Different ways to assess learning

Introduction

This page is designed to help you learn about formative and summative assessments and what you can use them for. You'll learn how to choose the best type of assessment depending on your purpose and discover actionable classroom strategies to assess learning effectively.  

How to use this page

As you work through this page, take time to reflect on the questions or, if possible, discuss them with your colleagues. Watch the video clips to learn more. Sample answers are available in the expandable sections, and you can refer to the video transcript at any time.

Before viewing 1

• Do you know the difference between summative assessment (sometimes called assessment of learning or AoL) and formative assessment (assessment for learning or AfL)?
• Have you ever come across the term 'assessment as learning' (AaL)? If not, what type of assessment do you think it might refer to? 

Reflect and make notes on your answers. 

While viewing 1

Watch the first video clip [from 8:51 to 14:23] to hear Claudia Rey explaining the different types of assessment. Check your answers to 'Before viewing 1' as you watch. 

While viewing 1 – transcript [8:51 to 14:23]

So, this is our agenda expressed as three question words. We will be looking at the why, the what and the how, and these are our desired outcomes for today. By the end of the session, we'll all know more about the reasons for assessment, what we assess and how we do it, OK? So that's the deal. And let's take a look at the next slide, because this one has a big graphic organiser which talks about the why. And first I'm going to give you a very short introduction. In the next slide, a little bit later, we're going to look at the two colours separately. When we talk about why we assess, we are actually looking at the purpose of assessment, and we're going to divide it up into two big groups. On the one hand, on the left for you and in blue, there are summative purposes of assessment – this is also known as assessment of learning, and I'm sure that you are all very well acquainted with this kind or this purpose of assessment. When we use tests, exams and quizzes at the end of a unit, at the end of the year, sometimes these summative assessments are even conducted by external organisations. So this is one of the main groups. 

The other one, and this is the one that I would really like to emphasise and focus on today, is the assessment for formative purposes. What does this mean? [speaker talks to participants] So, back to the pink part, the information on the right, assessment for formative purposes, which does not happen at the end of the unit or at the end of the year. This is the assessment that is embedded throughout the process. We can also divide it up into assessment for learning, which is the assessment that we teachers do during a unit, during the year, during a lesson. And assessment as learning, which focuses more on our learners, on our students. They take an active role. They are the ones who take over, so there's a lot of emphasis on self-assessment and reflection, and I know that you are all primary teachers, so you may be saying 'Oh, well, but we're working with very young learners. Maybe they're not ready.' Actually, they are. Even at the pre-primary level, learners are able to self-assess and reflect, considering their own developmental stage, and it also depends a lot on what we do and how we encourage it. 

Now, some of you said before, when I asked you about your feelings, that it depends, and I think that you were more thinking about these two big groups of assessment. You may have some specific feelings about assessment for summative purposes and different feelings for assessment on formative purposes, so in the chat box, you may want to write now about which of these different kinds of assessment you are more acquainted with. Which are the assessments that you use? Are they assessments of learning, like tests, exams and quizzes? Are they assessments for learning, the ones that you use maybe more informally? Yes, and many people are saying, oh great, some people are saying that they are using both, they are using all of them. There are also some comments in the chat box that say that they are focusing more on summative assessments, and you're not alone. This is something that is happening throughout the world in many classrooms. There's still an emphasis on summative assessments, but once again, what I would like you to do today is to try and focus more with me on the formative purposes of assessment and then we'll see how you feel about assessment, in general, at the end of our talk. 

While viewing 1 – suggested answers

• Assessment of learning or 'summative assessment', is usually done at the end of a sequence of learnings, for example at the end of a unit in a coursebook or at the end of term or even a class, so that teachers can evaluate the evidence and form a judgement on how much their learners have understood a particular concept, or how well they can perform a certain skill. The type of assessment itself can vary, but would typically involve a quiz or exam with multiple-choice answers or clear marking criteria for skills-based tests, and using this objective information, teachers or examiners can award a grade or certification.
• Assessment for learning or 'formative assessment', could also take the form of a quiz or a test, but the information the results provide is not used to award a grade in this case but to inform the teacher on how to modify their teaching programme according to how much information the learners have already understood and processed. It could also include peer-assessment or self-assessment activities so that learners themselves can evaluate their own progress, but the important point is that any future learning should be adapted to reflect the results of the formative assessment.
• Assessment as learning is similar to formative assessment if it involves peer or self-assessment because, in this case, the learners themselves need to be active participants in the assessment process. In other words, the assessment actually forms part of the learning and could include any type of concept reviewing or vocabulary recycling activity with the teacher providing feedback, or could also take the form of a self-evaluation activity, whereby the learners recall previously taught language or knowledge and reflect on how much they can remember or produce.

