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Tom Schimmer is an author and a speaker with expertise in assessment, grading, leadership, and behavioral support. He is a former district-level leader, school administrator, and teacher.

Despite decades of research on sound assessment practices, misunderstandings and myths still abound. In particular, the summative purpose of assessment continues to be an aspect where opinions, philosophies, and outright falsehoods can take on a life of their own and hijack an otherwise thoughtful discourse about the most effective and efficient processes.

Assessment is merely the means of gathering of information about student learning (Black, 2013). We either use that evidence formatively through the prioritization of feedback and the identification of next steps in learning, or we use it summatively through the prioritization of verifying the degree to which the students have met the intended learning goals. Remember, it is the use of assessment evidence that distinguishes the formative form the summative.

The level of hyperbole that surrounds summative assessment, especially on social media, must stop. It's not helpful, it's often performative, and is even sometimes cynically motivated to simply attract followers, likes, and retweets. Outlined below are my responses to six of the most common myths about summative assessment. These aren't the only myths, of course, but these are the six most common that seem to perpetuate and the six that we have to undercut if we are to have authentic, substantive, and meaningful conversations about summative assessment.
Myth 1: "Summative assessment has no place in our 21st century education system"
While the format and substance of assessments can evolve, the need to summarize the degree to which students have met the learning goals (independent of what those goals are) and report to others (e.g., parents) will always be a necessary of any education system in any century. Whether it's content, skills, or 21st century competencies, the requirement to report will be ever-present.

However, it's not just about being required; we should welcome the opportunity to report on student successes because it's important that parents and even our larger community or the general public understand the impact we're having on our students. If we started looking at the reporting process as a collective opportunity to demonstrate how effective we've been at fulfilling our mission then a different mindset altogether about summative assessment may emerge. It's easy to become both insular and hyperbolic about summative assessment but using assessment evidence for the summative purpose is part of a balanced assessment system. Cynical caricatures of summative assessment detract from meaningful dialogue.
Myth 2: "Summative assessments are really just formative assessments we choose to count toward grade determination."
Summative assessment often involves the repacking of standards for the purpose of reaching the full cognitive complexity of the learning. Summative assessment is not just the sum of the carefully selected parts; it's the whole in its totality where the underpinnings are contextualized.

A collection of ingredients is not a meal. It's a meal when all of those ingredients are thoughtfully combined. The ingredients are necessary to isolate in preparation; we need to know what ingredients are necessary and their quantity. But it's not a meal until the ingredients are purposefully combined to make a whole.

Unpacking standards to identify granular underpinnings is necessary to create a learning progression toward success. We unpack standards for teaching (formative assessment) but we repack standards for grading (summative assessment). Isolated skills are not the same thing as a synthesized demonstration of learning. Reaching the full cognitive complexity of the standards often involves the combination of skills in a more authentic application, so again, pull apart for instruction, but pull back together for grading.
Myth 3: "Summative assessment is a culminating test or project at the end of the learning."
While it can be, summative assessment is really a moment in time where a teacher examines the preponderance of evidence to determine the degree to which the students have met the learning goals or standard; it need not be limited to an epic, high stakes event at the end. It can be a culminating test or project as those would provide more recent evidence, but since we know some students need longer to learn, there always needs to be a pathway to recovery in that these culminating events don't become disproportionately pressure packed and one-shot deals.

Thinking of assessment as a verb often helps. We have, understandably, come to see assessment as a noun - and they often are - but it is crucial that teachers expand their understanding of assessment to know that all of the evidence examined along the way also matters; evidence is evidence. Examining all of the evidence to determine student proficiency along a few gradations of quality (i.e., a rubric) is not only a valid process, but is one that should be embraced.
Myth 4: "Give students a grade and the learning stops."
This causal relationship has never been established in the research. While it is true that grades and scores can interfere with a student's willingness to keep learning, that reaction is not automatic. The nuances of whether the feedback was directed to the learning or the learner matters. Avraham Kluger & Angelo DeNisi (1996) emphasized the importance of student responses to feedback as the litmus test for determining whether feedback was effective.

