What is assessment for? #engaginglitminds
- Review of Educational Research, March 2007, Vol. 77, No. 1, pp. 81-112
I speak for myself (and maybe you) when I say that I have to be VERY careful with my own past educational experiences informing my current work. So much research has been done since I was a student in a classroom that I have to make sure I don’t bring an unintentional bias into the work I do with teachers and kids. Sentences should no longer start with, “Well, back in my day…” since we know we can do better than what was done to us.
The misconception and lack of understanding about assessment is one hole I fell into often as a teacher and observe in other educators as we unintentionally do what was done to us. Back in my day...assessment was the end result. The teacher would assess at the end of the unit or topic and, based on my grade, I either got it or didn’t get it but we moved on anyway. The assessment was all about the grade for a report card to determine a grade-point and subsequently what college I could attend (or it could have stopped me from moving onto higher education).
To be fair, maybe that was not every teacher’s intent, but that was what I took out of it. To be honest, I have found myself having to "come up with grades for the report card”, with no thought about how the feedback or grade would help that student in any way. I know I am not alone. It happens.
So...that leaves me thinking about what experiences we want our students to have with assessment? Does it feel like essential feedback for growth and knowledge or the means to an end?
Engaging Literate Minds has us think about the several functions that assessment practices should serve (p. 222-223):
To help optimize learning by informing and directing instruction so that instruction is responsive.
To positively inform children’s self-assessments so the result is increased motivation, useful information, and greater independence.
When a child is not developing appropriately, assessments must detect the problem quickly and provide the necessary information to solve the problem.
To help improve our own teaching.
That looks a lot different than just using assessment for a grade. To reference the quote from Hattie and Timberly, we need to make sure that the assessments we give are to inform our next teaching moves that are put into place to help our students grow as learners.
We need to ask ourselves: Does this assessment give me real-time information, inform future instruction, take the child’s reflection of growth into consideration, and help me improve the way I teach? Does it help me document and understand a student’s development in deeper ways?
If the answer is yes, then that piece of assessment will make everyone a stronger learner.
If the answer is no, then maybe I take a minute to reflect on what “back in the day” thinking is driving the decision to give that test or assignment.
For this post, I chose to focus on the fundamental ideas behind the practice of assessment. To read about specific examples of the researched-based formative and summative assessments that the authors of Engaging Literate Minds use in their classrooms, check out chapters 14 and 15.
This post is part of our 2020 Summer Book Study. Find all previous posts and more information here. We have also discussed Engaging Literate Minds at the newsletter. Join the community below – it’s free!