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Digital Technology to support assessment for learning 

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Digital Technology to support assessment for learning 

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"We've got this, it's easy," they said. "Can we move on?"

I looked at the other students and asked, "Do you have this?"

They nodded their heads furiously up and down in a yes.

My teacher instincts said that everyone knew it, but I decided to experiment, so I wrote a problem on the board. Students were already logged in to Socrative, and a box opened up on their screens. Each student typed in his or her answer to the problem. They clicked Enter, and their answers appeared on my screen beside their names.

I was floored. Guess how many knew the right answer? Two! Just the two students who had spoken up, and no one else.

I taught for another few minutes and gave them another problem. A few more solved it, but not everyone. We took the problem another way, and then another few thought it was easy. Finally, after about 10 more minutes of teaching, everyone was mastering the problems. Their test scores proved it.

But the end result was not what you think. It didn't take me longer to teach binary numbers. You see, I don't move past this lesson until all of my students are scoring 90 percent or higher. And as a result of this experience, I taught binary numbers and all of the accompanying standards in three days instead of my usual five, and no one had to come for after-school tutoring.

I was sold on formative assessment.

Good teachers in every subject will adjust their teaching based on what students know at each point. Good formative assessment removes the embarrassment of public hand raising and gives teachers feedback that impacts how they're teaching at that moment. Instant feedback. We can do this now. Here's how.

Formative Assessment Toolkit

Learn the strengths and weaknesses of each tool. You'll need several to meet every classroom situation. These are my favorite tools for formative assessment.

1. Quick Feedback: Socrative can be used for quick quizzes and also on the fly, as I've already shared. Here's another feature: Before class, I create quizzes that we can play as a game called Space Race. The website automatically divides the class into teams. Kids know what color team they're on and can look at the rockets racing one another on the board. I don't always record the grade, particularly when I know I have more teaching to do.

The advantage of Socrative is that it gives me percentages that I can use as a grade if we're ready for that. You can even use it for traditional quizzes if desired.

Formative is another tool in this category, with some different advantages. Whereas in Socrative you see the answers and what students are doing, Formative can have students draw on their device, type answers, or use a variety of methods all updated live on your screen as students enter their answer. Math teachers with 1:1 devices will likely prefer this one.

2. Live Quiz Games: Kahoot, Quizziz, and Quizlet Live let us build fun quizzes. Students use computers, cell phones, or other devices to join the game. In some platforms, you can embed videos and make the game part of the teaching process, or students can create review games to share. One disadvantage is that students can use aliases. I like these tools, but do prefer the accountability and data I get out of Socrative and SMART Lab (see below) over Kahoot and the live quiz games.

I knew Kahoot was a winner when I finished 10 minutes early on the last day of school and my class asked to play SAT vocab review with it.

3. Integrated Presentation and Quiz Tools: I use SMART Notebook, which has an add-on called SMART Lab. It lets me make Kahoot-like games but gathers results like Socrative. SMART Lab is a free add-on for those who have purchased the SMART Notebook software, and you don't need a SMART board.

Nearpod is another fantastic tool along these lines. You can create presentations that include quizzes, assessments, drawing boards, and more.

I appreciate the integrated nature of Nearpod and SMART Lab because I don't really like having to present material, then switch over to a formative assessment tool, and then go back to the presentation tool. Everything is in one place.

4. Formative Assessment With Videos: There are two uses of formative assessment with videos. First, when students watch videos, as they do in flipped classrooms, you want to know that students know what they're doing.

I used to recommend Zaption, but that tool shut down. And while Vizia claimed to be a replacement, I recommend Edpuzzle instead. Edpuzzle lets you embed questions in the video, interact with your students, and know how your students are engaging with digital content.

The second and perhaps most exciting formative assessment method is to have students create videos to demonstrate learning. For example, students can use Let's Recap or Explain Everything to create videos documenting their learning. (If you want students to read to you or use audio, Fluency Tutor is a good alternative.)

I find this second method so exciting because it is a huge time-saver. For example, students who are learning to count can do so on video or audio. Then, using the same app or a tool like Seesaw, a teacher can listen to and give feedback on their work after class or at another time. The long line at the teacher desk is just no longer necessary.