The important distinction to make between the three types of assessment is not so much the type of assessment task that is being used but rather what the information gathered from doing the assessment task is being used for:

• to award a grade or certification (AoL/summative)
• to modify subsequent lessons or courses (AfL/formative)
• to form part of the cognitive learning process (AaL).

Before viewing 2 

• When do you think summative assessment is most useful?
• When do you think formative assessment is most useful? 

Make notes on your answers.   

While viewing 2 

Watch the second video clip [from 14:23 to 19:36] to hear Claudia talk about the different reasons to use either summative or formative assessment, depending on your purpose. Make a note of the examples she gives. 

• When is summative assessment useful? (four examples)
• When is formative assessment useful? (five examples) 

While viewing 2 – transcript [14:23 to 19:36]

Let's look at each of these a little bit more in detail. In the next slide, we have summative purposes, more in detail. As we said, these are tests, exams, quizzes. Dave mentioned some other examples. Why do we do it? Well, there are good reasons, and although I want to emphasise formative assessments, or assessments for formative purposes, which is really the technical term, I want you to know that I acknowledge the importance of assessment for summative purposes. We have to do it. We need to evaluate mastery. We need summative assessments for certification. We need to use summative assessments to report. Teachers report the learners' progress to the parents, to the educational institutions where they work. Educational institutions have to report the achievements of their learners of the institution, to educational authorities. So this is all very valid. We also use assessment for summative purposes for statistics and ranking. This happens and this makes summative assessments very valid. The problem is that sometimes they dominate the classroom. 

So, let's look in more detail at assessment for formative purposes, which is the focus of the next slide. We said before that there are two big groups within this. We use assessment for learning to track progress – in this case, of our learners and to give them feedback. Let's look more in detail at this. When we really track the progress of our learners effectively, we are able to adapt our teaching. If we know exactly where they are and how they're doing, we are able to include in our lesson plans more ideas for reinforcement, maybe for differentiation, because there are some learners that are ready for the next step and some are not. We also use this kind of assessment to provide feedback to our learners, so that they can improve. We need to give very specific feedback that is actionable, things that our learners can actually use to get better at it. So ultimately, it's assessment for learning that helps our learners develop their skills, and then assessment as learning, the self-assessment, the reflection. We do this to involve our children in the learning process. We encourage them to do self-monitoring, and the result of this is to promote learner autonomy. [speaker talks to participants] So, here we are with assessment for formative purposes. Now this is the why of assessment. 

Let's move on to the next slide, so that we can take a look at some other things. I am going to focus more today, I really want to emphasise assessment for learning, which is the assessment that we do during the lesson, or a unit, because we want to adapt our teaching strategies. We want to provide feedback to our learners. We want to help learners develop skills, and this is a great quote from TeachingEnglish, which I think summarises the spirit of assessment for learning. It's a process by which assessment information – the information that we collect – is used by teachers to adjust their teaching strategies, and it's used by students to adjust their learning strategies. Sounds good, doesn't it? It summarises the whole spirit of assessment for learning and I think that now you can see why I want to emphasise it more today. 

While viewing 2 – suggested answers

• The reasons Claudia gives to justify the importance of summative assessment are:

1. to evaluate mastery
2. to issue certification
3. to provide reports on the achievements of the learners
4. to produce statistics and rankings.

• The reasons she gives to justify the usefulness of formative assessment are:

1. to track the progress of learners
2. to provide actionable feedback
3. to adapt our teaching strategies and content accordingly
4. to understand our learners better
5. to encourage learner autonomy.

Before viewing 3 

• Have you ever heard of 'exit tickets' as a method of assessment? Have you ever used them in your classes?
• If not, what do you think they could be? And what type of assessment do you think they are used for? 

Make notes on your answers.   

While viewing 3

Watch the third video clip [from 26:34 to 34:30], where Claudia gives lots of different examples of 'exit tickets' used for formative assessment. She explains how they are a very quick and effective method of checking learners' understanding at the end of a lesson or unit.  

• What are three different types of exit ticket tasks that she mentions in this clip?
• How can you use exit tickets with pre-literacy stage primary learners? 

