY) examinations, students lack the necessary practice and exposure throughout the year, except for some past year practice papers given just before the examination. The underlying assumption for this lack of practice and exposure is that teachers feel that high-ability students would naturally be able to integrate learning independently and therefore able to transfer their learning and apply it in new situations seamlessly and effortlessly. However, this assumption is proven incorrect when we analyse past assessment data for the ITQ section. Moreover, a
quick scan of the learning outcomes of the Primary Six science syllabus shows that the skill to apply knowledge in novel situations is not evident in the Primary School Leaving Examination. Therefore, there is a needful change to the current (lack of) assessment practices to (1) promote learning and the ability to transfer it to novel situations in our high-ability students and therefore (2) improve their ITQ section performance in examinations.
To achieve the two goals (1) and (2) above, I propose an earlier increase in AfL opportunities using two-stage exams. During two-stage exams, students generate internal feedback from a natural comparison process and make the generated internal feedback explicit. This AfL opportunity can potentially ground students in their understanding of the topical content and integrate this content across various topics in the Lower Secondary Science curriculum. In this paper, we capitalise on the natural comparison process used by students to generate internal feedback and magnify its power by externalising it during two-stage exams. This strategy is currently used in higher education only. It is in the hopes of the author to bring this strategy back to the secondary school to test its effectiveness as the use of this strategy has untapped potential in secondary schools. Therefore, its effectiveness remains to be seen and can only be updated after its implementation.
Introduction
The academic assessment reform implemented by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore has sparked a debate on whether the move is a good one. In a letter forum reply by the Deputy Director-General in Education (Curriculum) dated 17 March 2022, MOE decided to remove mid-year examinations, which is one of the many assessment of learning (AoL) practices in Singapore schools, by 2023 for all other stages in primary and secondary education. The rationale of this move is to instil a sense of joy in learning for them and is a crucial stride in the ministry’s continuous endeavour to shift focus from excessive academic grading. The underlying assumption made here is that students will find joy in learning when academic grades from assessments are not at stake. Is this the case? What is considered learning in the sea of AoL in schools?
Sadler (2007) states that a person is said to have learned something when three conditions are met: “The person must be able to do, on-demand, something they couldn’t do before. He must be able to do it independently of particular others and he must be able to do it well”.
Besides the three conditions, I would like to propose a fourth condition to ascertain that learning has taken place and that is: that the learner can teach others what he has learned. This ability to teach others implies the deep processing of learning that has occurred in the learner, and it goes one step further to being able to do it well. This is supported by the learning theory of constructivism which emphasizes the active role of the learner during the learning process to construct their learning and its meaning.
“Constructivism is defined as the philosophical stance asserting that what is commonly perceived as reality is a mental construct shaped by individuals who
think they have understood and explored it” (Saunders, 1992). From this perspective, learning is understood to be a self-regulated process that occurs within an individual and that learning becomes apparent through personal experience. Knowledge is therefore constructed by the students and not supplied by teachers.
When a learner has thoroughly understood a concept or skill, he has built a strong internal representation of that concept or skill, allowing him to effectively teach that to others in a meaningful and understandable way. He can even tap into his prior knowledge, experiences and understanding to facilitate the learning process for others. This is a true mark of learning.
In my context, when the high-ability students can teach and explain to their peers, it signals that these students have deeply processed the concepts before explaining them more simply or understandably for their peers to comprehend. A deep learning of concepts is a prerequisite for the transfer of learning into novel situations. In this case, peer teaching and feedback can potentially help students to learn from their peers and an opportunity to deepen their learning and transfer it to new situations.
Definition of Assessment for Learning (AfL)
Assessment for learning is an assessment designed to provide diagnostic information for teachers to modify and adjust their instruction in response to students’ needs (Earl, 2013). Regarding peer teaching, the ‘teachers’ in Earl’s definition can also refer to students who teach their peers as evidence of deep understanding. Black et al. (2004) defined AfL as “any assessment for which the priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting pupils’ learning” (p. 2). The definitions of AfL above are chosen for this paper because they align with the context of assessment and feedback in the Singapore Teaching Practice (STP), where teachers set meaningful assignments, check for understanding and provide meaningful feedback. Besides STP, these definitions also impress upon educators that ‘learning’ is a process term (Biesta, 2008) and that AfL is a process that promotes learning.
