 Welcome to our video on assessment for learning. In this video we will look at ways that you can use the types of assessment in your courses to help your students learn. Assessment for learning means we think about how our assessments can help students do their best. Maybe you assume that all assessments help students learn or that all motivated students will automatically learn from any tests we give them, as long as they try hard and study. But this is not the case. Students need our help in order to make sure that they learn not only from our lectures and activities, but from our assessments as well. Here are five key principles to keep in mind so that you can create assessments that help students learn. The first principle for assessment for learning is to help students become active in their own learning. Sometimes students feel that classes are passive, that the teacher is in control, and that they have very few opportunities to have any control over their own grade. They might even feel that when they study hard they can't score well on important tests or papers. This is demotivating for students. You can help by making sure that students know your classes aren't just passive. Students play an active role. You can do this by linking assessments to your student learning objectives that are in the syllabus. This way, students can see why they're being assessed in specific areas. You can also explain to them why the assessment is important and how it will help them in their careers. And third, you can strive to create assessments that are linked to their futures. Whenever possible, make assessments that are based on real tasks your students will need to do in the future. For example, if you teach a tourism course, you can ask students to role play an interaction in English between a hotel manager and a guest who has a complaint. Possible areas to grade on would be if students use key vocabulary effectively, if they speak so that their English is comprehensible, or if they employ strategies covered in class to deal with customer complaints. A fourth way to help students be active in their own learning is to ensure that your assessments are fair. Prepare students for your assessments, such as by giving them a study guide for an exam or answering questions about the assessment before they take it. Be sure you have sufficiently covered all material that you will assess. If you haven't covered it sufficiently, it is not fair to assess students on it. And finally, when you give assessments, make them as interesting as possible. Here is a quote from a student from the study by Moore. Competitive tasks or challenging students can encourage other students to learn. In some cultures, having competitions in class is very effective to get students motivated. You can choose to grade or not grade these competitions. The second is to give effective feedback to students. Feedback should be given so that students understand what they did correctly or incorrectly, and so that they understand what you recommend. For example, you might need students to understand that they got the wrong answer and why it was wrong. Or maybe they need to understand that they did a process or lab experiment wrong and why. If students only find out what they got right or wrong with no feedback on why, they are less likely to learn. One way to help students stay on track with feedback is to make it an ongoing part of the course. You can create progress sheets or assignments where you ask students to record their progress throughout the time period of the assignment. Maybe in weeks one, five, nine, and thirteen of the course, they record what they've done, problems they've had, and how they've overcome the problems. You can then give them feedback on their progress to keep them motivated and on track. You can give students feedback through written comments, for example, on a paper or rubric, or in person, such as through conferences, or through office hours, or maybe before or after class. Or you can structure peer review activities, which are discussed later in this video. One of the best ways to give clear feedback is by using a rubric. A rubric is a grid that describes what grading criteria are and what is expected for each criteria. They will be discussed in more detail in this course. Here is a quote from a student about effective feedback. For me, I want to see them point out my mistakes. My teacher, she knows my mistakes and she wrote how to change it. So for me, I just look for that and not at the overall score. Effective feedback generally does three things. Identify strengths, identify opportunities for improvement or weaknesses, and suggest next steps.