Learners can find self-assessment complex.

This is partly down to perception, where learners see self-assessment as more challenging than it actually is.

And it is partly down to uncertainty, with learners not fully understanding how to go about the process in a meaningful way.

You can instantly simplify self-assessment for your learners by tying it to the learning objective or by creating a pro-forma they can use to structure their evaluations.

Here’s how.

Simplifying Self-Assessment with Learning Objectives

Learning objectives have a number of purposes:

• To indicate to learners what the lesson is about.
• To tell learners what the lesson should help them to do.
• To help the teacher to plan.
• To minimise ambiguity.
• To provide a framework for assessment.

The first two points are important.

I would wager that most teachers will agree that learners will do better if they know what the lesson is about and what it is intended to help them do.

This is opening up success criteria.

One of the three key pillars of assessment for learning. Alongside eliciting and using information and giving formative feedback.

Self-assessment is also about opening up success criteria.

It helps learners more accurately understand what their work is being judged against and the extent to which they are achieving success.

You can use your learning objectives to simplify the process of self-assessment.

Make it the key criterion your learners use to judge their work.

Put aside five minutes at the end of your lesson and ask learners to think about whether or not they have met the learning objective and, if they have, what evidence they have to demonstrate this.

Three ways to do this are as follows:

• Learners discuss in pairs whether they feel they have met the learning objective. They then write their thoughts up in their books.
• Learners write a paragraph explaining to what extent they think they have met the learning objective. They provide evidence to support their claims. This could be examples taken from what they have done during the lesson, or an explanation of what they now understand that they didn’t understand when the lesson began.
• Learners draw a line in their book and label the ends ‘Completely’ and ‘Not at all’. The teacher asks the question: ‘To what extent have you met the learning objective?’ Learners indicate their answers on their lines and then write a paragraph explaining their thinking. If necessary, they set themselves a target for improvement.

In all three of these examples, you can easily extend the activity.

When learners have finished writing, invite them to stand up and to find two people in the room they have not yet spoken to.

They should share their self-assessments and contrast what they have written with what their peer has written, prompting a conversation.

You can scaffold this by displaying a couple of discussion questions on the board:

• Was your self-assessment the same as you peer’s, or was it different? Why?
• Do you feel the same about the lesson as your peer, or different? Why?

The benefits of using the learning objective as the basis of self-assessment are that it requires little if any planning, it focuses learners’ minds on what they have done during the lesson, and it makes self-assessment straightforward (because there is a single success criterion – the learning objective – and everyone knows what this is).

Using Pro-Forma to Simplify Self-Assessment

A pro-forma is an excellent way to structure self-assessment.

It scaffolds the process for learners, making it easier to access.

How you design your pro-forma can prompt learners to think about specific things, or in specific ways.

You can use them to subtly direct how learners engage with self-assessment, and what they think about.

• An Example Pro-Forma For You to Use

Divide a sheet of A4-paper in half.

In the top half, draw two boxes of equal size.

In the bottom half, write the following questions:

1. What have you learned this lesson?
2. What strengths can you identify in your work today?
3. What skills have you used today? Have you used them well?
4. What new knowledge have you learned today? Can you give an example of how or when you might use it?
5. How might you improve what you have done today? Why would it be an improvement?
6. Based on today’s lesson and the work you have produced, what could be your target for next lesson?
7. How might you have done things differently today? Why?
8. What is the best thing you have done in today’s lesson and why?
9. What do you know now that you did not know at the start of the lesson?
10. How might we build on today’s learning in the future?

Create enough sheets for your class and hand them out at the end of the lesson.

Invite learners to choose two questions.

They should then write these in the boxes and set about answering them.

You can use this particular pro-forma repeatedly.

The variety of questions gives it staying power.

And, of course, you can create your own pro-forma, directing learner self-assessment in a way that works for you.

The final point I’d make is that using pro-forma repeatedly helps train learners in that particular approach to self-assessment, speeding up the process and helping them become better at it.

Which is want we want!