The STP has four teaching processes at the heart of the pedagogical practices. Each teaching process has its corresponding teaching area which specifies the considerations to be taken and practices to be enacted before, during and after the facilitation of student learning by teachers. One of the four teaching processes is assessment and feedback, where its teaching areas include (1) checking for understanding and providing feedback, (2) supporting self-directed learning and (3) setting meaningful assignments. All four teaching processes have a role to play in deepening learning in students, but this paper’s focus is on feedback.
Definition of feedback
In formative assessment, the emphasis on the significance of feedback comes to the forefront as assessment data, including a student’s strengths and weaknesses, must be effectively communicated to the student. In addition, teachers ought to develop strategies to aid students in clarifying their learning objectives and comprehending the assessment standards by which they are evaluated (Chong, 2018).
Therefore, teachers need to provide students with the necessary information to help them achieve their learning goals and assessment standards, moving them from their current level to the assessment standards. The following is the definition of feedback that grounds this paper.
Feedback is the information about the gap between the actual performance level and the reference level, which is subsequently used to alter that gap. (Ramaprasad 1983, p1)
Looking at it from an educational perspective, this implies that instructional feedback furnishes insights into a student’s current position, their intended final destination, and the means to close the gap between the two (Lipnevich & Smith, 2022).
Definition of internal feedback
However, instructional feedback is external information which can be useful only when students internalise it and use it to construct new knowledge and understanding from it. Therefore, it is not just the external information, but the internal feedback processes that are derived from this external information, that lead to students’ understanding and advancement in knowledge.
The internal feedback processes are generated by students. This internal feedback generation, which is ubiquitous and continuous, catalyses learning as well as self-regulation of learning in students. To facilitate self-regulated learning, students generate internal feedback when they monitor or self-assess their performance (Butler and Winnie, 1995, Andrade 2018; Yan 2020).
In recent studies by Nicol and his colleagues, they redefined internal feedback as the outcome of comparison processes (Nicol 2019; 2020; Nicol, Thomson, and Breslin 2014; Nicol and McCallum 2021). Through this new lens, students produce internal feedback by comparing their ongoing work with their learning objectives and goals and considering any relevant information within the learning environment that supports the attainment of their goals. This information can be sourced from teachers, experts, online resources and even videos. The following is the definition of internal feedback that underpins this paper.
Internal feedback is the new knowledge that students generate when they compare their current knowledge and competence against some reference information. (Nicol 2020, p2)
In this definition, internal feedback is not a product but rather a transformative knowledge process that can manifest as conceptual, metacognitive, or procedural changes. Furthermore, the generation of internal feedback is inherently implicit, and to enhance its effectiveness, students need to transition from implicit to explicit expression of the feedback generated.
Capitalising on the comparison process to generate internal feedback
To enable comparison in the generation of internal feedback, there must first be a task given to the students. Students receive a task from a teacher during a lesson to engage in or create some work. As students compare with the different sources of information in their environment such as teachers’ and peers’ comments, class notes etc, this comparison process informs them about the connection between their current performance and their goals, allows them to pinpoint their learning gaps and prompt them to make the necessary adjustments. These external information sources serve as a reference point for comparison and the generation of internal feedback, thus fostering performance improvements. For instance, students can be asked to compare the differences between ionic bonding and covalent bonding (learning outcomes in a topic) in class and they turn to their notes as a referent to improve their learning, thereby generating internal feedback. When students are allowed to turn their internal feedback from comparison into external output, for example through writing and journaling, this output serves as data for teachers to adjust the task accordingly, depending on the learning progress and pace of the students.