5. No Devices? But what if your students have no computers, no cell phones, no nothing? Do you have a smartphone or tablet? If so, you've got two simple answers.

For verbal questions: Log in to Plickers and create a card for each student. The cards look a bit like QR codes, and students can use them to answer multiple-choice questions by rotating them (one side represents A, another B, and so on). When you ask a question, students hold up their cards with their answer at the top side. Looking at the class through the Plicker app on your smartphone, you'll see the name of each student and his or her answer-instant feedback!

For quick quizzes: QuickKey is a mobile scanning app for the iPhone. There are several others, such as ZipGrade and GradeCam. Your questions must be multiple choice. Print out the short form and have students fill in the bubbles. Use your smartphone to scan the quizzes and immediately know what your students know.

No More Surprises

Test scores should never be a surprise. You don't need to be a mind reader-you just need a formative assessment toolbox, and you need to use it every day.

I invite you to share your formative assessment tools and tips in the comments, because there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to assess. Our students need us to be excellent teachers, and formative assessment is one way to do it.

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Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools | Edutopia

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"We've got this, it's easy," they said. "Can we move on?" I looked at the other students and asked, "Do you have this?" They nodded their heads furiously up and down in a yes. My teacher instincts said that everyone knew it, but I decided to experiment, so I wrote a problem on the board.

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Precision Teaching: Success Criteria and Exemplars - YouTube

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Precision Teaching: Success Criteria and Exemplars - YouTube

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Precision Teaching: Success Criteria and Exemplars

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Secondary Learning Intentions and Success Criteria 2005

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Secondary Learning Intentions and Success Criteria 2005

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Shirley Clarke

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Secondary Assessment - Assessment for Learning: Sharing the Criteria | ProTeachersVideo

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Secondary Assessment - Assessment for Learning: Sharing the Criteria | ProTeachersVideo

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Secondary Assessment - Assessment for Learning: Sharing the Criteria | ProTeachersVideo

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Focus on a school that has developed their own style of AFL

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MOE ppt explaining the purpose of learning intentions and success criteria

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Success Criteria Display

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Example of Success Criteria for writing display

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria 2014

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria 2014

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Shirley Clarke

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Ch6 Learning Objectives and Success Criteria Shirley Clarke 2014

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Process for using success criteria to check success and areas for improvement 

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Process for using success criteria to check success and areas for improvement 

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Model for students

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria 2008

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria 2008

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Shirley Clarke

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Ch8 How will we know what learning objectives mean Shirley Clarke 2008

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Meta-cognition and self-regulation | Teaching and Learning Toolkit | The Education Endowment Foundation

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Meta-cognition and self-regulation | Teaching and Learning Toolkit | The Education Endowment Foundation

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Dance

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John Hattie Learning Intentions & Success Criteria

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John Hattie Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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Ashley Johnson, dancer in residence, describes what she learned about student learning as she helped them identify the criteria for the learning task during a dance class.

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Shirley Clarke video on feedback - YouTube

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Shirley Clarke video on feedback - YouTube

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Teachers TV: Primary Talk and Success Criteria - YouTube

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Teachers TV: Primary Talk and Success Criteria - YouTube

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John Hattie Learning Intentions & Success Criteria

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John Hattie Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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Teachers TV: Primary Talk and Success Criteria

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http://edchat.net - © Crown Copyright. Provided by Education not Limited Further resources available on http://edchat.net Licensed to Education not Limited formerly The Artists' Guild Ltd. Licence information available at www.edchat.net

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Educagains video - Connecting to Learning Goals and Success Criteria - YouTube

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Educagains video - Connecting to Learning Goals and Success Criteria - YouTube

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Educagains video - Connecting to Learning Goals and Success Criteria

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Teachers planning success criteria and learning intentions

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John Hattie Learning Intentions & Success Criteria - YouTube

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John Hattie Learning Intentions & Success Criteria - YouTube

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John Hattie Learning Intentions & Success Criteria

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Word Study in Action: Success Criteria - YouTube

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Word Study in Action: Success Criteria - YouTube

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Powerful Words: The Reading/Writing Connection Success Criteria The teacher in this episode plans a writing prompt that will enable the students to use the powerful words previously selected in their own writing. She explores vocabulary they might include, and then asks the students to consider success criteria.

