Managing Assessment for Learning

H ow l ea r n in g p lat fo r m s ca n he l p bu sy te ache rs manage ass e ss me nt for l earning

Ma n ag in g a ss e ssment for le arni ng How learning platforms can help busy teachers manage assessment for learning

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itslearning AS

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Managin g a ssessm e n t fo r le a r n in g

How learning p latforms can help b usy teac hers manage assess men t fo r l ear n i n g

How to succeed with assessment for learning Most teachers and researchers agree that assessment for learning can help raise teaching quality, improve the learning experience for students and increase student outcomes. But how can timepressed teachers, who relate to as many as 170 students a week, deliver quality feedback to each and every student?

How to make assessment for learning work For many teachers, success with assessment for learning boils down to time: the more students a teacher interacts with, the more time it takes to deliver high-quality feedback that students can use to improve their performance.

This paper shows how teachers can put assessment for learning into practice successfully. It also looks at how a learning platform can give more people, including senior leaders and parents, a clear overview of student progress - and gives practical examples of simple assessment practices that can be delivered electronically.

You will: • Get practical tips on how to manage the workload associated with assessment for learning • Learn how to give feedback that students can use to improve their academic performance • Learn how to use feedback to improve your teaching • See examples of how teachers are putting assessment for learning into practice in their classrooms • Learn how to extend the feedback situation beyond the physical (and time) constraints of the classroom

Contents THE THEORY page 5. What is assessment for learning?

The path to successful learning and the 5 principles of feedback page 6. Formative assessment: showing the path to success What is useful feedback? And how can it empower students to improve? page 7. Planning for learning Using assessment to improve your teaching page 8. Combining the physical and virtual classrooms How learning platforms can help you deliver relevant and timely assessment in and outside of class page 9. Saving time with more ‘accurate’ teaching Making classroom time more valuable and sharing assessment information with the people who need it THE PRACTICE page 11. A whole-school approach to assessment for learning See how one school spread the assessment for learning concept to all its teachers page 12. Removing grades with assessment rubrics There’s a whole theory around assessment rubrics, but the concept is simple to understand – and easy to put into practice. page 14. Tailoring feedback to individual student goals Find out how one teacher gives personalised feedback to all students page 15. Tips and tricks Simple and practical ways to improve your assessment practice page 18. The future Creating a productive and challenging learning environment where all students can progress

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How learning p latforms can help b usy teac hers manage assess men t fo r l ear n i n g

What is assessment for learning?

Assessment is a core activity in teaching and, if done correctly, forms a bridge between teaching and learning. It serves two main purposes: to use student reaction to improve teaching and to encourage students to reflect on their own learning.

Understanding the process of learning Assessment for learning requires that students know what they are expected to learn. The teacher works with each student to understand what he or she already knows and to identify any gaps in their knowledge or skills. Then, as the teaching progresses, the teacher works with each student to assess their progress, and gives feedback that will help the student improve.

THE THEORY What is assessment for learning?

And how can it improve teaching quality and student performance?

In essence, assessment occurs at all stages in the learning process and is beneficial for both the student and the teacher. The student learns from the teacher how to progress correctly through the course; and the teacher learns from the student what areas of their teaching should be improved or repeated.

The UK Assessment Reform Group (1999) identifies the ‘big 5 principles’ of assessment for learning as: 1. The provision of effective feedback to students 2. The active involvement of students in their own learning 3. Adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment 4. Recognition of the profound influence assessment has on the motivation and selfesteem of pupils, both of which are critical influences on learning 5. The need for students to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve The question is: How can teachers put this theory into practice?

The word ‘assess’ comes from the Latin verb ‘assidere’, meaning ‘to sit with’. This implies that the teacher should sit with or beside the learner when giving assessment.

But this doesn’t have to be physical; it can be delivered through electronic forms as long as the student feels central to the teaching universe.

