Our research and development work has led us towards two main conclusions. First, assessment can now be readily embedded into learning, including even complex learning activities such as writing or writing to represent any disciplinary knowledge. As a consequence, the traditional instruction assessment distinction is blurred. Learning and assessment can now take place in the same time and space. Every moment of learning can be a moment of computer-mediated feedback. But when working in such environments, the grain source size of the data points may be small and numerous, but they're easily available. In such learning environments with the distinction between instruction and assessment can be blurred, we can move away from the old assessment terminology with all it's connotative baggage. In fact we suggest that a notion of reflexive pedagogy could replace the traditional differentiation of assessment from instruction. >> I want to mention now a third assessment mode, we've dealt with norm referenced assessment, we've dealt with criterion reference assessment, and a third assessment mode is self referenced assessment. In other words, how do we manage student progress, instead of comparing me to the next student, am I smarter than the next student, which is in a way, kind o Kind of irrelevant and kind of invidious in some respects. A more interesting question is, how have I progressed? How much have I learned? If we might say, for example, here's the standard for grade six writing explanatory texts, and when I came into grade six in fact, I was really only at standard four point five, and by the end of grade six, I've got to stand at the six point two, it's actually simply measuring my own progress in the year. In a way that's another very, very relevant measure. When I've reached the standard? Where am I in the relation to a standard? When I'm ready to go into the next standard? And it doesn't assume that I should be anyway, comparatively to the next student, all it really does assume is, we want to see progress all the time, and of course the more progress, the better. >> Second, our research also suggests that the distinction between formative and summative assessment may not be needed in the future. Semantically legible data points that are designed in tensive traditional formative purposes. Why then would we need summative assessments if we can analyze everything a student has done to learn? The evidence of learning that they have left at every data point. Perhaps also we need a new language for this distinction. Instead of formative and summative assessment as different collection modes design differently for different purposes, we need a language of perspective learning analytics and retrospective learning analytics. Which are not different kinds of data, but in fact are different perspectives, and different uses for a new species of data framed to support both perspective, that is future and retrospective, at the past views of the learner's performance.
