Making Good Progress?: The future of Assessment for Learning

by Daisy Christodoulou

Making Good Progress? is a research-informed examination of formative assessment practices that analyses the impact Assessment for Learning has had in our classrooms. Making Good Progress? outlines practical recommendations and support that Primary and Secondary teachers can follow in order to achieve the most effective classroom-based approach to ongoing assessment. Written by Daisy Christodoulou, Head of Assessment at Ark Academy, Making Good Progress? offers clear, up-to-date advice to help develop and extend best practice for any teacher assessing pupils in the wake of life beyond levels.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 9, 2017

Reviews

[Anna Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Making Good Progress is an important read in a time of a shift in assessment policies for educators on all levels. It's a simple and quick read but gets one to reexamine current as well as recommended practices relating to formative assessment. Some of the points in the books may not be actionable for those of us who have system constraints but are essential for us to remember so we may carry out assessments and provide feedback as accurately as we can within our contexts.

[Meaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This raises a range of ideas and questions about assessment, examinations and what progress might look like in the classroom. The solution was not one I would support, but at least this made me think.

[Michael Loveabudge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent book but this stuff bores me to tears

[Louise Jayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This honestly started as such a hopeful book but the conclusions drawn frankly depressed me and sent me spiralling into an existential crisis of why the hell do I bother being a teacher.

[Jonathan Peel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully clear discussion of issues around assessment. This is not a quick fix book and does not claim to be- it is thought provoking throughout and will send me back to the drawing board when considering my planning for teaching and assessment. Above all, it was great to read a sensible discussion about teaching to the text and the whole purpose of education...

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A easy to read exploration of assessment practices which is potential transformative in enabling teachers to work more effectively and students to learn more effectively. Everyone who works in a school should read it.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fundamental problem Christodoulou has with putting forward her vision for assessment in the future is that she doesn't present any evidence in practice. There's plenty of research from academia presented in a readable, accessible fashion that forces the reader to consider their own assessment practices, but there's precious little evidence that it works in the classroom and promotes the outcomes she alleges it will.

Time will tell whether Making Good Progress will indeed help pupils to make good progress. It's certainly an interesting diversion into assessment and a reconsideration of practice that is worth reading.

[Yuri Robbers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insights into assessment of students

A worthy successor to the author’s previous book “seven myths”. Though the book focusses on the Brutish educational system, I found it has a lot to offer for teachers in other countries as well: the insights and research it provides show how different types of testing can be used to their maximum potential, each for their own purposes: most notably student improvement and student assessment. The last chapter gives a vision of the future of testing that may take some years to achieve, despite the fact that all the bits and pieces are already there. This book is certainly transforming my daily practice as a teacher for the better!

[Zeba Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, sharp and useful exploration of what assessment is, why some is worthwhile and some is not, and a clear guide to improving our organisation of assessment.

[Finn Mannerings · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read that forced me to reflect and ask myself difficult questions about how I teach. Very useful indeed.

[Tonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, written by an advocate for effective use of tech in schools. The author points out the difference between assessments that require teachers to judge the quality of a response (extended response questions and performances) often used in subjects like English and dance, and difficulty assessments (a series of questions that get harder so you can compare student achievement fairly easily) often used in maths and science. Assessing quality is notoriously difficult and open to interpretation. Assessing maths using open-ended tasks and a rubric (turning something that is usually a difficulty assessment into a quality assessment) is not recommended.

The book suggests quality assessments are best graded by comparing two at a time and choosing the best of the two responses until all responses are ordered from best to worst. This allows more creative responses to get a higher score than with a rubric.

The author's main point is that formative assessments should look very different to summative assessments. Formative assessments should be specific, frequent, repetitive (recalling information helps move it to long term memory) and raw scores recorded. Summative assessments should be infrequent, done under strict test conditions (no teacher assistance), based around a large domain of content and should include scaled-scores.

Christodoulou suggests a way forward would be an online integrated assessment system with banks of formative and summative assessment questions, including adaptive and standardised tests (sounds a bit like Essential Assessment to me).