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Maths

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Success Criteria: Assessment for Learning in Second Grade (Virtual Tour) - YouTube

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Success Criteria: Assessment for Learning in Second Grade (Virtual Tour) - YouTube

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Success Criteria: Assessment for Learning in Second Grade (Virtual Tour)

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Maths

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Maths

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Maths

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Self and peer assessment - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Self and peer assessment - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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How Should We Measure Student Learning? Five Keys to Comprehensive Assessment | Edutopia

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How Should We Measure Student Learning? Five Keys to Comprehensive Assessment | Edutopia

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Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond shares how using well-crafted formative and performance assessments, setting meaningful goals, and giving students ownership over the process can powerfully affect teaching and learning.

5 Keys Video Series

See Edutopia's core strategies in action with our Five Keys video series. Take a deeper look at each strategy as we share the nuts and bolts of program implementation, give voice to examples from schools around the country, and illuminate the research behind the practices.

Assessment is at the heart of education: Teachers and parents use test scores to gauge a student's academic strengths and weaknesses, communities rely on these scores to judge the quality of their educational system, and state and federal lawmakers use these same metrics to determine whether public schools are up to scratch.

Testing forms the bedrock of educational assessment and represents a commitment to high academic standards and school accountability. You can't know where you're going unless you know where you are. But when the financial and emotional stakes associated with standardized tests are disproportionately high, this laudable goal gets distorted. Teachers begin teaching to the test simply to raise scores, often at the expense of more meaningful learning activities. And when the tests are too narrow a measure or aren't properly aligned to standards, they provide little concrete information that teachers and schools can use to improve teaching and learning for individual students.

Twenty-First-Century Assessment

The demands of the today's world require students learn many skills. A knowledge-based, highly technological economy requires that students master higher-order thinking skills and that they are able to see the relationships among seemingly diverse concepts. These abilities -- recall, analysis, comparison, inference, and evaluation -- will be the skills of a literate twenty-first-century citizen. And they are the kinds of skills that aren't measured by our current high-stakes tests.

In addition, skills such as teamwork, collaboration, and moral character -- traits that aren't measured in a typical standardized tests -- are increasingly important. Businesses are always looking for employees with people skills and the ability to get along well with coworkers.

Multiple Forms of Assessment

We know that the typical multiple-choice and short-answer tests aren't the only way, or necessarily the best way, to gauge a student's knowledge and abilities. Many states are incorporating performance-based assessments into their standardized tests or adding assessment vehicles such as student portfolios and presentations as additional measures of student understanding.

These rigorous, multiple forms of assessment require students to apply what they're learning to real world tasks. These include standards-based projects and assignments that require students to apply their knowledge and skills, such as designing a building or investigating the water quality of a nearby pond; clearly defined rubrics (or criteria) to facilitate a fair and consistent evaluation of student work; and opportunities for students to benefit from the feedback of teachers, peers, and outside experts.

With these formative and summative types of assessment come the ability to give students immediate feedback. They also allow a teacher to immediately intervene, to change course when assessments show that a particular lesson or strategy isn't working for a student, or to offer new challenges for students who've mastered a concept or skill. Return to our Assessment page to learn more.

More Edutopia Resources for Comprehensive Assessment

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How Should We Measure Student Learning? 5 Keys to Comprehensive Assessment

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Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond shares how using well-crafted formative and performance assessments, setting meaningful goals, and giving students ownership over the process can powerfully affect teaching and learning. See Edutopia's core strategies in action with our Five Keys video series.

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Assessment strategies - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Assessment strategies - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Autonomous learners - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Autonomous learners - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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St Andrew's RC Secondary - Learning intentinos and success criteria - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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St Andrew's RC Secondary - Learning intentinos and success criteria - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Bishopbriggs Academy - Negotiating success criteria - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Bishopbriggs Academy - Negotiating success criteria - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Autonomous learners - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Autonomous learners - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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St Andrew's RC Secondary - Learning intentinos and success criteria - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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St Andrew's RC Secondary - Learning intentinos and success criteria - Video search - THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE

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Success Criteria -the Missing Link in the Learning Partnership? - The Future of Education

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Success Criteria -the Missing Link in the Learning Partnership? - The Future of Education

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Setting Success Criteria in Science - Resources - TES Australia

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Setting Success Criteria in Science - Resources - TES Australia

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This lesson plan is very detailed and gives some really useful ideas to develop understanding of the difference between Success Criteria and Predictions. I...