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How learning p latforms can help b usy teac hers manage assess men t fo r l ear n i n g

Formative assessment: showing the path to success

Planning for learning

Assessment for learning requires giving frequent feedback that students can use to improve their learning as the course progresses.

Assessment for learning is not just about the student: it’s also a valuable tool in a teacher’s planning and can help ensure the teaching gets better and better.

What is quality feedback?

Timing is crucial

Planning for assessment

All students perform better if they know the goals they are aiming for. Therefore, feedback can’t begin until the teacher has outlined the skills a student should master, or the knowledge they should have by the end of the course. Once this has been done, feedback should be given regularly to ensure that the student continues to move along the path to success.

For Henning Fjørtoft, Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who has worked extensively with descriptive feedback, timing is key. The feedback should be delivered in connection to the actual work, before the final grade has been given, so students have the opportunity to use the feedback to improve their work.

Connecting feedback to individual student goals

The feedback model

In order to succeed with assessment for learning, the learning goals need to be clear right at the start – for both the teacher and the student – so that assessment during the course has a clear objective. It’s therefore important that a teacher begins their planning by identifying the learning goals and success criteria, and then designs activities that will help their students achieve those goals.

According to Gordon Stobart, Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of London, quality feedback should be clearly connected to the learning objective – and should also be directed to the individual goals of the student. Some students, for example, may be aiming to get a simple pass grade, while others may be aiming for a pass with distinction. To put this into practice, the teacher should know each student’s goals and tailor their feedback accordingly.

“You mention a lot of key concepts, but don’t demonstrate your understanding of them.

Perhaps you can add a section showing how we can use the concepts in the context. For example, you could draw a parallel with the concept of democracy and the elections last year.”

Using descriptive feedback, instead of marks, to motivate In traditional secondary education, grades work as a motivating factor for many students. But, while grades can be motivating for high performing students, they can be equally demotivating for low performing students, as Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at the Institute of Education, University of London, argues.

Research shows that, when done well, formative feedback is much more motivating for students.

The feedback must focus on the student’s achievement as well as their need to improve. It should praise where the student has succeeded and point out what the student can do to improve the quality of the work even further. And, while grades are often not awarded in primary school, primary students will still benefit enormously from descriptive feedback of this kind.

This is an example of a good feedback model. The teacher describes what the student has done, then offers a way to improve. By using this model, the student learns what they have done well and is then given a way to do better. But there are many other feedback models and most teachers find a balance that suits their way or working and their students.

Formative feedback There is no single definition of formative feedback, but it can be summed up as feedback given during the education process – before a final grade is given – that helps the student improve the work they are doing.

Summative feedback Summative assessment comes at the end of the education process, once the work is complete. It’s usually a grade that shows how well the student has understood and used what they have learnt.

Not just for students By constantly evaluating students’ work throughout the course, teachers can identify the aspects of their teaching that students have not understood. It’s then possible to repeat certain aspects again, perhaps in a different way, until students have understood them. In this way, feedback helps teachers constantly assess and improve their own teaching.

Using assessment for next term’s planning At the end of the course, the teacher can look back at the assessments they made.

This should give them a clear overview of what worked during the course and what didn’t – and they can then plan their next term’s teaching with this in mind.

By reviewing assessments, teachers should also get a good idea of what concepts or topics their students understand easily and what concepts they generally struggle with. Although next year’s students may have different needs, this information is a valuable guideline when deciding how much classroom time to dedicate to different areas of the subject – and can help ensure teachers don’t lose classroom time teaching a concept that students already understand.

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How learning p latforms can help b usy teac hers manage assess men t fo r l ear n i n g

Combining the physical and virtual classrooms

Saving time with more ‘accurate’ teaching

How can learning platforms help teachers deliver relevant and timely assessment to students in and outside of the classroom?

Assessment for learning requires dedicating time to every student. This can be problematic for time-pressed teachers, many of whom teach many classes a week. But when done well, assessment for learning should save teachers time in the long run.

