From Feedback to Agency, Growing Learners Through Assessment

When we talk about assessment, it is easy to be drawn to the visible things – the task, the rubric, the marks, the feedback comments, and increasingly, the technology that can make some of these processes faster and more efficient. Yet the articles in this issue invite us to look beyond these. At the heart of assessment is a much more important question:

What do our learners do with the information that assessment gives them?

This question runs through the different contributions in this issue. Several articles focus particularly on feedback. In her article “Using Generative AI to Improve Student Learning”, Sheree Chong challenges us to look beyond the speed and accuracy of Generative AI feedback. Accurate feedback does not necessarily lead to learning. What matters is whether students can understand, evaluate and act on it, and whether our feedback design ultimately helps them transfer their learning and become more self-regulated learners. Her conclusion is an important reminder in our enthusiasm about AI, the best feedback is not necessarily the fastest or most detailed, but the feedback that gets students to think, question, revise and eventually learn more independently.

Likewise, the experience of the NBSS Science Department (“What AI Cannot Do Alone”) brings this question into the realities of classroom practice. Its journey did not begin with AI. It began with years of building assessment literacy, developing feedback practices and strengthening students’ receptivity to feedback before technology was introduced. The progression from a common assessment baseline to feedback coversheets, and eventually AI-enhanced feedback was deliberate. Technology became an accelerator of sound pedagogy rather than a substitute for it. Their experience in the Global AI Nexus of Schools (GAINS) also surfaces an important caution – AI by itself is not necessarily an equaliser. Students of different readiness levels respond differently to AI feedback, and teacher scaffolding remains particularly important for lower-readiness learners.

The companion piece, The Feedback Horizon, takes us further into the leadership behind such change. It documents a five-year journey from Assessment of Learning towards Assessment for Learning and Assessment as Learning, with students increasingly positioned to diagnose their own gaps, reflect and feed forward. Just as importantly, it shows that assessment improvement is also a professional learning journey. Sustainable change came when leadership shifted from directing teachers towards developing their capacity and autonomy.

This notion of progressively releasing responsibility to learners is echoed in Grace Koh and A/P Kelvin Tan’s article on Levels of Student Responsibility for Learning in peer feedback. Their three zones — teacher expertise, differentiation and self-regulation, remind us that student agency does not mean simply handing responsibility to students. Learners have to be taught how to recognise quality, identify a gap and eventually act to close it. The goal is to deliberately increase the space in which students are able to assess and regulate their own learning over time.

Liew Pei Li’s reflection on ipsative feedback pedagogy offers another perspective on this progression. Instead of judging learning only against others or against a final grade, students are helped to see their growth against their own previous performance. Her use of the 3P feedback pedagogy, preparing students for feedback, engaging them during the feedback process and supporting them to act afterwards, positions students as active assessors of their own progress. Importantly, she connects this with the joy of learning – when improvement becomes visible, assessment can build confidence, resilience and well-being rather than simply anxiety.

The remaining contributions broaden our understanding of what assessment can be. The ASEAN Tapestry of Stories by Angeline Heng, Christopher Ow and Alice Lim takes assessment beyond the classroom altogether, using learning journeys, dialogue, authentic storytelling, external adjudication and student voice to develop civic, global and cross-cultural literacy. Finally, Cara Chew and A/P Kelvin Tan remind us that feedback is ultimately relational. Good feedback requires conversation, questions, listening and empathy, sometimes the quality of the relationship determines whether advice can even be heard and acted upon.

Together, these articles remind us that assessment is not simply something we do to learners. At its best, it is something learners gradually learn to do for themselves.

Leading Assessment: Building Capacity, Not Compliance

This resonates strongly with my own beliefs about assessment leadership.

Over the years, I have come to see assessment literacy not as another set of techniques for teachers to acquire, but as an important professional capability that has to be built deliberately and over time. Good assessment practice does not come from introducing another template, rubric, platform or AI tool. It comes when teachers understand the why behind what they are doing, examine artefacts of student learning, make informed professional judgements, try something, study its impact and refine their practice. In that sense, assessment leadership is less about having the answers, and more about creating the conditions for good questions to be asked.

These are questions I believe assessment leaders should keep returning to.

• What are our students learning from this assessment?
• What do they understand about quality?
• What happens after they receive feedback?
• Who is doing most of the thinking, the teacher, the AI, or the learner?
• Are our students becoming increasingly dependent on us, or increasingly capable of monitoring and directing their own learning?

My own experience has also taught me that agency cannot be demanded; it has to be developed. We sometimes say that we want independent learners, and then become frustrated when students do not know what to do with the independence, we give them. The articles in this issue remind us that agency requires scaffolding. Students need assessment literacy just as teachers do. They need to understand standards, recognise quality, make judgements, receive feedback, manage the emotions that sometimes accompany it, and decide what to do next.

There is a parallel here with how we lead teachers. If we want teachers to become thoughtful assessment practitioners, we cannot prescribe every move and expect professional agency to emerge. Leaders need to provide clarity of purpose and a strong knowledge base, but also space for teachers to inquire, experiment, make mistakes, learn from evidence and eventually lead others. This is why I believe strongly in seeing Key Personnel as Assessment Leaders, Teachers as Assessment Practitioners, and Teacher Leaders as Research Advocates, with student learning always at the centre. The aim is not just compliance with an assessment initiative. It is growing the collective capacity of the school to understand and improve learning and being deliberate in the kind of learners we want to grow and develop our students to become.

This is perhaps even more important as AI becomes increasingly present in assessment. The question before us should not simply be, what can AI do for assessment? A more important question is, what kind of learner do we want assessment, with or without AI, to develop?

For me, the answer remains the same: a learner who knows where he or she is going, can recognise where he or she currently stands, is willing to learn from mistakes and feedback, and increasingly knows how to move forward. A learner with the confidence to say, I may not be there yet, but I know what I can work on next.

That is where assessment and growth mindset meet.

Ultimately, the success of our assessment practices should not be measured by how sophisticated our tools are, how detailed our rubrics become, or even how quickly feedback reaches students. The real measure is whether assessment helps teachers become more responsive and students become more reflective, resilient and independent.

Assessment should make learning visible, but good assessment should also make growth possible.

As you read the contributions in this issue, I hope they encourage you not only to consider new assessment practices, but also to revisit the purpose behind the practices you already have. Perhaps the most worthwhile question we can ask ourselves is a simple one:

After all the assessing, marking and feedback are done, who has grown, and who is now more capable of taking the next step?

That, to me, is the heart of assessment for learning.

by Linda Yeo, Principal, Naval Base Sec School