Concerning the conceptual model of internal feedback, comparison and the self- and co-regulation of learning put forth by Nicol (2020) in Figure 1a, the assumption made here is that the external information environment and the internal mental world are inter-connected and interdependent in thinking and action. Students’ current internal knowledge is constructed out of earlier material and social interactions (Piaget, 1976). When students make comparisons of their work with their prior knowledge or any external information sources or even interactions with peers or teachers, they generate internal feedback which helps them to bridge their learning gap. This is one of the many ways that students learn and can potentially be a way for students to learn optimally when they externalise their internal feedback. When students have bridged the gap and developed a deep understanding of the concepts in each topic, only then, they would be able to integrate, draw links across topics and transfer their learning in novel situations. This is one learning outcome that teachers hope to see in their students.
Figure 1a. A conceptual model to show comparison as the mechanism for internal feedback generation and the self- and co-regulation of learning (Nicol, 2020).
Conceptual model: a revised edition
The conceptual model in Figure 1a is rather cluttered, complex, and confusing. To construct a revised edition of this model to be used in this paper, a comparison was made between the homeostatic circuit of voluntary action in Figure 1b and Nicol’s conceptual model in Figure 1a.
Figure 1b. Homeostatic circuit of a voluntary action
The feedback in Figure 1b has a different meaning from feedback in assessment and learning, hence it will be omitted in the revised model in Figure 1c.
Figure 1c. Revised conceptual model of internal feedback generated through comparison and externalising the internal feedback.
In Figure 1c, the external information environment is both social and material. It consists of rubrics, teacher comments, peer comments, peer work, past year exam papers etc. The internal mental environment of a student consists of the knowledge, beliefs, and dispositions as well as internal feedback and learning goals. Comparison is made to generate internal feedback and the internal feedback is made outwardly apparent and tangible by externalising it. The value of making internal feedback explicit is to magnify its power in achieving deeper learning and understanding in students.
To achieve deeper conceptual understanding, written feedback from teachers might not result in enhanced learning or performance unless students juxtapose them with their work, subsequently deriving internal feedback from this analysis (Nicol, 2019). This internally generated feedback, when made explicit, can then be leveraged by students to enhance their knowledge and comprehension, leading to improvements in their performance (Butler & Winnie 1995, Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick 2006). This internally generated feedback is considered self-regulated which is aligned with the learning theory of constructivism. In this paper, we explore how internal feedback generation from the natural comparison process, when made explicit in two-stage exams, can help to address the assessment challenge in my context.
Comparison process during internal feedback generation in two-stage exams
In two-stage exams, students are tasked to complete some academic work on their own before handing in this work for grading; and do the same work again in small groups of three or four (Nicol, 2022). The academic work that students are working on in this context would be past year End of Year examination ITQ as well as ITQ worksheets. This two-stage sequence can also be easily implemented for formative purposes without any grading during or at the end of a course. In the context of this paper, we explore how two-stage exams are used in assessment for learning without any form of grading. It is also crucial to note that two-stage exams are also referred to as two-stage collaborative exams, two-phase exams and so on (Efu, 2019) but two-stage exams is the most frequently used term and therefore it will be the term used in this paper.
In two-stage exams, there are two implicit opportunities for students to generate internal feedback: at an individual level during the task followed by at the group level where students work on the same task again. Figure 2 below shows the internal feedback mechanism of two-stage exams (Nicol, 2022). The assumption here is that a student would start the two-stage exam by setting goals for the task and usually, these goals are possibly be shaped by a few factors such as the student’s motivation, nature of task and task instructions, timeline and working environment (Nicol, 2022).
Figure 2. Internal feedback mechanism of two-stage exams.
In using this strategy to integrate learning across several topics, students begin by setting their learning goals before they attempt the ITQ worksheet or past year End of Year examination ITQ such as the sample provided in Annex. With reference to Figure 2. above, students would use their current state of knowledge learned during lessons to write their individual answers. At the individual level stage, the students compare their written answers against their own goals for the worksheet and against any internal reference information they can tap on to achieve those goals. The internal reference information can range from prior knowledge stored in their memory, which is obtained from reading notes or textbook. This is the first implicit opportunity to generate internal feedback from the comparison process.