Extending the classroom

The formative power of online portfolios

Making classroom time more valuable

Learning platforms give teachers the ability to improve the quality of feedback they give to students during class. And the same tools can also be used to extend the teaching space beyond the traditional confines of the classroom without extending a teacher’s day. This is because online learning platforms, such as itslearning, enable students to log on at home and continue their work. Once a teacher has set up an online learning environment, their students can continue to work at home, learning from videos, revision documents and other study materials, and interacting with other students through online discussion forums and chats, surveys and video conferencing tools.

ePortfolios are a great example of how online learning platforms can help teachers deliver formative feedback that students can use to improve work before the final deadline. With itslearning, for example, every student has both a working portfolio (for work in progress) and an assessment portfolio (for completed work).

This gives teachers the opportunity to look at a student’s work in progress and add constructive formative feedback – so the student can revise and improve their work before final delivery. This also means that the teacher does not have to assess all their students’ work at the same time. Instead, they can spread out the assessment work, either working from home or school depending on their schedule.

According to Auckland University Professor John Hattie, up to 50% of what is taught in the classroom is already known to students. Gathering assessment information from students on an ongoing basis – for example, through tests, surveys and discussion forums in the learning platform – enables teachers to understand exactly what students know and don’t know. They can then use this information to re-evaluate their lesson plans, and ensure they are using their classroom teaching time to address gaps in their students’ understanding.

Assessment for learning in and outside the classroom For teachers looking to practice assessment for learning, learning platforms give them ever more opportunities to deliver timely and relevant feedback to students – enabling their students to improve work before the final deadline – and gather assessment information to help them plan and improve the next class. But how can this work in practice?

Giving students a voice after class Polls, discussions or surveys allow teachers to invite students to comment or contribute their thoughts on the day’s teaching when they get home. As well as enabling students who do not feel comfortable speaking in front of the class to comment, this also allows students to offer more considered replies, after they’ve had time to digest the day’s teaching. The teacher can address some of the comments or issues raised in the next class.

Revising teaching based on student understanding According to researchers such as Dylan Wiliam, the best teachers constantly assess their students’ understanding and adjust their teaching to suit.

This can be done through a simple show of hands or a question and answer session – or inside the learning platform.

Teachers can, for example, post concept-check questions on online discussion forums, surveys or digital tests and ask students to respond to the questions during the class, and then use the students’ responses to find out how well they grasped the concept. Teachers can also use these tools to check student understanding between classes – and use the results to adjust their next lesson plan so their students are spending enough time on each task. (See the tips and tricks section to see how to do this in practice.)

All the information at your fingertips Using a learning platform to deliver assessment for learning is not just about delivering timely and relevant feedback. It also helps the teacher gather, organise and share assessment information quickly and simply.

Traditionally, a teacher will add feedback and grades to the end of the piece of work, record the grade in a class or student grade book, and then return the paper to the student. As a result, the teacher has no long-term overview of the feedback they’ve given each student – and so has to rely solely on grades to see how the student has performed over time.

However, if the grade and feedback are added to the work electronically inside the learning platform, this information can automatically be transferred to the class and student grade book. The grade book then provides a permanent record of every student’s assessment information for the entire term, making preparing reports simpler. The information can also be easily shared with other teachers, mentors and even the student. It can also be shared with parents before teacher/parent meetings, ensuring both parties are on the same page at the start.

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A whole school approach to assessment for learning Many individual teachers find their own way to make assessment for learning work with their schedules, resources and students. But can the theory be applied to a whole school?

THE PRACTICE There are many teachers who are making assessment for learning work – for themselves and for their students. In this section, you’ll find examples that you could use in your teaching.

Simplicity: the best motivation for all staff At one upper secondary school in Norway, staff have embedded assessment for learning into the entire teaching system. It may sound like a daunting prospect, but the technique is surprisingly easy: and this is a key reason why it works.

