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Amy Hutton
National University
Abstract:
In the following paper, I will be doing a literature review on the article “Assessment: The
Bridge Between Teaching and Learning (Wiliam, 2013, p. 15).” Wiliam the author of the article
feels that teachers can make any assessment a formative one. This way the teacher is
analyzing what the student knows, needs to know, and what needs to be done to get the student
there. He proposes that we should use five different strategies to accomplish the three
components of formative assessment that I listed above. Within these five strategies, william
also assigns responsibility and accountability to not only the teacher but the students and their
peers. I really appreciated seeing how the peers and the students can be more involved in the
assessment process beyond just being test takers, and by being involved they are much more
likely to learn.
Literature review-domain B !3
will not know whether a student has learned the concept or not. Some assessments especially
pre-assessments and formative assessments help the teacher know where the students’
comprehension is on a topic and this can give the teacher direction towards how or what they
teach. Since this is such an important part of teaching and it is one of the domains (Domain B),
I decided increase my knowledge in this area and I found the article “Assessment: The Bridge
Between Teaching and Learning (Wiliam, 2013, p. 15).” In the following literature review, I will
summarize what the article is about and what I was able to learn from the article.
“Assessment: The Bridge Between Teaching and Learning (Wiliam, 2013, p. 15)” was
written by Dylan Wiliam, and he talks about how we can make any assessment a formative one,
and how we can involve students in the assessment process. First thing Wiliam does is clarify
what formative assessment means to him, which is any assessment that will help the teacher to
know what the students knows and what still needs to be taught. Wiliam (2013) says that in
there are “three key process in learning: 1. Where the learner is right now 2. Where the learner
needs to be (and) 3. How to get there (p. 15 & 16).” If cognitive of these processes, and
performing them regularly then we as teachers can become more effective at formative
assessment.
Wiliam (2013) has five different strategies for assessing more effectively and formatively.
Within these assessments he also includes who would be performing them. William (2013)
says that not only the teacher can perform the assessment, but the student and their peers can
also perform the assessment. The more that a teacher can involve the students and their peers
in the process the better off the assessment will be. The nice thing that William (2013) does is
create a table of the strategies and shows who should perform them. The first strategy is
“clarifying, sharing, and understanding learning intentions (Wiliam, 2013, p. 16).” This strategy
addresses learning process number one of “where the learner is right now ((Wiliam, 2013, p.
Literature review-domain B !4
16).” With this strategy the teacher, student, and peers are involved in deciding what should be
accomplished. The teacher will present a project, and multiple completed projects at different
levels of quality. The students along with the teacher come up with a unique rubric for the
quality of their project. By doing this the student is fully aware of what needs to be presented
The second strategies is “engineering effective discussions, activities, and tasks that
elicit evidence of learning (Wiliam, 2013, p. 2013). This strategy falls solely on us as teachers,
and it addresses number two of the learning process, which is “ where the learner needs to be
(Wiliam, 2013, p. 16).” We need to ask the right questions during discussions and follow-up
with the right questions to a students answers to make sure we are assessing the right concept.
The third strategy, which looks at “ how to get there (Wiliam, 2013, p. 16),” is “feedback that
moves learning forward (Wiliam, 2013, p. 16).” This again is teacher directed. The teacher
needs know when and how to push the student to illicit the best response. This takes rapport
building between the teacher and the student. This way the teacher know when, how hard to
push the student. They also can also use the feedback as way to scaffold the students learning.
The last two strategies fall on the student and their peers and pulls in the “where the
learner needs to be (and) how to get there (Wiliam, 2013, p 15) part of learning. The fourth
strategy is for the students to use each other as “learning resources (Wiliam, 2013, p 18).” This
strategy requires that the students work together to create a quality assignment. This
sometimes mean that they create one, while other times it means that they review their peers’
work to make sure it is reaching it’s fullest potential. By holding both the producer of the work
and the editor accountable the students will strive to produce the best. The final strategy is to
have the “student owning their own learning (Wiliam, 2013, p. 19). Students need to practice
and realize that success comes from practice. We can promote this as teachers by not putting
emphasis on talent but rather on the effort. To get the students to learn the needed concepts,
Literature review-domain B !5
then we need them to buy into it and take ownership of the process of getting there, even if it
means a lot of practice. As Wiliam (2013) so eloquently says, “the most important instructional
In conclusion, I found that this article was a greater refresher on a lot of the assessment
information that I have learned and have been producing in the classroom. I too believe that
even summative assessments can help to direct future learning for students. Wiliam lays this
out in a very clear way. I appreciate how he breaks apart the formative assessment strategies
into who is responsible for each one. I often complete the teacher portion, but I really liked how
he involved the students and their peers in the assessment process too. This is very important
as eventually individuals will need to be able to direct their own learning and be responsible for
what they know. Case and point, is what I and my peers are doing as we completing our
masters. We need to look at what we know and don’t know and we need to figure out how to
get there.
Reference:
California Teaching Performance Expectations. (2013, March). Retrieved April 12, 2019
from https://www.ctc.ca.gov/docs/default-source/educator-prep/standards/adopted-
tpes-2013.pdf