While viewing 3 – transcript [26:34 to 34:30]

Let's take a look at our next slide because we are now going to move into the most practical part of this session, which is on how to assess, and I'm going to share with you some specific examples in different subject areas. And I want to start off, because I want to emphasise more assessment for learning, I want to start with exit tickets that are used for formative purposes. You know how sometimes we need an admission ticket to get into a show or a concert? Well, this is an exit ticket, so we use it at the end of the concert, at the end of the class. To be an effective exit ticket, it has to be quick. We may need quite a lot of time to design a good exit ticket, but if it's a good exit ticket, our learners should be able to do it in five minutes, six minutes, ten minutes would be very maximum time, preferably something that they can do in two or three minutes. We use it at the end of the lesson and then we collect information once our learners have left, and we use that information to adjust your next lesson plans – 'Oh great, they all got this. I can move on.'; 'Oh, there are many students who are having trouble with this. We need to review it.'; 'I need to think of different ways to present and practise this.' Or, we may want to use the results to differentiate instructions and this is something that Julia spoke a little bit about last week. I don't know how much of that you are able to do in your classes. I know that some of you have classes of 30 students, and with very different backgrounds, so maybe in the chat box you can tell me a little bit about whether you are able to do any differentiation. In many schools, differentiation is a must. It's something that is required because of the great variety of learners that we have in our classes. So, if you are doing anything, any differentiation in your classes, please let me know in the chat box. If you haven't been able to do it— Oh yes, thank you, so you are doing differentiation, so of course, yes sure. I love to see all those replies. Everybody say yes, of course, yes, indeed. So, exit tickets can be an excellent tool for learning that we use in our classes to decide how to differentiate. Let me show you a few specific examples. Once again, I'm going to pick up some of the things there my colleagues spoke about in the previous sessions. Yes, I know, Vanessa. Vanessa says, of course, but it's difficult with double classes. Absolutely, yes, it's very challenging.

OK, let's look at the next slide, where I have some specific examples. One is on small animals, the topic, one of the topics that Griselda spoke about more in detail. The other one is about plants. This could be a very quick exit ticket that we give to our learners, end of the class – three minutes – which is give them a piece of paper, an index card, a Post-it note, and the instructions are: draw a plant and label these parts. I have picked: root, leaf, stem and flower. Now, this is an exit ticket for learners eight or older because they need to read the instructions. The writing is minimal. It's basically labelling, but still they have to write. The exit ticket on the right, which is about small animals, is a true or false activity. Spiders are arachnids, and what we want our learners to just do is write T or F. Bees are arachnids, T or F. Centipedes have six legs. T for True, F for False. Very simple, but it does require some reading and writing, minimal writing, but still. 

Now, in the next slide, you will see an adaptation that we can use for learners that are not writing yet in English. So this is for pre-literacy stage in English, although I know that they're already writing, reading and writing, in French. Yes, exactly, Sylvie. I know that they won't be able to read. That's why I am using this for six- and seven-year-olds. In this case, the instructions are oral. At the end of the lesson, at the end of the class, once again, on pieces of paper, index cards. I like index cards because they are easy for me to use, to group. All of these learners here can do it. These are having a hard time, but can kind of do it. These can't do it yet. So here we give the instructions orally. We say, draw a plant, and it doesn't have to be a beautiful drawing, it can just be a quick sketch. And then, colour the leaves purple, for example – some crazy colour, not necessarily green – and circle the root. The instructions are oral. Children don't need to read or write. They just follow the instructions. And this is also a great activity to assess listening comprehension. Now, in the case of small animals, with true or false. Once again, we give oral instructions, and all our learners have to do is – number one – and they write numerals in French, I'm sure – and if the answer is True, if the statement is true, smiley face. If it's wrong, an X. It can be a check, or we can make it— Oh, somebody, yes, Dave is asking, with such exit tickets when some learners get it wrong, is it because of the language or because of the content and does it matter? And Barbara is also ... yes, right, Barbara, you're talking about how to use True or False. The thing is, the reason I want to emphasise the use of exit tickets is that we collect information, what we do is decide, make decisions on our planning. They are not quizzes to give a grade or a mark, so that's why the why is so important. 

While viewing 3 – suggested answers

• The first three types of exit ticket tasks that Claudia mentions are: draw and label; draw and colour; true or false statements (there are more if you continue watching).
• For pre-literacy stage learners, she suggests giving oral instructions with pictures to remove the need for reading and writing.