Putting formative assessment at the heart of education for all teachers All teachers in the school use itslearning’s online learning platform to set assignments and return them to students. This gives them a fantastic opportunity to give valuable assessment to each student after every assignment.

When returning an assignment, the teacher simply writes comments in the notes field, explaining 1–3 things that the student did well, and 1–3 things the student can do to improve. These comments (as well as the grade) are automatically included in the student grade book, which gives both

teachers and students a quick overview of all their assessments over the term.

Since employing this technique, teachers at the school have noticed a marked increase in the quality of student/teacher conversations during the term, because the teacher always has information to hand about the student’s progress.

Keeping parents and form teachers in the loop itslearning also includes a secure parent portal where parents can find information about their child. All grades and assessment comments from the grade book are automatically exported to the parent portal, giving parents a quick overview of how well their child is doing and what they need help with. Similar information is also available to each student’s form tutor and mentor.

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How learning p latforms can help b usy teac hers manage assess men t fo r l ear n i n g

Removing grades with assessment rubrics There’s a whole theory around assessment rubrics, but the concept is simple to understand – and easy to put into practice.

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Using gradeless assessments to guide student growth For many students, grades are the ultimate assessment. But, as both Dylan Wiliam and Henning Fjørtoft argue, if a student is concentrating on the grade, they can miss the important development information in the feedback. One approach is to remove grades from coursework altogether and instead use assessment rubrics.

An assessment rubric is a scoring guide that is used to evaluate a student’s performance based on various criteria rather than a single grade.

Usually handed out before the assignment, it acts as a working guide for students and teachers, and requires that students think about the criteria on which their work will be judged right from the start.

This example of an assessment rubric is used by Henning Fjørtoft inside itslearning with adult learners. He uses the learning platform to distribute assignments and rubrics, and his students hand in assignments through the platform. In this way, the platform acts as a digital container. All Henning’s rubrics, student work, feedback and assessments are gathered there, giving Henning a quick and clear overview of his students’ progress.

Putting rubrics into practice The technique described here is based on a practice by a teacher trainer, but it can be applied in almost any subject. Here’s how it works.

The teacher puts the assessment rubric onto the learning platform alongside the assignment. The rubric contains three or four assessment criteria, as well as three levels of accomplishment: not approved, approved and outstanding. The students read the rubric before they start, and work with the assessment criteria in mind. (It’s also possible to work with students when creating the rubrics so they have ownership and understanding from the start.)

When they’ve completed their work, the students look back at the rubrics and assess their own work.

At the end of the assignment, they hand in their assignment along with their own assessments, including a brief description of why they believe they achieved that level in each of the assessment critera.

High goal achievement

But does it save you time?

Initially, this approach may take time to get started.

You need to create the assessment rubrics for each assignment, and you need to carefully read the student’s work in order to match it to their own assessment. But as your students progress, they become much better at assessing their own work – and you can simply skim their work to make sure their assessment is correct.

On some tasks, it’s also possible to hand the assessment over to the students completely. In this case, you can ask students to assess each other’s work using the assessment rubrics.

Medium goal achievement

Low goal achievement

You show a very good overview of the important facts.

You show a great deal of knowledge about the subject.

You show some knowledge of the subject.

You can explain things as part of a greater whole and use facts to discuss it.

You can explain some connections and show the ability to discuss.

You show that you see some connections and can discuss them in a simple way.

You actively take part in discussions and use your technical knowledge to argue for your opinions.

You take part in discussions and use some technical knowledge to argue for your opinions.

You take part in discussions and argue for your opinions.

This example of an assessment rubric comes from a primary school in Norway. The rubric comments only on positive achievements: this means that even the lowest level shows what they student has mastered as opposed to what they have failed to do.

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Tailoring feedback to individual student goals

Tips and tricks

The best feedback acknowledges individual student goals. Here’s one technique that makes this possible – and quick – even with large groups.

