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Assessment for Learning: 7 ideas to harness the potential

7. Tell me a wrong answer

Why:
Misconceptions that remain hidden or unaddressed can become embedded. It is harder to unlearn a long held idea. Beliefs can stick until challenged by a different idea that is better explained or evidenced. You can unlock powerful classroom conversations by reflecting on a range of possible wrong answers, exploring fallacies in thinking and looking at the potential for personal biases to skew results.

Try:
Divide up some space on the whiteboard. Ask children to volunteer some potential wrong answers and then ask them to explain how they knew it was wrong. As well as exposing more potential misconceptions to the class to deal with or recognize, this approach promotes reflective thinking and helps to model valuable self-checking behaviours.


Final thoughts

Embedding ideas of continual feedback and reflection into teaching practices can be more inclusive and it begins to model important meta-cognitive processes to students, helping to make them more effective agents in their own learning. 

Students should have the opportunity to learn that dealing with failure or ambiguity are welcome and necessary parts of effective learning.  Dr Carol Dweck coined the term ‘Growth Mindset’ to describe the power in evolving the beliefs people have about their own learning and intelligence. 

In thinking about Assessment For Learning we found ourselves talking about students Learning To Learn and the motivating value for a learner in developing a Growth Mindset instead!   

Find out more

The goal is raising attainment and research suggests engaging learners in regular cycles of focussed feedback can have a significant impact on results.  ‘Formative assessment has been empirically associated with gains in student learning, teachers’ increased knowledge of their students’ understanding, and an increase in the alignment of instructional activities to students’ abilities’
Black, Paul & Wiliam, Dylan. (1998/2010). Inside the Black Box Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment.

Dr Carol Dweck revisited her work on Growth Mindsets and highlighted some of the challenges in creating the right environment for learners and being able to see beyond simply rewarding effort.  Students need to have the opportunity to explore new methods and have a repertoire of ways to ask for and find help.
https://www.studentachievement.org/wp-content/uploads/Carol-Dweck-Revisits-the-Growth-Mindset.pdf

  

Join the discussion

If you have tried any of these ideas or developed successful self-assessment and evaluation approaches of your own for your own classes and students, please feel free to share here in the comments. Perhaps there is a challenge or barrier to implementing ideas like this in your classroom that others may recognise and want to discuss.

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