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Assessment, whether it is formative or summative, can be used to encourage and motivate learners to succeed, both academically and socially, in a number of different ways. Reflecting on my own teaching practice in my Initial Teacher Training year, I have met Teacher Standard 6 and its sub-standards by not only making “accurate and productive use of assessment” (Department for Education, 2011, p.12) on a regular basis, but by using assessment to encourage my pupils to stretch and challenge themselves both academically inside the classroom and socially outside of the classroom.

Using assessment to encourage and motivate learners to succeed socially has also helped me meet Teacher Standard 2 and its sub-standards by helping me promote “good progress and outcomes by pupils” (Department for Education, 2013, p.10) not just academically in the classroom but socially outside the classroom too. For example, I co-led a GCSE PE kayaking expedition to Wales in half-term.

In my Initial Teacher Training Year I have learned to use assessment to encourage and motivate learners to succeed by identifying and rewarding success – no matter how small – and using this as a basis for pupil self-improvement. Chappuis and Stiggins write: “Teachers who assess for learning use day-to-day classroom assessment activities to involve students directly and deeply in their own learning, increasing their confidence and motivation to learn by emphasizing progress and achievement rather than failure and defeat” (Chappuis and Stiggins, 2002, p.40).

In terms of using assessment to encourage and motivate learners to succeed academically, I frequently use both formative and summative assessment at the beginning and at the end of my lessons respectively to test the extent to which pupils have retained and recalled prior learning. I use formative assessment at the very start of my lessons to encourage pupils to remember one or more key facts they’ve learned from a previous lesson (not necessarily the preceding one). I link my questioning to the classes scheme of learning. For example, with my three Year 8 classes I often ask pupils when I greet them at the door what one of the key causes or consequences of the First World War was. If the pupil cannot immediately recall the information, then they have to go to the back of the queue. In this respect I use assessment to encourage learners to succeed by introducing an element of competition to the start of the lesson. Most pupils want to get the answer right the first time and enter the classroom before their friends.

In my Initial Teacher Training year I have made a conscious effort to attended numerous CPD sessions on Assessment for and of Learning in order to find new and innovative ways to use assessment as a tool to encourage and motivate learners to succeed academically and socially. Eadie writes that: “There is clear evidence that assessment can motivate learning in the intrinsic sense of stimulating intellectual curiosity. Assessment which motivates students is likely to be achieved by tasks which are… probably more achievable when the method of assessment is innovative.” (Eadie, 2004, p70).

References:

Chappuis, S. and Stiggins, R. (2002). ‘Do Students Care About Learning?’ in Educational Leadership, Vol. 60, pp. 40-43.

Department for Education (2011). Teachers’ Standards Guidance for school leaders, school staff and governing bodies, Crown Copyright.

Eadie, A. (2004). Using Assessment to Motivate Learning - An Overview, Glasgow Caledonian University.