Assessment for Learning in School Outreach

Assessment for Learning (AfL) is a key technique used by good teaching practitioners. Strategic questioning, peer feedback and student self-assessment is used by both the instructor and the learner to determine the learner’s understanding and how to achieve learning goals. Despite considerable efforts by the construction industry to work with schools, the effectiveness of these engagements is likely to be reduced without AfL.

Examples of how AfL has been used by Multiplex in its school outreach include:

• Questioning at the start to identify prior knowledge and misconceptions.
• Sharing learning goals.
• Using thumbs up/hands up with eyes closed to quickly assess knowledge.
• Asking learners to assess whether they achieved the learning goal at the end.
• Asking the same question at the beginning and end without giving them the answers.
• Using probing questions to understand thinking and assess whether the learning goal was achieved.
• Asking learners to write down two things they have learnt about the goal’s topic and one thing they would like to learn about.

These techniques and others have allowed Multiplex to review their methods and improve the effectiveness of its education programmes, winning praise from schools. It can even make less popular topics a powerful learning tool.