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Differentiated Key stage 3 Historical Enquiry - Resources - TES Australia

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Differentiated Key stage 3 Historical Enquiry - Resources - TES Australia

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Differentiated Key stage 3 Historical Enquiry

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Fun and challenging series of lessons focussing on the 'mystery&' of Ricall. Unit culminates in lesson on &';Bias' in History. The main purpose of this dif...

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Success Criteria for Physics Skills - Resources - TES Australia

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Success Criteria for Physics Skills - Resources - TES Australia

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A set of success criteria that can be used for AfL when teaching pupils how to draw circuit diagrams, magnetic field lines, free body diagrams, Sankey diag...

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Literacy Focus Fortnight - Sharing Success Criteria on Vimeo

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Literacy Focus Fortnight - Sharing Success Criteria on Vimeo

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Literacy Focus Fortnight - Sharing Success Criteria

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During Literacy Focus Fortnight we will be aiming to raise awareness within the school of the Success Criteria for all aspects of language.

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Use of LI and SC

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Teachers TV: Reducing ISV - Peer Observation - Resources - TES

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Teachers TV: Reducing ISV - Peer Observation - Resources - TES

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria on Vimeo

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria on Vimeo

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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Online CPD video aiming to explain the purpose of learning intentions and success criteria within the classroom.

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

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Shirley Clarke

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Teacher and Student use of learning goals

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Teacher and Student use of learning goals

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Exemplar 3 BES

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TKI

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Michael Absolum

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Teacher and Student use of learning goals

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Teacher and Student use of learning goals

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Exemplar 3 BES simplified to key points as a powerpoint

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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1- AudioBoo

Audioboo is an application for recording and sharing your voice with the world. This free version allows you to create audio up to 3 minutes in length and post that to your own account on the web.....``

2-`iTalk Recorder

`` iTalk Recorder is a full-featured recording app with a streamlined and intuitive user interface. Press the big red button to record; press it again to stop.....``

3- Mobile Podcaster

`` Whether you podcast on a regular basis or simply want to add audio to your blog, Mobile Podcaster makes it easy to podcast, saves you significant time and makes podcasting much more enjoyable.....``

4- iPadio

`` Broadcast, record, play back and share high quality audio up to 60 minutes in length. Pause and resume recordings, add up to 4 high resolution photos and automatically geolocate your call.....``

5- Voice Recorder HD

`` Quick high quality audio recording, reliable, stunning interface plus easy to operate, "Voice Recorder HD" is a must have application for your iPad and iPhone. ...``

6- Audio Note

`` Record notes and audio synced with the best note taking app in the App Store! AudioNote combines the functionality of a notepad and voice recorder to create a powerful tool that will save you time while improving the quality of your notes. Perfect for business or students!........``

7- Sound Note

`` SoundNote is the best way to take notes in meetings, lectures, and interviews. It tracks what you type and draw while recording audio, so you'll never worry about missing an important detail. During playback, just tap a word: SoundNote will jump right to the proper time in the audio........``

8- Dragon Dictation

`` Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages.....``

9- Audio Lio

`` Audiolio is perfect for bookmarking and adding notes to all kinds of audio: school lectures, interviews, podcasts, audio books, and more. ...``

10- Audio Memos

`` Audio Memos is a voice recorder for the iPhone and iPad. What you'll really like about Audio Memos, is that you can actually HEAR your recordings (try it and compare, you'll hear what we mean). It's also easy to use, with a simple and intuitive interface....``

11- Smart Recorder

`` Smart Recorder is the best audio recorder for the iPhone and iPad. Use it to record meetings, interview, lectures, classes, todo lists, shopping lists or even your kids voices.....``

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1- AudioBoo Audioboo is an application for recording and sharing your voice with the world. This free version allows you to create audio up to 3 minutes in length and post that to your own account on the web.....`` 2-`iTalk Recorder `` iTalk Recorder is a full-featured recording app with a streamlined and intuitive user interface.