There are no perfect feedback strategies but there are more favorable responses. If we provide a formative score alongside feedback, and the students reengage with the learning and attempts to increase their proficiency then, as the expression goes, no harm, no foul. If they disengage from the learning then clearly there is an issue to be addressed. But again, despite the many forceful assertions made on social media and in other forums, that relationship is not causal.

Again, context and nuance matters, especially when it comes to the quality of feedback. Remember, when it comes to feedback, substance matters more than form. Tom Guskey (2019) submits that had the Ruth Butler (1988) study, the one so widely cited to support this assertion that grades stop learning, examined the impact of grades that were criterion-referenced and learning focused versus ego-based feedback toward the learner (as in you need to work a little harder) then the results of those studies may have been quite different.

The impact in those studies was disproportionate to lower achieving students so common sense would dictate that if you received a low score and were told something to the effect of, "You need to work harder" or "This is a poor effort" that a student would likely want to stop learning. But a low score alongside a "now let's work on" or "here's what's next" comment could produce a different response.
Myth 5: "Grades are arbitrary, meaningless, and subjective."
Grades will be as meaningful or as meaningless as the adults make them; their existence is not the issue. Grades will be meaningful when they are representative of a gradation of quality derived from clear criteria articulated in advance. What some call subjective is really professional judgment. Judging quality against the articulated learning goals and criteria is our expertise at work.

Pure objectivity is the real myth. Teachers decide what to assess, what not to assess, the question stems or prompts, the number of questions, the format, the length, etc. We use our expertise to decide what sampling of learning provides the clearest picture. It is an erroneous goal to think one can eliminate all teacher choice or judgment from the assessment process. During one of our recent #ATAssessment chats on Twitter, Ken O'Connor reminded participants that the late, great Grant Wiggins often said: (1) We shouldn't use subjective pejoratively and (2) The issue isn't subjective or objective; the issue is whether our professional judgments are credible and defensible.
Myth 6: "Students should determine their own grades; they know better than us."
Students should definitely be brought inside the process of grade determination; even asked to participate and understand how evidence is synthesized. But the teacher is the final arbiter of student learning; that is our expertise at work. This claim might sound like student empowerment but it marginalizes teacher expertise. Are we really saying a student's first experience is greater than a teacher's total experience? Again, bring them inside the process, give them the full experience, but don't diminish your expertise while doing so.
This does not have to be a zero-sum game; more student involvement need not lead to less teacher involvement. This is about expansion within the process to include students along every step of the way; however, our training, expertise, and experience matter in terms of accurately determining student proficiency. Students and parents are not the only users of assessment evidence. Many important decisions both in and out of school depend on the accuracy of what is reported about student learning which means teacher must remain disproportionately involved in the summative process.

Combating these myths is important because there continues to be an oversimplified narrative that vilifies summative assessment as all things evil when it comes to our assessment practices. That mindset, assertion, or narrative is not credible. Not to mention, it's naïve and really does reveal a lack of understanding of how a balanced assessment system operates within a classroom.

The overall point here is that we need grounded, honest, and reasoned conversations about summative assessment that are anchored in the research, not some performative label or hollow assertion that we defend at all costs through clever turns of phrases and quibbles over semantics.

Black, P. (2013). Formative and summative aspects of assessment: Theoretical and research foundations
in the context of pedagogy. In J. H. McMillan (Ed.), SAGE handbook of research on classroom assessment (pp. 167-178). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Butler, R. (1988). Enhancing and undermining intrinsic motivation: The effects of task- involving
and ego-involving evaluation on interest and performance. British Journal of Educational
Psychology,58(1), 1-14.

Guskey, T., 2019. Grades versus Feedback: What does the research really tell us?.
[Blog] Thomas R. Guskey & Associates, Available at: [Accessed 30 Nov. 2021].

Kluger, A., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A
historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254-284.

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Tom Schimmer is an author and a speaker with expertise in assessment, grading, leadership, and behavioral support. He is a former district-level leader, school administrator, and teacher. Despite decades of research on sound assessment practices, misunderstandings and myths still abound.

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The Assessment Journey: The journey to the final destination - a metaphor for learning!

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The Assessment Journey: The journey to the final destination - a metaphor for learning!