There are lots of ways to make assessment easier to do regularly and often. Here are some ways that you can use a learning platform to improve how you deliver formative assessment and gather formative information from your students.

Using polls to track student understanding It’s important to continually assess student understanding throughout the course. This way, you can find out what your students are struggling with, and adjust your teaching to suit. A quick and easy way to do this is to use the learning platform to poll your students’ understanding and opinions.

Dealing with mixed motivations

Your goals, your feedback

In secondary school, most teachers are faced with a common problem. Students have varying abilities and vastly different motivations. For example, one student may want to pass a subject with the highest possible grade; while another is happy to scrape a pass so they can get the necessary points to study a different subject at college.

The teacher uses the results from the initial test to adjust his standard course plan. For example, if most students struggled with complex equations in the test, he plans extra time for that topic in class.

Both these students need different things from their teacher’s feedback. The problem is gathering and then remembering all these different motivations every time you give individual feedback.

Assessing individual goals at the start One maths teacher at a vocational college has developed a simple technique to address this issue. At the start of the course, he sets his students a basic maths test in itslearning to find out what level of understanding they have. He also asks his students to complete a survey about their motivations, including the grade they are aiming for and their goals for the future.

He also transfers the information from the survey to the student’s individual learning plan in the learning platform. This gives him a clear overview of each student’s motivation that he can refer to every time he gives feedback – either in written form on assignments or in conversations during a lesson. This way he can ensure the feedback addresses the specific goals that the student set out at the start of the course.

According to the teacher, even if he only speaks to the student for two minutes, because the feedback is directed towards their specific goals, they still feel they’ve got a lot from it – and that makes it simple for him to give valuable feedback often.

Simply create a poll that asks a simple conceptcheck question and add it to the front page of the course. Your students’ answers will quickly tell you whether or not they’ve grasped the concept. You can ask students to complete the poll during class time to check they’ve understood the teaching; or you can ask them to take the poll at home and then use their answers to adjust your next lesson plan so you are covering topics the students will most benefit from.

How to do it in itslearning: 1. Click Add content block on your course page 2. Select Poll 3. Add your question and click OK 4. You poll appears on the course dashboard

You can also use this type of poll to find out what type of activities your students prefer – and which ones they’d like you to drop.

Think about it.

What do you know?

Quick check What do you think was the main cause of temperature increase during the 19th century?

It is snowing because it is cold 60% It is cold because it is snowing 20% I don’t know 20%

Vote!

Man-made causes Natural causes

Vote! view result

A simple question like this will tell you whether or not your students have understood the teaching.

Polls give teachers a very quick idea of how successful their teaching has been.

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How learning p latforms can help b usy teac hers manage assess men t fo r l ear n i n g

Using online discussions for assessment for learning Online discussions can be an excellent tool for assessment for learning.

Let’s say you’ve been working on the concept of democracy for a couple of lessons and want to know how well the students have understood the work. You can hold a classroom discussion, but not all students are comfortable speaking in front of the class and they don’t have much time to reflect on their answers before they speak. So it might be worth using an online discussion, either instead of the classroom discussion or in addition.

You can use their responses to judge how well they have understood the concept, and adjust your next lesson plan if required. You can also give feedback to students in the discussion itself, or wait to address issues in class.

As opposed to polls, online discussions allow students to have greater input. The students can influence the direction of the discussion and learn from each other in the process.

How to do it in itslearning: 1. Go to your course dashboard and click Add in the tree menu.

2. Select Add discussion

Simply start the discussion with a simple question and ask your students to respond for homework.

The students can share their ideas and opinions in the discussion forum, and can also make it more interesting by adding photos, sound or video files or links to support their comments.

What is democracy?

Reply with quote

3. Give the discussion a title and description and click Save 4. Now click Start new thread. Give the thread a title and ask your question in the description. Click Save.

Edit

Delete

Give a practical example of a situation where you were part of a democratic process.