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50 digital tools for formative assessment 

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50 digital tools for formative assessment 

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Collecting Student Voice

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There is no shortage of formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning. We didn't just add any old tool to this list. Here are the criteria we used for those that made the cut:

Supports formative instructional strategies and ways to activate learners to be resources for themselves and peers

Is free or awful close to it (under $10 per year, where possible)

Allows both students and teachers to take the activator role when possible (sometimes teachers need to get things started)

Before you dig into the tools, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about exactly what you want to accomplish with your students. "How to pick the right digital tool: Start with your learning goal" by Erin Beard can help you wrap your head around goals and guide you in choosing the best tool for the task. "27 easy formative assessment strategies for gathering evidence of student learning" can help you decide what strategies work best for you and your students.

Record audio and video

Create quizzes, polls, and surveys

1. Crowdsignal Lets you create online polls, quizzes, and questions. Students can use smartphones, tablets, and computers to provide their answers, and information can be culled for reports.

2. Edulastic Allows you to make standards-aligned assessments and get instant feedback.

3. FreeOnlineSurveys Helps you create surveys, quizzes, forms, and polls.

4. Gimkit Lets you write real-time quizzes. And it was designed by a high school student!

5. Kahoot! A game-based classroom response system that lets you create quizzes using internet content.

6. MicroPoll Helps you create polls, embed them into websites, and analyze responses.

7. Naiku Lets you write quizzes students can answer using their mobile devices.

8. Obsurvey Designed to make surveys, polls, and questionnaires.

9. Poll Everywhere Lets you create a feedback poll or ask questions and see results in real time. Allows students to respond in various ways. With open-ended questions, you can capture data and spin up tag clouds to aggregate responses.

10. Poll Maker Offers unique features, like allowing multiple answers to one question.

11. ProProfs Helps you make quizzes, polls, and surveys.

12. Quia Lets you create games, quizzes, surveys, and more. Access a database of existing quizzes from other educators.

13. Quizalize Helps you create quizzes and homework.

14. Quizizz Guides you through designing quizzes and lets you include students in the quiz-writing process.

15. Quizlet Lets you make flashcards, tests, quizzes, and study games that are mobile friendly.

16. Survey Hero Designed to build questionnaires and surveys.

17. SurveyMonkey Helpful for online polls and surveys.

18. SurveyPlanet Also helpful for online polls and surveys.

19. Triventy Lets you create quizzes students take in real time using individual devices.

20. Yacapaca Helps you write and assign quizzes.

21. Zoho Survey Allows you to make mobile-friendly surveys and see results in real time.

Brainstorm, mind map, and collaborate

Present, engage, and inspire

Generate word or tag clouds

1. EdWordle Generates word clouds from any entered text to help aggregate responses and facilitate discussion. Word clouds are pictures composed of a cloud of smaller words that form a clue to the topic.

2. Tagxedo Allows you to examine student consensus and facilitate dialogues.

3. Wordables Helps you elicit evidence of learning or determine background knowledge about a topic.

4. WordArt Includes a feature that allows the user to make each word an active link to connect to websites, including YouTube.

Get real-time feedback

Foster family communication

1. Remind Lets you text students and stay in touch with families.

2. Seesaw Helps you improve family communication and makes formative assessment easy, while students can use the platform to document their learning.

3. Voxer Lets you send recordings so families can hear how their students are doing, students can chat about their work, and you can provide feedback.

Strengthen teacher-to-student or student-to-student communication

Keep the conversation going with live chats

1. Backchannel Chat A teacher-moderated version of Twitter.

2. Chatzy Supports live, online chats in a private setting.

Create and store documents or assignments

1. Google Forms A Google Drive app that allows you to create documents students can collaborate on in real time using smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

2. Piazza Lets you upload lectures, assignments, and homework; pose and respond to student questions; and poll students about class content. This tool is better suited for older students as it mimics post-secondary class instructional formats.

Learn more

There are several resources for learning more about formative assessment and responsive instruction strategies. Consider our formative practices workshops, where school and district teams can gain a better understanding of the role formative practice plays in instruction and the four foundational practices to use in the classroom. Or for a quick start, download our eBook "Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice."

Jump in, try new tools and methods, and have fun!

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75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom

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There is no shortage of formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning.