I borrowed this book from the NSWTF library.

[Isabel Khine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've genuinely enjoyed reading this over the past few weeks as Christodoulou's lucid and succinct writing is the core of an outstanding introduction to an area of teaching that I have plenty to learn about. Making Good Progress? is similar in fashion to Seven Myths; Christodoulou presents a compelling argument for re-analysing the way that we 'do' formative and summative assessment, and I appreciated the way that she broke down jargon. In line with her assertion that repetition is key to learning, she refers back to fundamental ideas over the course of each chapter, which creates a real sense of building on knowledge from page to page.

As with Seven Myths, I imagine this borrowed book will not be returned to its owner for a while, as I'll be mining its dauntingly large bibliography over the next few months...

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compelling critique of current assessment methods and models. What to do about them? Too thin to have an impact on practice. Found the smidgen of an idea on comparative judgement, especially on long-form writing assessment, such as essay evaluation, potentially useful. But wasn't sufficiently developped to make it useful to practice.

[Olivier Chabot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought Provoking

Solid read. I wish the author had more concrete and applicable solution to the assessment issues. Fully digitally integrated assessment platforms and textbooks are not yet here for Canadians. A user-friendly tool that would empower teachers to build question banks would be a game changer.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account of assessments in school and how they are being and should be used.

There was a lot in this that I had read in other books and papers but had I not done so then this would have been a great summary into a very highly debated topics.

Concisely written.
Pretty good!

[David Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking. Still suggesting arguments and conclusions, appears to make a lot of sense. In particular, I like the argument that exams are not the end goal

[North Landesman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 200 page book on assessment. Highly interesting, with some fairly radical but evidence based theories. I loved it, but I would only recommend this to teachers that are interested in assessments.

[Janette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally someone with good sense explores assessment and puts eloquently into words what teachers have known in their hearts.

[Bex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an easy to read and thought-provoking book on assessment practices. As an English teacher, it gave me some ideas that I could immediately implement in my classroom - in particular implementing and tracking regular low-stakes assessment every week. Like most teaching books, I wish it could have been slightly shorter or condensed as I feel that many of them repeat the same points/research: however, potentially this could have caused it to lose its flow. I would recommend that all teachers read and discuss this book.

[Michael Coop Rushworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has some great ideas about formative and summative assessment. No direct solutions but ideas on what a good assessment model looks like.

[Daniel Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best book on formative assessment.

[Mark Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book looks starkly at assessment practices developed over recent years and provides a no nonsense, evidence based approach to move forward. It really is a definitive text for the world of educational assessment and should be read by anyone wanting to be up to date with best practice.

[K-dizzle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in 2 halves. The first part dealt with the way things are with assessment in the UK. The second half dealt with the way things are going and how that is problematic. It also offered changes to the current regime to allow for assessment to lead to the goal of learning. The book has been well researched but while it offers revelations to UK trained educators, others might find it as a slightly updated version of the concepts learnt while studying an education degree. Hopefully the politicians with powers to make real changes will also read this book and overhaul the assessment system in the UK.

[Ryan Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

enjoyed this very much, short chapters with a clear point and some good examples. Would have benefitted from more examples especially the last two chapters and notable by its absence is any/much discussion of the specific assessment strategies used at Ark schools where Daisy is head of assessment.

The chapter on why you should keep formative and summative assessment largely apart is the standout chapter.

[Catullus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is terrific. An engaging read, full of practical advice, and inspiring for anyone involved in teaching. Made me realise why some of the materials and methods I use don't work, and why some are so effective. Cannot recommend highly enough...should be required reading for anyone entering the profession.

[Doug Napolitano-Cremin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Could have done with this at the start of my PGCE 11 years ago! Very little training is offered to teachers in assessment design - this is a great place to start. Recommended reading for all teachers especially those with responsibility for curriculum.

[David Oates · Rating 5 out of 5]

All senior leaders should read this to get a clear understanding of the challenges faced in creating an assessment system.
Unlike others out there, included local authority "expert" the author presents solutions to the problems. What a novel idea.