If we agree that the main goal of assessment should be 'help students improve their learning' - and not certify or measure their learning -, then we need to provide feedbacks to students that will help them identifying any gaps between current performance and required achievement. This model of assessment has been called ‘assessment for learning’ (AfL) and allows students to develop ‘expertise’ in order to make effective judgements about their own performance. Self-regulated learning is the foundation of AfL.

Self-regulated learning is an active constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behaviour, guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual features of the environment. (Pintrich and Zusho, 2002, p 64)

The model below shows how the learner monitors and regulates learning and performance (B, C, D and/or D). It also recognizes that there are limits to learner self-regulation: the teacher usually plans the learning task and determines the assessment requirements (A). Moreover, for building self-regulation it is important to have a variety of external feedbacks (G) provided by the teacher, by a peer or by other means (e.g. a placement supervisor, a computer); this additional information might augment, concur or conflict with the student’s interpretation of the task and the path of learning.

A model of self-regulated learning and the feedback principles that support and develop self-regulation in students. (Nicol and MacFarlane Dick, 2006)

To support and develop self-regulation we need to involve students explicitly in the assessment process. So students should do assessment. 

Kay Sambell (2011) at Northumbria University led the development of a range of innovative approaches to assessment for learning practice and developed the model below.

1. Is rich in formal feedback: via, for example, tutor comment; self assessment systems

2. Is rich in informal feedback: through, for instance, dialogic teaching, peer interaction and carefully designed classroom assessment that provides students with a continuous flow of feedback on ‘how they are doing’

3. Emphasizes authentic assessment: tasks are relevant and meaningful in some way, beyond ‘just acquiring marks’

4. Offers opportunities for low-stakes assessment practice: students try out and practice knowledge, skills and understanding before they are assessed

5. Develops students’ independence and autonomy: students learn to evaluate their own progress and direct their own learning

6. Balances formative and summative assessment: high stakes summative assessment is used rigorously but sparingly (Sambell, 2011)

Self-reflections, peer reviews and formative assessments go hand by hand in developing students’ independence and autonomy (#5). Being a reviewer helps students to learn about their own work, and it changes the way they understand the course subject content. From the model above I would dismiss the summative assessment in phase #6 - at least in my field of foreing/second language learning-, because we do not need assessment of learning, but assessment for learning (Cope and. Kalantzis, 2016) .

“Learning from feedback actually involves students actively constructing their own understanding of the information and making their own sense of it. For them to be able to act upon feedback-as-telling, they must first decode it, internalize it, and then use the information to make a judgment about their own work” (Sambell, 2011).

Rubrics, self-reflexive logs, workshop on assessments may be all tools that help students to become peer-reviewer and self-regulated learner. In conclusion, we should devote time and energy to create interactive activities that generates discussions and models of sustainable feedback that are integral to learning and teaching. Thanks to these feedback loops, "students' work is continuously improving" (Cope and. Kalantzis, 2016).

• Pintrich, P. R. and Zusho, A. (2002) Student motivation and self-regulated learning in the college classroom, in: J. C. Smart and W.G. Tierney (Eds) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Volume XVII (New York, Agathon Press).
• Nicol, D. and MacFarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback. Studies in Higher Education. 31 (2), 199-218.
• Kay Sambell, (2011), Rethinking feedback in higher education: an assessment for learning perspective, ESCalate, University of Bristolhttps://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/2/2729/RethinkingFeedbackInHigherEducation.pdf
• Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis (eds), e-Learning Ecologies, 2016, forthcoming).

USEFUL ONLINE RESOURCES FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS

Alternative Assessment

•  http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm

Formative and Summative Assessments in the classroom

• http://www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/Assessment/AsDet/TabId/180/ArtMID/780/ArticleID/286/Formative-and-Summative-Assessments-in-the-Classroom.aspx

Peer and Self-Assessment

• http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/peereval.htm
• http://www.assessmentforlearning.edu.au/professional_learning/peer_feedback/peer_strategies_enhance.html

Rubrics

• http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/rubrics.htm
• http://www.ucdenver.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/center-for-faculty-development/Documents/Tutorials/Rubrics/index.htm
• http://www.glastonburyforeignlanguage.org/curriculum/rubrics