Miss Anderson

Fake democracy?

Tim Right

Reply with quote

Edit

Delete

We voted for a captain on the football team. It was bad. The most popular guy got elected, not the best player. The process was democratic, but not right……

School democracy?

Reply with quote

Edit

Delete

I was elected to the student council by my class mates. We were 4 candidates but I got most votes and got the seat in the council.

Benjamin C. Reply with quote

Morten F.

Edit

Delete

The student council does not work. They never take the decisions I would like them to. Like the question of the theme for the next school dance.

My suggestion was much better than the one they chose.

This feedback gives the teacher valuable information about how students perceive the concept democracy. She has a permanent record of the discussion and can use the information when deciding how to improve upcoming lessons.

Letting students answer assignments with audio Many teachers don’t have time to listen to all students read their work during class – and this can be a problem, especially for language teachers.

One solution is to ask your students to record themselves reading at home or in the computer lab. This way, you can listen to everybody when you mark the assignment and can give feedback on pronunciation as well as other elements of the work. (You can give written feedback, or record your feedback orally).

This technique can be used in many settings. For example, you may ask students to read books for homework and explain what the book is about to the rest of the class. You can do this with some students during class time, but you will rarely have time for every student to speak. So ask the other students to record themselves talking about the book at home. You can then add the recording to an online discussion forum and ask the other students to give feedback on both the review and the presentation.

How to embed recordings in discussions in itslearning: 1. Ask the student to open the discussion.

When they are ready, they need to click the text field, click the Insert button and select New video recording or New Audio recording.

2. The student needs to click Allow in the pop-up box and enter a name for the recording on the next screen.

3. To record, they click the red record button and start talking.

4. If they are happy with the recording, they click Insert to add it to the discussion.

They can redo the recording by clicking the record button.

5. The recording will be automatically inserted into the text field (an icon represents the sound or video clip) and other students will be able to play it when they open the discussion forum.

Audio feedback Many teachers find that they give faster and more nuanced feedback when they speak to their students. But in large classes, giving face-to-face feedback to each student can be time-consuming.

One simple answer is to use your learning platform’s audio recorder.

Once you’ve read the student’s work, simply open the audio recorder in the learning platform and record your feedback. Your student will get a notification that the feedback is ready and will be able to listen to it at home. When used in combination with face-to-face and written feedback, this technique can add a new dimension to a student’s educational experience.

How to do it in itslearning: 1. Make sure you have a microphone and (optional) web camera connected to your computer 2. Open the assignment answer. Click the Comment text field, and click the Insert button. Select New video recording or New Audio recording.

3. Select Allow when the pop-up box opens.

4. Enter a name for the recording. Click the red record button and start talking.

When you’re done, click Stop.

5. If you are happy with the recording, click Insert. You can redo the recording by clicking the record button again.

6. The recording will be automatically inserted into the Comment text field.

(An icon represents the sound or video clip.) The student can play the recording when they open the assignment.

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The reference list

What does the future hold?

Assessment for learning places the student at the centre of the learning universe. By ensuring every teacher not only practices assessment for learning, but shares their knowledge of their students with other teachers, we can ensure a holistic approach to education that nurtures the students and helps them achieve more.

Educating the whole child Hillsdale High in the US worked for over ten years to change the focus of their teachers. The goal was to stop teachers working in isolation. Instead, teachers at the school work in a group to educate every child, and share assessment information with other teachers. This has been extremely successful: fewer students drop out, more students make quick progress and every student feels they are the heart of learning at the school.

This is not an isolated case. In many schools in Norway, for example, every student has a mentor (called a Contact teacher) who receives assessment information across all subjects. This person uses this information in discussions with the student and the student’s parents, helping them understand the entire picture: so they can work on general weaknesses and nurture general strengths.

