The far-reaching effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education systems are as yet unknown. Concerns are already emerging among education authorities and practitioners regarding what and how students are actually learning during a school year that was anything but normal. This global emergency has necessitated the provision of remote educational services. Assessing the effectiveness of the teaching–learning process is critical to determine whether students are learning as expected under the current circumstances and to identify and measure learning losses that must be recovered. Since they are not synonymous with one another, distance education and the remote provision of educational services– which are now the most common education modalities for schools across Latin America and the Caribbean – must be clearly distinguished. The latter encompasses various forms of operation, including printed material, educational programmes broadcast on radio and television, digital platforms or a combination of these methods. This document seeks to identify a series of considerations and approaches that should inform government decision-making regarding policies and procedures for the formative assessment of students in the context of remote provision of educational services. Section 1 presents some useful considerations to guide and support teachers in conducting formative assessment relevant to the current context. Section 2 shares experiences that have proven to be successful in advancing formative assessment under adverse conditions. Section 3 provides a set of guidelines on the use of diverse methods and tools for remote formative assessment. Section 4 classifies formative assessment methods according to the means used for the provision of remote education services and describes each method in turn. Section 5 identifies some of the pandemic-induced challenges faced by the main education actors. Finally, section 6 summarizes the main ideas put forward in the document. The appendices include a list of examples of learning management systems and another of digital tools to support formative assessment within the context of remote delivery of education services. This document is intended to inform education authorities and provide inputs for their deliberation when preparing guidelines and procedures to support teachers and others responsible for conducting formative assessment to measure the outcomes of the teaching–learning process. Such assessments are also valuable for collecting evidence that can be used to adjust practices linked to remote provision of education, taking into account students’ diverse circumstances and living conditions, with emphasis on the most vulnerable.

Formative learning assessment in contexts of remote educational services in Latin America and the Caribbean: Literature review, guidelines and tools

MORE DOCUMENTS