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The Assessment  Journey New Curriculum Science Gr. 2.pdf

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Overview

Student Learning Assessments (SLAs) are digital tests administered at the beginning of the school year in Grade 3. They assess outcomes related to literacy and numeracy in language arts and mathematics in Alberta's previous Grade 2 provincial programs of study. Since Grade 3 students in 2022-2023 would have received programming based on previous Grade 2 programs of study in 2021-2022, it is still appropriate and useful to use the SLAs in 2022-2023 to inform teaching and learning.

SLAs contain 4 components:

Literacy - Digital questions

Literacy - Performance task

Numeracy - Digital questions

Numeracy - Performance task

The purposes of the SLAs are to:

improve student learning

help parents and teachers identify student strengths and areas for growth

School authorities have flexibility to administer SLAs. School authorities can also choose if all or some of their schools or classes within a school will participate, and to what degree participation takes place. School authorities are strongly encouraged to administer SLAs to Grade 3 students. If necessary, SLAs can be digitally administered within student residences. SLAs results will not be publicized nor be part of the Alberta Education Business Plan.

Important dates

School authorities that wish to participate in 2022-2023 can preview and administer the SLAs from mid-August to the end of October, in their language of instruction.

Grade 3 Francophone and French Immersion students only take the assessment written in French. These students may take the English Literacy Assessment any time after the administration of the French assessments.

All SLA digital questions and performance tasks will also be available for re-administration during the entire school year.

Resources

General Information Bulletin (PDF, 1.6 MB)

Literacy and Numeracy Information Bulletin (PDF, 1.5 MB)

SLA User Guide (PDF, 1.4 MB)

SLA Technical Requirements (PDF, 184 KB)

Quick facts - For teachers (PDF, 183 KB)

Quick facts - For school trustees (PDF, 791 KB)

Quick facts - For superintendents (PDF, 790 KB)

Quick facts - For parents (PDF, 211 KB)

SLA Evaluation - Executive Summary (PDF, 353 KB)

Provincial Assessment Directive (PDF, 600 KB)

Instructional videos

The images of the technical requirements and the Help Desk have not been recently updated. Updated information for both of these can be found on the web page.

How to access the teacher dashboard

Teachers learn how to set up an account and access the teacher dashboard for the Grade 3 SLA.

How to use the teacher dashboard

Teachers learn how to set up their class list, start the SLA, monitor for technical issues, and access performance task materials.

Promising practices

Teachers learn about simple solutions to common issues, including student access, devices and much more.

SLA application

Teachers and administrators can use the SLA Application to:

access the teacher dashboard

administer the SLA

find practice questions, released digital questions and performance tasks

Technical and administrative support

Contact the SLA Workforce Development Help Desk for technical assistance with the SLA application or with questions about how to administer SLAs.

How to find SLA results

Student results for digital questions are available within 24 hours of a teacher submitting them for marking.

Schools do not report performance task results to the government. Educators use the results to help make decisions to benefit student learning.

Educators

Educators can use the teacher dashboard in the SLA Application to find and print reports.

Sample reports (PDF, 3.5 MB) provide an overview of the print version of the individual student report, class report and superintendent report. The online interactive reports on the Teacher Dashboard provide the ability to filter information.

Superintendents

Superintendents can use the SLA Application's teacher dashboard to access an additional report that gives an overview of school performance in their school authority.

Parents

School authorities are expected to share student results directly with parents.

We encourage parents and guardians to speak with teachers to understand their child's result reports.

Provincial assessment programs, including SLAs, are meant to complement, not replace, day-to-day teacher observations and classroom assessment. They are sources of information that must be interpreted, used and communicated within the context of regular and continuous assessment by classroom teachers.

