Editorial

The February 2023 issue of our AFAL Bulletin marks another milestone in our journey to articulate assessment for all learners – a new website for our past and present issues. We hope its aesthetic and affordances will assist readers to search and research assessment knowledge fit for their purposes. A good place to start is with Terence Tay’s succinct exposition on the four purposes of assessment in schools – competitive, values-signalling, supportive, and ipsative. This raises a pertinent question for all of us – what is the purpose of accumulating more and more assessment knowledge, and how does that eventually translate to helping our learners in school? 

In our July 2022 issue, Tan (2022) illustrated a four-box theory below to illustrate how assessment literacy may lead to learning outcomes. This four-box theory can be represented in the context of assessment feedback as follows:  

Despite our many years of developing staff in assessment literacy, schools might find it a continual challenge to move beyond Box 2. Even within Box 2, we often wonder what practices are systematically put in place to ensure that Box 3 is meaningful for the learners.  

In providing useful assessment feedback to students, many teachers shared the need to develop scaffolds for different segments of learners. Well-designed scaffolds and checklists/rubrics would help teachers provide actionable assessment feedback (Box 2) for students. While this might get the students to Box 3, schools are increasingly being faced with the realisation that despite acting on the feedback, students do not seem to be able to achieve the goals of Box 4 in a self-directed manner.  

In this edition, we are honoured to have articles which share insights on each box. A noteworthy contribution is Shyam Achary Gopal’s thinkpiece on Alternative Approaches to Book Checks which explores alternative methods to the traditional book checks as a way of gauging teachers’ assessment literacy. This helps us to take a deeper look into the effects of leadership practices on Boxes 1 and 2.  

The series of reflections on Panel Discussions at NIE’s 2022 Assessment Colloquium examines the importance of the intentionality of feedback in helping students learn. In her reflection on the panel discussion on “Assessment Feedback for Respectful and Resilient Learners”, Michelle Tan observed that feedback, instead of marks, is more fundamental in helping students learn. Teachers need to provide feedback in a timely manner, while creating an empowering environment. Reflecting on the same panel session, Lim Shiying in her piece titled  “Honouring R.E.N.” discusses the importance of the teacher placing the person at the centre of the learning, with unconditional positive regard being fundamental to motivating them to work on our feedback. These two articles give us a peek into the role of the teacher in Box 2. In the same vein, Christopher Tan in his noteworthy MLS assignment also shares three fundamental principles – ‘careful groundwork before the feedback is given, providing well-timed information that focuses on improvement, and also taking into account how learners receive and use that information’ as part of the teacher’s important work in Box 2. 

Our two other reflections on the Assessment Colloquium Workshop help us to understand Box 3 with greater clarity – what students do with teachers’ feedback. The Student Interaction Feedback Framework Chia Hui Ping describes how feedback conversations are critical for two-way growth, and Tools to Enhance Self-Feedback Generation by Adrienne de Souza explains how the feedback needs to be designed well, so that learners and peers are involved. In the Secondary context, Lim Li Qing and colleagues  articulate the use of an enhanced checklist to help students to identify and rectify their own errors and eventually reduce dependency on the teacher. Likewise, Lisa Boon and colleagues suggests the use of Content-Keyword-Support for students to develop self-regulation in and with self- and peer assessment. 

As we study Box 4 more closely, we sense that it is not an easy task for students to move independently into Box 4. We begin to see the need to clarify the term ‘outcomes’. Our group of six school leaders from the NIE Leadership In Education Programme (LEP)  suggest that the key outcomes we should aim for is the learner’s motivation to try and try again until they make progress – and the learner’s confidence to formulate one’s next-step(s) in learning endeavours (Millican et al, 2020). Indeed, could this be the joy of learning that we have been discussing as a nation of educators? In other words, how can we wean students so they can do more of the boxes on their own? 

Many teachers have shared with me that while they can get students to Box 3, the journey into Box 4 remains elusive. The struggle is real – even our most motivated students who work on the feedback and get to the outcomes have no incentive to generate their own feedback for themselves. In simple terms, we need to train students to be less dependent on our feedback. As part of the teacher’s intentional effort to plan for the gradual release of responsibility, how might we train students to process feedback in ways which help them become truly self-regulated? As we re-examine the four levels of feedback, in order to make their journey into Box 4 and become self-regulated learners, our students might need to first be able navigate Boxes 2 and 3 on their own. This compels us to re-think the way we provide ‘feedback scaffolds’ to help our students get to the correct answers. As we engage in this journey, we might want to keep Sadler’s (2007) three conditions for learning in mind at all times. Can the student do it independently, on demand and do it well?  

There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Given that assessment drives and dictates learning, what does it take to raise our assessment literacy levels to ensure that our learners can independently and sustainably achieve learning outcomes? If this is not a reality for every student in every school, then a degree of needful assessment change is unavoidable. What kind of village, or learning community, is required to support teachers and students in experiencing more productive assessment practices? 

The experience by the N4 cluster of assessment champions is a good example of powerful assessment change that can happen by educators are intentional and intuitive in scrutinising the value and values of assessment practices for the benefit of their learners. The sharing by Koh Ee Hway and her fellow assessment champions contains valuable insights on the powerful process of transforming feedback practices to ensure that every child can learn from feedback.  

Finally, because assessment is powerful in its potential to radically change practices and challenge existing assumptions, any significant assessment change will have to contend with resistance (which may not always be negative) as well. In that context, Farah Alsagoff’s observations on grappling with resistance to assessment change in schools offers practical suggestions for addressing epistemic, procedural, and pragmatic resistance. And in her depth look at the underlying and underpinning issues that construct and entrench the dynamics of assessment power, Chen Ying offers three original propositions for using rubrics as a means of sharing power with students and increasing their agency in assessment.   

On behalf of the editorial team, allow me to thank you, our readers, for your time. We hope that you will find the insights relevant, and may the nuggets encourage you inspire your students. May you continue to, through your unconditional love for each student, bring hope through assessment!