ABSTRACT
Assessment for learning (or ‘formative assessment’) goes beyond measuring the outcomes of learning and taking snapshots of students’ performance, towards integrating assessment fully into the learning process. The most immediate benefits come from giving students advice on how to meet their learning goals and improve performance. For this, assessment is embedded into the teaching materials and students are given immediate constructive feedback. Computer-based feedback works for multiple-choice questions where there are fixed responses and wrong answers can be corrected. More sophisticated systems guide the student through steps in solving a problem, such as solving a quadratic equation. Assessment for learning is a process of mutual adaptation: students reflect on, share and regulate their learning; teachers monitor and assist the learning progress; and computer systems manage the process, providing timely feedback and overviews. The traditional method of assessment for learning is for the teacher to ask students questions.
