Testing and supporting the use of digital formative assessment

The teacher’s role is shifting from a transmitter of knowledge to a learning coach, helping students understand and steer their own learning. Formative assessment enables the teacher to decide how best to help students develop their learning path. Assess@Learning (A@L) aims to facilitate and guide this change of role through digital formative assessment.

What is DFA?

Assessment only becomes formative when evidence of learning is actually used by teachers and learners to adapt next steps in the learning process. How can teachers deepen their formative assessment practices?

In the course of class activities, it can be challenging for teachers to collect “on the spot” feedback and keep the whole classroom engaged at the same time. Digital tools can provide the versatility and speed that teachers need for collecting and providing feedback. This is only one of the many benefits that digital formative assessment can offer.

Why this initiative?

Assess@Learning (A@L) is the largest European policy experimentation ever launched for digital formative assessment. It addresses the need of policy makers to support and rigorously test digital formative assessment. A@L develops an online toolkit that will guide teachers, school heads, students, parents and policy makers in adopting DFA practices and bring system-level impact.

News and updates

  • Formative assessment in 2050: Possibilities and challenges

    12/01/2023

    When I advocate for increased use of formative assessment in classrooms, there are three
    questions I am regularly asked. The first is how do I know that formative assessment is not just another passing fad in education; one that in a year or two will be replaced by something else that catches people’s attention?

    Read full article
  • Empower students with digital formative assessment - Newsletter Issue 5

    12/01/2023

    How do teachers know what their students actually learn and who is in need of additional support? How can students become more empowered in their own learning? How can digital tools support student learning? And does Corona change the way we think about these questions?

    This newsletter aims to engage organisations working on assessment, as well as teachers, school heads, policy makers and anyone else who is interested in an exchange around these questions

    Read full article
  • Supporting the development of classroom formative assessment: The role of leaders

    09/09/2022

    Over the last fifty years, policymakers around the world have realized that improving educational achievement is important not just for economic success, but also for the maintenance of healthy democracies, and, most importantly, to allow individuals to take greater control over their lives.

    Read full article

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