“Learning by doing": How the Francois Vatel VMBO works on assessment and evaluation.

Niels was looking for ways to improve the quality of assessment within his school, and came in contact with Risbo through his own professionalization in assessment. This led to a professionalization trajectory around construction and analysis of assessment. We spoke with him about this collaboration and the challenges he encountered.

What exactly prompted you to contact Risbo?

“In my role as exam secretary, I have to monitor the quality of assessment plan and everything around it. Technically, everything was in order. However, it is also about the content and background of assessment. We wanted to
work on the quality of our assessment and on the professionalization of our teams. We started working with all subject area leaders to recalibrate our transition criteria and to work on promotion guidelines. We have also reformulated the assessment vision and the resulting policy. But then you have a “paper document” and we wondered: how do we move forward? How does this affect assessment in practice? After all, assessment is your tool for evaluation, and you want that to be solid. That was the starting question and reason to contact Risbo.”

What did the professionalization process with Risbo look like?

“We noticed that the initial situation differed per subject section, and that we were not yet speaking the same language. So there was room for improvement there. We opted for a program with three modules. The first module was about the basics: what does a test look like and how can we work on recognizability and structure. We organized that module internally. For the second and third modules, we engaged Celine (van der Lienden, ed.) of Risbo.”

The second module focused on constructing tests and the third on analyzing tests, Niels says: “The last module, and perhaps the most important, was about translating the test results to the students. It is very important that the student realizes how their own learning goal relates to the test result. That is ultimately what you want to achieve. That's something we're going to work on even more in the coming years.”

What challenges did you encounter during this process?

“A big challenge was in the second module, with the 'constructive alignment.' So in aligning learning objectives, learning activities and assessment. That is a technical, didactical job, but it also caused some resistance: The time and effort this required was sometimes at odds with the daily work already required of colleagues. It was therefore very important to make sense of it: Why are we doing this? Why is it worth the extra effort and time? What is our common desire?”

“Another challenge was the diversity of the group. You ideally want everyone to get the most out of the course, but that requires thorough preparation and customization for each colleague. I'm very happy with how Risbo handled that.” So it's about staying tuned to each other and listening very carefully to everyone's needs. I also emphasized the urgency: there is pressure from above, from the Inspectorate of Education; these are developments in which we have to go along. I expect teachers to be open and professional and I want to help them do that.”

How important was Risbo's support during this process?

“Apart from the good preparation, I also really appreciated the flexibility. Celine created space for certain processes and adjusted the program and time where necessary. That was really important, otherwise people would have drowned in assessment matrices, for example. Celine also did not come up with a standard story, but really looked at what we needed. I really liked that alignment with our specific situation. They helped us to develop a common language around assessment and brought in expertise that we did not have ourselves.”
 

Where is your focus now, after completing the program?

“Our focus now is mainly on the translation to the student. Our motto is 'Learning by doing,' and we want to make that concrete. Now we still focus a lot on the lesson objective, and we evaluate that with each other. But we also have learning objectives, and these have to be translated into the tests. If the students understand that the tests are related to the lesson and learning objectives, and know “which knobs to turn” to influence the results, then we are on the right track. You can also learn from a test, so that is actually learning by doing! If we achieve that, we have really come full circle.”

How do you see the future of testing within your school?

“One of the conclusions from this track was that it could be interesting to develop a hybrid form between formative and summative education. We are now thinking about how we can move more towards a starting qualification for secondary school. That has a theoretical component, of course, but is actually much more competency-based. So that touches the design of formative action. But formative action is at odds with summative education - and the fact that our final assessment - the exam - is given summatively. So a hybrid form could offer a solution in this. That will be the mission for the coming years.”

Do you have a personal motive in this process?

“When we had to work remotely during Corona, I started experimenting with a different way of testing. I noticed that my students found that interesting and gave feedback in a different way, while I was testing the same things. That was how it started.”

A quest, if you will?

“Yes!”, Niels laughs, ”This is indeed a quest and that is really awesome. How can we make assessment more meaningful for our students as well as our teachers? With Risbo's help we have made important steps, but the journey is not over yet.”

Author: Hanna van Impelen-Emmering