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Teaching and Learning with Beadle

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Teaching and Learning with Beadle - Focus on the Lesson Objectives

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Driving at any speed on a foggy highway, when visibility is just beyond the end of the car, is scary. There's no knowing what's around the bend. The same can be said of assessments that include confusing data. They are accidents waiting to happen.

Lorna Earl, author of Assessment as Learning, says differentiation is "making sure that the right students get the right learning tasks at the right time. Once you have a sense of what each student holds as 'given' or 'known' and what he or she needs in order to learn, differentiation is no longer an option. It's an obvious response."

This definition reflects how important assessment is. At a fundamental level, we are differentiating when we act on accurate data to adapt instructional plans for a large group or to personalize for individuals and small groups. Because such planning takes time, it becomes critical that the assessments used in planning be free of logistical factors that create a fog around what learners truly know and do not know.

The alternative is a growing feeling of frustration and helplessness about our impact on learners' academic growth when we focus on data that may not provide an accurate view of those learners. Here are some common examples of assessment fog and their solutions. My thinking on these issues has been influenced by Ken O'Connor's book A Repair Kit for Grading.

Points Off for Spelling and Punctuation When Assessing Content

There is a place for teaching and assessing mechanics. Such assessment should be kept separate from data on content understanding. A student may know and be able to apply much about the laws of motion, yet be a poor writer. Taking mechanics into consideration on the final content grade could lead to the conclusion that the student has a poorer understanding of the science concepts than they actually do.

Solutions: Assess mechanics as part of formative feedback, and not as part of the grade. Use the results for additional coaching. Or place the results into a category or proficiency rating that is separate from the content grade. For example, a student's understanding of the laws of motion may be "Proficient" and writing mechanics may be "Needs Development."

Extra Credit for Non-academic Tasks

A student who attends an event like a choir or parent night should not get points added to their grade in math or English. This creates a false indication of academic success. Padding the grade could hide serious gaps in understanding of math concepts or reading comprehension. Extra credit is especially problematic as it tends to be focused on activities that are unrelated to the area of student need.

Solutions: Assign work in which students connect math concepts to music or write a review of parent night for English. Attending the event becomes practice that is used to make legitimate connections to the curriculum for accurate assessment. Replace extra credit with assignments that help students fill the gaps in their understanding. Consider using these assignments to replace lost points for specific assignments, or use them as a requirement for redoing a test or product that originally assessed progress, a practice common in gamification.

Points Off for Lateness or Missing Information

Often, teachers take points off when students forget to put their names or the date on assignments, as a way of teaching responsibility. If a student's name is not on a paper, how can they claim credit? And later in life, a missing date or other related logistical information on a form could lead to a delay in service until such information is provided. Personal responsibility is important, but taking off points gives a false impression of the student's proficiency in the academic skill being assessed.

Late work is another concern shared by many teachers. There is a tension between knowing what students have learned and getting paperwork (grading) completed. Teachers may wonder how they will manage if students wait until the end of the marking period to turn in all their late work.

When points are taken off for lateness, once again the result is that the penalty obscures the record for understanding the student's academic skill level. And when late assignments are not accepted, there is no data available as to the learner's progress. With no data, the teacher's job is more difficult. And not accepting late work means the skill level of students already falling behind will go unknown until the next assessment opportunity. The time lost could be monumental for the teacher and the student.

Solutions: Have the student fix the missing information or correct the location of the details before credit is recorded. Responsibility is learned when the weak skill is practiced, with coaching. Learning requires timely practice or revision when a gap is found.

Taking off points for late assignments does not improve responsibility. It's a punitive response to an issue that coaching may do a better job of addressing. Involve parents by having students get their signature on a form that indicates the lateness of the assignment, before the work is accepted. A variation of this is to have the student write a letter to their parents letting them know that the work is late, and returning the note to the teacher with a parent's signature.

The Benefits of Reducing Assessment Fog

As they work to reduce assessment fog, teachers will experience less frustration in their instruction because students will be able to clearly demonstrate what they know and do not know. And students will benefit because supports will more closely address their needs.

Everybody wins.

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Driving at any speed on a foggy highway, when visibility is just beyond the end of the car, is scary. There's no knowing what's around the bend. The same can be said of assessments that include confusing data. They are accidents waiting to happen.