The Importance of Formative Assessment in IBL

A Practical Journey

Before I was posted to PESTA as a Senior Academy Officer, I used to think that IBL was about preparing a set of questions to guide students through an inquiry process to discover concepts. Theoretically this was supposed to lead to a higher engagement level. Through various collaborations with different schools, I noticed that formative assessment, apart from questioning, is a key teaching area that would make IBL work for the students.

Firstly, to motivate students to be curious about the different ways to improve their skills, the games need to be playable. This requires the teachers to constantly assess if the students are able to play the games, then make necessary adjustments. The teacher needs to also assess if the students are working towards the lessons LO, so that necessary scaffoldings or greater autonomies can be given to students. Lastly, the teacher needs to ensure students find discussion in an IBL lesson meaningful. He/she can do so by making their thinking visible, either by class sharing, writing down on paper or the use of technology.

Assess that the Activities Match the Skill Level of the Students

The PE teachers in Unity Secondary School (USS), collaborated with PESTA to embark on an inquiry project that looked at the use of the Games Concepts Approach (GCA) as an inquiry based approach to develop active learners in the PE lessons.  One main finding we gathered from the project was that students became disengaged when the challenge of the tasks did not match the skill level of the students.  Hence the teachers were constantly using various ways to assess if the tasks matched their students’ skills.

For example, Ms Hana Cheong, would constantly observe students to see if they were engaged in the games.  If they were not engaged, she would ask them to discuss and modify the game's rules to make it playable.  This inquiry process not only increased the engagement level of the students in the games, but it also developed the critical and inventive thinking skills of the students.  

Another teacher, Ms Sherry Goh believed that by modifying the games that exaggerated the concepts, students would be able to achieve the LO faster.  Therefore, she would constantly assess the students’ abilities to play the game and modify whenever necessary. Instead of telling the students answers, Sherry preferred to empower the students to discuss and come up with their ways to improve on the game.

Through our conversations with the students, we consistently heard that they could learn better when their teachers made the game playable and gave them the autonomy to help one another.

Assess that the Students are achieving the Learning Outcomes (LOs)

Mr Low Yee Fun, HOD (PE/CCA), Unity Secondary School, used the situational games in GCA to allow students to self-assess.  This was then followed by a small group discussion to choose the skills that they wanted to improve on, so that they could attain the LO.  During the skills development phase, he would encourage the students to help each other to improve their skills.  With the LO in mind, the students become motivated to learn from one another. 

Ms Adele Lim, School of Science and Technology, Singapore (SST), believed that students need to have an end in mind, so that they would be engaged in the inquiry process.  Together with the Sports and Wellness Department, Adele collated a set of video examples that demonstrate how the various stages of progression from the PE Assessment Resource Guide look like.  This helped the students visualize the success criteria of each LO at the beginning of the module.  

Adele would use different approaches to assess if the students were learning the LO.  For example, she used Plickers as a self-assessment tool to check for students’ readiness level in every lesson.   At other times, she would make use of team-talks and peer coaching. The class had to co-construct strategies and teaching cues to lead them towards the LOs. As such, students were constantly assessing themselves to know if they were on the right track towards the end goal.  This motivated them to engage in the discussions. 

Assess that the Students are learning through Making Thinking Visible (MTV)

To co-construct teaching cues, Ms Chong Hui Min of Hua Yi Secondary School (HYSS), often asked the students to explore a certain concept, then discussed in pairs the possible teaching cues to achieve the LOs.  She then tasked them to write the teaching cues on A3 papers, which were pasted onto the wall.  Hui Min would consolidate the “teaching cues' ' with the class and then use peer coaching as an approach to help the students learn the skills.  Students of Hui Min’s class shared that they liked the peer coaching, because it developed critical thinking skills and creativity as they helped their friends.   

To develop the habits of collaborative learning, SH(PE), Mr Lim Kok Sing of HYSS noticed that the peer assessors were not able to articulate their observations well during discussion.  He anticipated that over time, students might lose the motivation to give meaningful feedback to their partners.  Hence, he started asking the students to use their phones to take short video clips of their partners as they took turns to practice.  Together with various scaffolding techniques, we could see that the students were able to discuss on a deeper level with the aid of videos.

When the playing area is large like the football field, assessing the students’ learning can be difficult. The affordances of technology could solve this issue. Mr Teng Hanyong of USS frequently asked the students to discuss the “learning cues” to achieve the LO as a group, then upload the discussion points into the lesson Padlet. The discussion points in the Padlet helped Hanyong to know if the students understood the concepts.  It was also an opportunity for the students to develop collaboration skills. 

Conclusion

The various collaborations with schools has helped me to understand that for IBL to work well, teachers need to be skillful in facilitating active learning in the classroom.  One of the important skills a teacher should have is the ability to assess whether learning has taken place, or if learning could take place.  We need to understand that every student has a different readiness level hence, we would need to use a variety of strategies to meet the needs of each student.  It may sound like a lot of work to become good at conducting IBL lessons, but with practice and finding peers to work with, the learning process can be enjoyable.  Let us then boldly start by taking our first baby steps towards our own IBL journey so that at the end of the day, our students will learn better and also develop 21st CCs.

Contributed by: 

Mr Francis Tang Yee Fun, Senior Academy Officer, PESTA

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