The second implicit opportunity to generate internal feedback from comparison comes when students move on to the next stage which is the group level stage, where they work on the same worksheet in groups of 3-4. In this stage, they compare the answers they have just written in the previous stage against the unfolding and final written answers as well as against the ongoing group dialogue which is about how to produce those answers. Since the group answers for the worksheet are worked out in parallel with the group dialogue, students have an opportunity to generate internal feedback about the quality of their individual answers, which is content feedback, as well as how the answers are worked out, which is process feedback. Both content and process feedback are crucial as students must not only know the content but also the way to craft their answers to excel in ITQ. The process feedback can potentially help students to think of the ways to approach the questions in other novel situations with different topics. The group dialogue is a comparator that serves to allow students to discuss, debate and verbalise their internal thinking. During the dialogue, students could compare their own answers with the group, allowing them to acquire new perspectives on their own answers and new ways to approach the questions. They also generate new ideas which they had not thought of before. Hence, according to Figure 2., two-stage exams allow two opportunities to generate internal feedback using comparison.
The power of the internal feedback generated at the two levels in two-stage exams can be magnified when the internal feedback is made explicit. Explicitness has several advantages. Students are more aware of how they generate feedback or how they might go about better generating it when they see their own feedback productions. Explicitness also causes students to express concretely their thinking about abstract concepts, which fosters learning and transfer, thereby developing their metacognitive knowledge and skills (Tanner, 2012).
To make internal feedback generated at each level explicit in a two-stage exam, students are requested to journal their learning by writing their answers to several reflective questions at the individual level and at the group level. An example of reflective question at individual level is “If you are cognisant of any weakness in your answer, could you explain the issues?” and at group level, is “How is your answer different from your own answer? Note at least one difference and explain what it is.” (Nicol, 2022). This step of making internal feedback explicit by journalling allows them to update their knowledge and achieve their learning goals which they set for themselves at the beginning.
To go one step further in modifying this pedagogy by Nicol (2022), students can share their group’s journaled learning points with the class using technological platforms such as Padlet and Google Classroom. This allows the collation of rich learning points in the class which further improves a student’s knowledge as they read their classmate’s learning points on the technological platform.
The above example on the use of two-stage exams to integrate knowledge uses learning materials such as ITQ worksheets or past year examination ITQ. Teachers can also adopt the same pedagogy of two-stage exams using topical worksheets as this deepens the learning of students within that topic so that they are better equipped to transfer their learning in novel situations, which are typical of ITQ.
Implication and benefit to teachers
Besides benefitting students by deepening their learning and integrating their knowledge across topics through two-stage exams, teachers also benefit because they do not lose additional time in their classroom just to implement two-stage exams. Teachers can have students to complete the worksheet at individual level as homework before implementing the group level in the classroom. The time usually spent in class for students to complete the worksheet is now used for the group level, hence there is no loss of curriculum time in the classroom. Moreover, this pedagogical strategy can be implemented during Home-Based Learning (HBL), which is mandatory in Ministry of Education (MOE) schools. The group level stage can be carried out on online platforms such as Zoom or Google Meet. This further shows that this strategy doesn’t cause teachers any further time constraint.
Teachers usually spend a lot of time providing students with feedback at task level instead of self-regulated feedback. When students generate internal feedback, this feedback is self-regulated, and Hattie and Timperley (2007) maintain that self-regulated feedback is the gold standard for teacher feedback comments (Nicol, 2022). Hence, having students self-regulate their learning and generate internal feedback gives students the agency for learning and takes the burden of writing feedback for students off the teachers.
An implication for this practice of two-stage exams to integrate knowledge across topics is that when students identify their learning gaps and externalise them, teachers are informed of these learning gaps and students’ difficulties in learning. This information externalised by students is tangible data for teachers who would be better able to choose more appropriate learning resources as comparators to help students close the gaps. In other words, the explicit expression of internal feedback generated by students is valuable feedback for teachers to advance learning in their students.
Conclusion
To sum, humans already possess the natural tendency to compare. Instead of the unhealthy norm-referencing comparison of grades, teachers can make use of comparison to generate internal feedback in students, followed by getting them to externalise the internal feedback generated, as a pedagogical strategy in classrooms. With sustained use of this natural comparison process to generate and externalise self-regulated feedback, students are poised to better answer ITQ in their Lower Secondary Science examinations.
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