Moosa, I really agree with your stance about assessment for learning. It is a pity that we are being driven by what the summative assessment dictates and that the progression of the learners is camouflaged by what happens at that exact moment in time during the summative examination. Instead, the two should be balanced and the only way that the formative can be elevated in status is by leveraging the trust and the professionalism that we assign to teachers. This varies from country to country.

Assessment for learning is a part of instruction,through this process,teachers can judge whether knowledge are gained or not.

Assessment is a fundamental process in Distance Learning (DL) where teacher’s role is less active and students must be more autonomous in learning tasks.

AfL is an integral part of learning, a process that informs students about their own learning and helps the teacher gather information about the students' progress and changes required to their own teaching.

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) emphasizes autonomy and control by the individual who monitors, directs, and regulates actions toward goals of information acquisition, expanding expertise, and self-improvement, determining success or failure in online training. To do that, SRLs need to sustain their learnig trough feeddback and evaluation tools

Testing is one of the strongest memory aides - in fact, if you have a set amount of time to study the time is best used testing an item instead of restudying it. See "testing effects." A test like a comprehensive exam or end-of-course exam can increase retention of the material a year later by at least 100%.

Assesment are both way approach, for students is to know how they achieve each goal for each subject they learn. Where for teacher to know weather their teaching method or approach working effectively to reach each goal of subject that they teach.

Not a silly question at all; rather a necessary fundamental question. Perhaps we should revisit the role of teachers to get the answer for this. I find it rather disturbing to see that teachers are moving away from the role of the mentor towards the role of assessors (summative), judging students rather than identifying the learning progression of the students and helping them out towards the desired goals of education. I believe AfL is well aligned with the core role of the teacher.

Well said Moosa. The role of assessor (of learning) has always conflicted with what I felt was my real role,.

Moosa, I really agree with your stance about assessment for learning. It is a pity that we are being driven by what the summative assessment dictates and that the progression of the learners is camouflaged by what happens at that exact moment in time during the summative examination. Instead, the two should be balanced and the only way that the formative can be elevated in status is by leveraging the trust and the professionalism that we assign to teachers. This varies from country to country.

For supervised learning, assessment is a must. For unsupervised learning, there is no question of assessment however.

As a teacher or lecturer, they have to use assessment in the teaching and learning process. Assessment is very important to identify either students can follow the learning process or they can understand or not regarding what did teacher or lecturer teach in the class.

Recently, I was reading a paper in which there was a distinction between the spirit of AfL and the usage of AfL to the letter. According to a number of teachers, they think that they are using AfL, however the beliefs they expose contrast highly with the spirit of AfL to the extent that they use it to the letter because they have to but not necessarily because they believe in it. I would like to investigate this.

What you describe sounds like the difference between compliance and embedding new ideas. The teacher's goals bein the difference. In the first case, teacher have not been convinced of efficacy, or do not understand the meaning of professionalism. In the second they do. I'm not blaming the teachers. The structue of a school or syste positions teacher's vieoints just as effectively as it positions students. Poor leadership or a poo understanding of leadership somewhere along the chain is often to blame.

As a long time advocate of assessment of learning, and evaluation of programs, I have heard many objections to assessment.  It took me a while to realize there was some reason for each of them, a reason that had to be surfaced and discussed.  I put together this web page of "frequently made objections" and the conversations that they should each start:

http://www.tltgroup.org/flashlight/Handbook/FMO.html

As an addendum to that web page, I'd add this observation.  The toughest discussions about assessment are with educators who have this belief about education:

1. Students' ability to learn is dictated solely by their personal characteristics, which are not changeable by instructors.

2. The role of an instructors including selecting content, presenting it, and testing fairly. This is an intellectually simple activity (other than the sophistication in the field needed to select and explain things).  It may be difficult and time-consuming, but it's simple.  If an instructor can speak the language and knows the content, he or she can teach.

3. The students who can learn, will learn. The students who can't, won't.

So what does "assessment" even mean in such circumstances (other than testing to see who wasn't able to learn)?

That's a tough conversation to have because, as Thomas Kuhn observed, it's difficult for people with different paradigms to discuss them.  Each group thinks their paradigm is reinforced by years of experience, and the foolishness of the other side's view is made apparent by those same experiences.

Thanks Stephen C. Ehrmann for your input. I will have a look at the web page you put up to follow this interesting conversation. For sure, it is a very debatable but one cannot deny the robust research findings about formative assessment, which, many still confuse with continuous assessment.

As I think that learning is not a linear and cumulative process but construction of a personal appropriation of meanings arising from situated in a cultural context, then learning is a process of successive reconstructions. The error and the difficulties are an integral part of this process. So, help the student understand their difficulties, give him clues to overcome them and help him re-enter the learning process is crucial. If this use of evaluation and there is continued work on the evaluation criteria the student himself can go being able to realize on its history of learning and useful to ask for help to solve their problems. It is for these reasons to support learning and professional ethics to understand the usefulness and meaning of the AFL.

Actually I do myself the sane question.  For me it is no so much about assesment in the quantitative sense but imho opinion in the quakitative sense.  Assesment has always been difficult to mebdcause

The short answer is that it should be used for learning because that process has been shown to be very effective. Good assessment provides data about start points for teaching what is most needed for individual students to learn most effectively. (Vygotsky, Hattie) Good assessment provides information as feedback to engage students in their own learning (Hattie). 

I like this article for lots of information and links to follow up:

http://www.aaia.org.uk/content/uploads/2010/07/The-Misrepresentation-of-Assessment-for-Learning.pdf

Thanks Andy. I will go through it. 

It depends on the researcher's scope. If you assess a community,  for example, you need qualitative and quantitative instruments for the analysis of interactions on line.

Dear Doreen,

Your question is like asking why do we need to  taste the new food item prepared by us for first time and again when we cook it for improving it further.

Assessment gives idea about extent of learning, the extent to which learning objectives have been achieved by learners. This allows for  feedback to be given  by the teacher so as to bring about improved learning. 

Assessment for learning very important. All teachers make sure they have to implement the assessment for student in the schools. The assessment better give to the student after finish a couple of topics in every subject or program. This assessment will help teacher either their teaching and learning are effective or not effective. And also either the student can understand or not understand during follow the teaching and learning process.