The ultimate goal For teachers, the goal of this work is to create a school environment where students’ intellectual and creative capabilities are stimulated every day and in every subject, so they retain their love of learning and strive to improve themselves. The goal is to nurture more rounded human beings and not just good academic performance – and maximise every students’ potential to contribute to society.

How can technology support this?

The 2011 Horizon Report K-12 Education looks at the technologies most likely to impact education in the coming five years. Released by the New Media Consortium in collaboration with the Consortium for School Networking, the report recognises new technologies that have the potential to change the way educators, students and institutions work.

There are two particular technologies identified by the report that could have a major impact on how schools deliver assessment for learning.

One is the rise of personal learning environments (PLEs). A PLE is a concept in which students can develop their own approach to learning. For this to happen, the student and teacher need access to a customisable learning technology, such as a learning platform. The student can then create their own learning space within the learning platform, including their own ‘resource libraries’ that incorporate materials that suit their learning style.

This will require a shift in the teacher’s role from an instructor to a guide, who helps the student decide what and how to learn and provides individual formative and summative assessment.

Another key technology is learning analytics (advanced and detailed data on student performance). At the moment, most learning analytics data focuses on summative assessment, but in the future learning platforms will increasingly enable educators to gather, access, share and analyse formative data. This data can then be used by teachers to recalibrate their teaching to suit their students’ ever-evolving needs; and by school leaders to develop better and more relevant teaching strategies.

Assessment for learning / Vurdering for læring: Several video lectures in English on the topic Assessment for learning. http://www.udir.no/Vurdering-for-laring/ Sporsmal-og-svar/ Fjørtoft, Henning: Effektiv planlegging og vurdering, Landslaget for norskundervisning 2009 http://www2.svt.ntnu.no/ansatte/ansatt. aspx?id=1024 Hattie, John: Visible Learning, Routledge, 2008 Video clip: The leader as evaluator, part 3: seeing learning through the eyes of students: http://vimeo.com/23887656 Stobart, Gordon http://www.ioe.ac.uk/staff/CPAT/LCCN_78.html Video lectures: • Gordon Stobart - Taking AFL forward, part 1 • Gordon Stobart - Taking AFL forward, part 2 http://www.udir.no/Vurdering-for-laring/ Sporsmal-og-svar/ Wiliam, Dylan http://www.dylanwiliam.net/ Video clips: BBC The Classroom experiment (2011) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00txzwp Video lecture: Assessment for Learning (2010) http://media01.smartcom.no/Microsite/ go.aspx?eventid=5099 Hillsdale High School, San Mateo, California, USA: Case study: Hillsdale Case Study from Windows on Conversions http://www.srnleads.org/events/institutes/ hillsdale/hillsdale_files/pre/old-stuff/hillsdale_ case.pdf Apeltun Primary School, Bergen, Norway: Removing the barriers to parental engagement http://www.itslearning.eu/ apeltun-primary-school

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Designed for teachers and how they want to teach, itslearning is a cloud-based learning platform that connects teachers, students, parents and school leaders – both in and outside the classroom. It gives teachers countless ways to create engaging lessons and resources, makes sharing materials easy, and automates routine tasks so teachers have more time to focus on their students.

A cloud-based platform that’s easy to set up and maintain, itslearning is used by millions of teachers, students, administration staff and parents around the world. It can be found at all levels of education, from primary schools to universities, helping teachers make education more inspiring and valuable for today’s students.

At itslearning, we pride ourselves on understanding the needs of education. More than 20% of our staff have worked as teachers and we can often be found in the classroom, learning from teachers.

Helping teachers collaborate with colleagues

We provide a full range of services to educational institutions, from simple training sessions to full-scale implementation projects. Established in 1999, we are headquartered in Bergen, Norway, and have offices in London, Birmingham, Berlin, Paris, Mulhouse, Malmö, Enschede and Boston.

Head office itslearning AS, P.O. Box 2686, 5836 Bergen, Norway +47 5523 6070 www.itslearning.eu | post@itslearning.com