Helping students to become capable learners

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to argue that the need for teachers and their schools to prepare their students for life beyond their schooldays must be met by requiring teachers themselves to both achieve this aim and produce the evidence of their students' capability as learners. In so doing, they must change their classroom teaching from a focus on transmission of content knowledge to the active involvement of students in open-ended and collaborative learning.Achievement of this aim requires that some specific features of pedagogy be implemented in classrooms. In order to do this, teachers will have to develop the linked skills of design of activities, of guidance of students' progress, of the adaptation of the design through teacherstudent and student-student interaction, and of making assessments at the many stages of implementation and as a final summation of achievement. So a secondary aim of this article is to review the evidence for work which has studied the development of these skills with and by teachers.

A Study of the Implementation of Formative Assessment in Three Large Urban Districts

“…It should be noted that any form of evidence about student learning can be used either formatively or summatively. As Black (2018) pointed out, assessment occurs along a spectrum of student learning, and therefore any given assessment “may serve both formative and summative purposes and can inform a variety of types of feedback which functions within a teacher’s overall model of pedagogy” (p. 146). The goal of formative assessment is to reveal student thinking, allowing teachers to build on existing student conceptualizations and incorporate these ideas into instruction, thereby enabling students to gain deeper understandings of concepts (Heritage, 2007).…”

“…Likewise, Hattie and Timperley’s (2007) synthesis of meta-analyses suggested that feedback provided after effective classroom instruction and oriented toward tasks, processes, and student self-regulation is most effective in supporting student learning. Black (2018) contends that classroom dialog between students can provide important opportunities for feedback and learning. Indeed there is evidence that student-to-student discourse and inquiry learning coupled with strategic implemented teacher monitoring and observation can provide important information about student learning and opportunities for feedback both from teachers and other students (Blatchford, Baines, Rubie-Davies, Bassett, & Chowne, 2006; Harrison, 2014; Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif, & Sams, 2004).…”

Understanding Assessment Processes for Communicative Competence through an Analysis of Teachers’ Reported Practice

“…The assessment of communicative competence is currently one of the Spanish education system's challenges. Numerous authors have put forward proposals to integrate assessment into curriculum design in general [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] and communicative competence in particular [50][51][52]. The improvement in the competences requires new assessment procedures, the development of more precise measurement techniques with more people involved in the assessment and a greater balance between what needs to be measured and what can be measured [53].…”

Epistemic insights: Contemplating tensions between policy influences and creativity in school science

“…However, without teacher guidance, substantive ideas of science can remain invisible. Black () suggests that teachers should reconsider their pedagogy to more actively involve students in sharing and exchanging perspectives of scientific explanations. However, to acknowledge creative contributions from learners, teachers need to appreciate why there is value in recognising the nature of each other's epistemological ways of knowing.…”

“…They suggested that stimulating teaching and enthusiastic learning took place when the pupils suggested their own ideas. Then, in consultation with their teachers, evaluated their findings, akin to Black's () description above. This report was arguably endorsing the growth of personalised scientific thinking through teacher–child interactions,illustrating features that resonated with Davies's () TC and T4C.…”