Before viewing 4

• Have you ever created your own rubric for formative assessment purposes?
• How do you think a rubric could be used for assessment as learning (AaL)? 

While viewing 4

Watch the final clip [from 46:18 to 51:45], to hear Claudia talk about using rubrics for both Assessment for Learning and Assessment as Learning.

• What tool does she say can be useful for simplifying the language in self-assessment rubrics for younger learners or lower-level learners?
• Which self-assessment method is best suited to pre-literacy stage young learners as it doesn't require any reading or writing? 

While viewing 4 – transcript [46:18 to 51:45]

Now, we can also turn this into a rubric. A rubric is very similar to a checklist but a lot more specific, and here we are using it for learning. So why is it more specific and a bit more complex than a checklist? Because we not only have the criteria – I'm using Griselda's example again: naming the animals; describing the small animals; classifying them – we are including different categories for different levels. Exemplary, wow, 100 per cent, amazing. Proficient, yes, this student can name four or five small animals, she can describe four or five with some detail, she can classify them correctly in at least two different ways. So, this has more options. This rubric can also be used in a different context. Let me show you the next slide, which has the same ideas, but which is used as assessment as learning, because although learners have to read to be able to pick where they are, we're using some visuals, like the super-smiley face, the smiley face – oh, I can see some hearts and thumbs-ups, so I think that some of you are either using something similar, or planning to use it, great. And it's assessment as learning because we are giving our learners the chance to reflect on their learning, to find out where they are and what they need to do. 

So, let's look at another example. I turn, by the way, I created this one using AI tools – artificial intelligence tool – I personally like to create my own rubrics and checklists. Sometimes when I need to turn them into assessment for learning, for me, to assessment as learning, I ask an AI tool – that may be ChatGPT, Bard, Copilot, Magic School, any AI tool that you're used to using – I ask the AI tool to simplify the language for, for example, 8-year-old students whose first language is not English – and it works. Then, of course, as in any AI tool, we have to check everything. We have to make sure it did not hallucinate. We have to make sure that it's not biased. We have to make sure that it's accurate. It's still quite a lot of work for us, but it saves us the time to getting there, rather than trying to think how we can make it more accessible. 

And the last one – great, Pascal already likes it – the traffic light. This is my last tool to share with you and it's exclusively for assessment as learning because it's about our learners deciding during the lesson, or at the end of the lesson, if there is something that they need help with. And this doesn't include any reading and writing because it can be a red dot, a red button, a red Lego piece, a cut-out dot that we give them at the beginning of the lesson. If we see that red dot, it means that our learners are thinking 'This is something that I still need help with', while the yellow dot or the yellow button or the Lego piece in yellow means 'I'm not sure', and the last one, the green one, 'I understand this', 'I can do this'. Oh, and by the way, something that is very useful, that I like to use in class, is coloured cups, one inside the other – the three colours – and the colour that goes outside is the one that our learners have picked so that we can see if it's 'I need help', 'I'm not sure', 'I understand'. So, when we are using it during class time, if we are circulating, it also works as a traffic light for us. Ooh, red – I've got to go there and give a hand. Yellow – OK, this can wait. And understand, yes, green light, so I don't need to worry about this. They're doing fine.

While viewing 4 – suggested answers

• An AI tool such as ChatGPT, Bard, Copilot, Magic School.
• The traffic light self-assessment method, using coloured dots, Lego pieces, cups, etc.

After viewing

• Did you learn any new assessment practices that you would consider using with your classes in future? Which ones did you like best?
• Have Claudia's suggestions made you think differently about using self-assessment tools with very young learners? Which ones do you think you would find the most useful in your classes?

Download the teacher handout for these videos

More on this topic

This webinar presented by Claudia Rey was part of a series called Creating dynamic CLIL classes for primary learners, which was recorded by British Council, France, in November 2024. 

In the series of four webinars, each speaker looks at a different aspect of delivering dynamic CLIL lessons to primary school children. You can watch the full webinars on the TeachingEnglish YouTube channel at the links below:

• Watch 'Increasing student production in English primary CLIL classrooms'.
• Watch 'The different languages of CLIL: Language use in the CLIL classroom'.
• Watch 'Teaching heterogeneous groups in CLIL primary classes'.
• Watch 'Assessment for learning, as learning and of learning in the CLIL Primary classroom'.

Find out more about the webinar series, Creating dynamic CLIL classes for primary learners.