Connect with the SLA Workforce Development Help Desk:

Phone: 780-427-5318
Toll free: 310-0000 before the phone number (in Alberta)
Email:[email protected]

Connect with Student Learning Assessments and Provincial Achievement Testing:

Kelly Rota, Director, Student Learning Assessments (SLAs) and Provincial Achievement Testing (PATs), Alberta Education
Phone: 780-427-6204
Toll free: 310-0000 before the phone number (in Alberta)
Email:[email protected]

Nicole Lamarre, Director, French Assessment, Alberta Education
Phone: 780-422-3535
Toll free: 310-0000 before the phone number (in Alberta)
Email:[email protected]

Hours: 8:15 am to 4:30 pm (open Monday to Friday, closed statutory holidays)

Address:
Student Learning Assessments and Provincial Achievement Testing
Alberta Education
6th Floor, 44 Capital Boulevard
10044 108 Street
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 5E6

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Student Learning Assessments (SLAs) are digital tests administered at the beginning of the school year in Grade 3. They assess outcomes related to literacy and numeracy in language arts and mathematics in Alberta's previous Grade 2 provincial programs of study.

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Resources to help students prepare to write diploma exams and information for exam administrators.

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Overview

Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs) are administered annually to all Alberta students in grades 6 and 9. These standardized tests reflect the essentials that all Alberta students are expected to achieve, regardless of school choice or location.

determine if students are learning what they are expected to learn

report to Albertans how well students have achieved provincial standards at given points in their schooling

assist schools, authorities and the province in monitoring and improving student learning

The tests occur in January, May and June for English and Français/French language arts, math, science and social studies.

Some grade 9 students write PATs in January of each year.

Grade 9 achievement tests based on the Knowledge and Employability programs of study in English language arts, math, science and social studies are also administered.

The General Information Bulletin helps support school authorities, school administrators and classroom teachers in implementing the Provincial Achievement Testing Program in their authorities and schools.

PAT Test Schedule for 2018 to 2019 (PDF, 163 KB)

Local performance targets

Each school board in Alberta sets targets for school and board performance in provincial standardized tests.

Evaluating results in the context of these targets can help school boards identify which areas students need more help in to improve learning.

Tips for setting local targets

Consider past performance on each test.

Focus on a limited number of subjects at a time where performance can improve.

Collaborate with teacher colleagues across different grade levels.

Students' performance on tests reflects their learning in all years.

Teachers in all grades can contribute to setting targets.

Use school reports on achievement test results to identify which aspects of a subject need attention.

Focus on what supports students need to succeed instead of focusing on problems.

Expect to set different targets in different grades and subjects depending on past results and current priorities.

Collaborate with other schools to identify areas of common strength or weakness.

Keep students and parents informed and report to them on achievement targets and results.

Provincial tests are a useful tool but only one way to see how well a school is performing.

Schools and boards may also choose to set targets for other measures of student achievement according to their local needs.

Targets can also be set for goals that fall outside of student achievement and reflect local priorities and parent and community involvement.

PAT results

Schools are responsible for sharing preliminary PAT results with parents and guardians.

Every fall, schools receive the official Individual Student Profile (ISPs), which are kept on the students' records in accordance with the Student Record Regulation.

Interpreting results

Careful examination and interpretation of results help educators identify areas of relative strength and weakness in student achievement.

Teachers and administrators can use this information in planning and delivering relevant and effective instruction.

View the guidelines for interpreting achievement tests. (PDF, 31 KB)

PATs are only one of many ways to evaluate student learning and are not meant to replace day-to-day teacher observations and classroom assessment. They are sources of information that must be interpreted, used and communicated within the context of regular and continuous assessment by classroom teachers.

2017 to 2018 PAT highlights

Strengths and areas for improvement varied this year and are only one indicator of student abilities

The percentage of students reaching the acceptable standard is at a 5-year high in English Language Arts 6, Français 6, Science 6, Social Studies 6 and Science 9

Grade 6 math results improved with students performing significantly better on non-calculator questions in 2018 than in 2017

Performance on Grade 6 math problem solving questions improved from the previous year. There is a strong correlation of results on non-calculator questions and problem solving questions

PAT results by school and authority

PAT results are available for each school authority and individual schools.

Search the database to find 5-year reports for each writing period and participation rates for each school and authority or view the documents below:

Key educator resources

The information provided is intended primarily to support school authorities, school administrators and classroom teachers in implementing the Provincial Achievement Testing Program in their authorities and schools.

