inTERVIEW AWHAT’S YOUR


t is hard to overstate the importance of Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. It presented a compelling case for formative assessment, arguing for a sea change in teaching practice in which teachers check as they go along to find out what learners know, or don’t know, rather than wait until the end of a topic or unit. For many teachers, like myself, this is a seemingly axiomatic principle. The book’s co-author, Dylan Wiliam, world- renowned expert on formative assessment, is as convinced of the efficacy of the approach as he ever was. He points to recent research by the Education Endowment Foundation, which showed a 25 per cent increase in student performance where formative assessment methods were used. “I haven’t changed my opinion because the research hasn’t changed,” he says emphatically. “Evidence has repeatedly shown that formative assessment improves students’ performance.” Broadly speaking, formative assessment involves sharing


Sam Hart


is a teacher educator and English lecturer at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College (MET) and is a Member of SET.


10 ISSUE 34 • WINTER 2018 inTUITION SSESSMENT? It is 20 years since Dylan Wiliam and


Paul Black published Inside the Black Box, a seminal work that showed how formative assessment could improve teaching and learning. Sam Hart asked Professor Wiliam how their ideas had fared over the past two decades.


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