R8C3 Development: Does formative feed-back and support enable learners to achieve personal learning goals?

Physical, cognitive, social and emotional development all influence and are influenced by educational experiences. This, we know, is an enduring process (see for instance, Blyth, 1984).  Resilient and resourceful learners develop when teaching combines appropriate challenge and support – ‘building learning power’, as Claxton puts it (2002).

Assessment for Learning aims to involve pupils in their own assessment so that they can reflect on where they are, where they need to go next and how to get there (Assessment Reform Group, 2002). This requires an understanding of desired outcomes and of appropriate processes of learning, as well as the opportunity and commitment to act on such knowledge. Such self-regulated approaches to learning can be nurtured by encouraging students to set personal learning goals and by providing supportive feedback. Long-term developmental outcomes concern pupils’ beliefs in themselves as learners, their skills in diagnosing learning challenges and their capacity for personal development in the future.