General resources

PAT forms

Toolkit for staff

Teacher involvement

Parent guide

Quest A+

Quest A+ (access to online practice tests)

Subject area resources

These resources are developed to support classroom teachers in understanding provincial standards in the form of statistical analyses of selected responses, examples of student work, scoring guides and released materials.

Contact

To connect with Student Learning Assessments and Provincial Achievement Testing:

Hours: 8:15 am to 4:30 pm (open Monday to Friday, closed statutory holidays)
Nicole Lamarre, Director, Student Learning Assessments and Provincial Achievement Testing
Phone: 780-427-6204
Email: nicole.lamarre@gov.ab.ca

Address:

Student Learning Assessments and Provincial Achievement Testing
Alberta Education
6th Floor 44 Capital Boulevard
10044 108 Street
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 5E6

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Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs) are administered annually to all Alberta students in grades 6 and 9. These standardized tests reflect the essentials that all Alberta students are expected to achieve, regardless of school choice or location.

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Kunnath - Creating meaningful grades.pdf

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When you give a test or quiz, do you basically just grade it, give it back to students, go over the answers, then move on? If you don't do anything else with the information, if you don't look carefully at how students answer your test questions, you're missing a BIG opportunity.

Assessments should give us loads of information about what our students understand, what they don't understand, and how well we've taught them. It took me years of teaching before I realized I was using my tests and quizzes to sort out, reward and punish my students, rather than measure and inform my teaching. I needed to make my assessments work harder for me.

So one year, I added an extra step while grading tests: I kept track of all the wrong answers on one page, tallying exactly which items were being chosen instead. Once I started doing this, I found myself far better equipped to respond to wrong answers: I could reteach specific concepts only to students who needed reteaching, rather than wasting everyone's time with unnecessary review. I could identify specific misconceptions students had about the material and get better at addressing those the next time around. I also became a much better test maker.

The best part about this system is you only need a pencil, an answer key, and a few extra minutes.

Here it is:

If you're already doing something like this, I would love to hear about it in the comments. If you have some kind of electronic reporting system that can crunch all these numbers for you and give you the information you need to move forward, awesome. If not, adding this extra step to your assessment routine will make a difference. ♦

Keep in touch.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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When you give a test or quiz, do you basically just grade it, give it back to students, go over the answers, then move on? If you don't do anything else with the information, if you don't look carefully at how students answer your test questions, you're missing a BIG opportunity.

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3 Test-Taking Strategies for Elementary Students (Includes 10+ Printables)

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3 Test-Taking Strategies for Elementary Students (Includes 10+ Printables)

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Here are three basic test-taking strategies that elementary students should review prior to testing. Plus, download 10 free printable test-taking strategies resources that can be shared with students or hung in the elementary classroom.

Strategy 1: Review the Different Question Formats

To be successful on exams students must be familiar with the different question formats and feel comfortable moving between a scantron and their test packet.

A week or so before a high-stakes test, use specific test preparation strategies and handouts to review the different questions students will see on the exam.

It's always a good idea to review and practice multiple-choice (selected-response) strategies before an assessment. On multiple-choice tests, the vocabulary and layout of the answers can confuse students.

These are my six tips to help students feel like they Multiple-Choice Champions before a big test:

1. Reread the question. Make sure you understand what is being asked.

2. Come up with an answer to the question before looking at the list of choices.

3. Read ALL of the answers and cross out the choices that don't make sense.

4. Underline the section in the text or question that supports your reasoning.

5. Look carefully at similar-sounding answers. Find the more precise answer.

6. Select "All of the above" if two or three answers seem correct.

Download the Be A Multiple-Choice Champion Tip Sheet and hang it up in your classroom on the day of an exam. I guarantee your students will look at the poster sometime during the testing period to boost their confidence and recall strategies for answering multiple-choice questions.

Most schools have an acronym they use school-wide to help their students with open-ended responses. If your school has not adopted an acronym that is used throughout the school, I highly recommend you do. It promotes consistency as the students move from grade level to grade level. The acronym we use at my school is ACE:

Answer the question:

Turn the question into your answer and answer it

Cite an example:

Give a specific example from the text to support your answer

Extend your thinking

Give another example OR state another thought about the text that supports your answer

Help students remember how to answer open-ended responses with the ACE Open-Ended Responses Tip Sheet.

Finally, I review simple strategies that students can use to attack any question.

For older students, I have a list of suggestions for answering the various types of questions from multiple-choice to essay prompts.

For younger grades, I use a fabulous handout that delves into some of the strategies I discuss when reviewing multiple-choice questions and gives students concrete examples to look over.

This resource will show students the following strategies to puzzle out questions they may find confusing. It highlights the following strategies:

1. Substitute each answer in the blank

2. Justify answers my underlining information from the passage

3. Cross out answers that don't make sense

Strategy 2: Strengthen Student Vocabulary

Unfamiliar vocabulary in a literary text or a standardized test can confuse and/or discourage students.

Make sure your students are armed with the vocabulary strategies they need to come out victorious rather than feeling defeated after taking a test. Below are word strategy resources to ensure students come out on top!

Here are 10 terms students should know heading into a standardized test (words may vary depending on your state test). Download the 10 ELA Test Terms To Know Reference Sheet and review the words with students until you're confident they understand their meaning.

A similar download you may find useful is the 10 High-Stakes Test Terms to Know Poster. Teachers should incorporate these terms into classroom activities and should clarify how best to answer each question stem while the stakes are low.

For example, a teacher could ask an introductory question such as

"Infer from the reading on page 3 how Jimmy felt about his friends."

"Compare the reading we did for homework with the passage on the board."

"Analyze how Martha came to make the decision she did."

The last strategy/handout teaches students how to break down individual words and puzzle out their meanings. Here's an example using the word submersible:

STEP 1: BREAK THE WORD INTO SMALLER PARTS. LOOK FOR THE PARTS OF THE WORD YOU KNOW.

Submersible → sub mersible

What does the word sub make you think of?

You can investigate even further by asking, "Do subways and submarines have anything in common?"

Both are used for transportation and traveling from one point to another

Both are underground

STEP 2: LOOK FOR THE CONTEXT CLUES. WHAT DO THEY TELL YOU?

" Explorer, the submersible watercraft, sank deeper into the ocean."

From the passage clues, we know that:

Submersible is describing a feature of the watercraft.

The watercraft can travel deep into the ocean.

STEP 3: USE YOUR BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE.

I know a sub or submarine travels underwater.

The passage says, "...sank deeper into the ocean."
You can conclude that submersible means a vessel or vehicle that is capable of traveling and operating underwater.
This example is a great resource to share with students as a handout or you can hang up the poster on the classroom wall. Once students have reviewed this strategy, assign them words to break down using these three steps.

Strategy 3: Use Practice Prompts

As a literacy specialist, there are a few "key literary elements" that I make sure to emphasize in my teaching because I know they will help my students perform well.

Fortunately, these "key literary elements" support strong reading comprehension and should be focused on even if there were no standardized tests to be taken.

Available for download are reading practice prompts for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry texts. Download Sample Reading Prompts for Standardized Test Preparation for grades 3-5 now.

In Conclusion

Standardized tests can be stressful for students and teachers. Hopefully, these test-taking strategies for elementary students and accompanying resources will relieve some of the anxiety.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Vocab Gal's Favorite
Test Prep Resources

Strategies for Answering
Math Questions

Test-Taking Strategies Poster

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3 Test-Taking Strategies for Elementary Students (Includes 10+ Printables)

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Here are three basic test-taking strategies that elementary students should review prior to testing. Plus, download 10 free printable test-taking strategies resources that can be shared with students or hung in the elementary classroom. To be successful on exams students must be familiar with the different question formats and feel comfortable moving between a scantron and their test packet.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Rubrics

Do teachers in your school feel like students misunderstand assignments?

Are you worried that some students are graded differently than others?

Do your students (and their parents) often debate grades?

Do your teachers complain about spending way too much time grading?

If you checked "yes" for any (or all) of these questions, your current rubrics might be working against you rather than for you. Let's find out how to make rubrics more effective!

What are Rubrics?

A rubric, at its most basic, is a tool to define the expectations of a particular assignment with ways to indicate different levels of effectiveness in meeting those expectations. It is this last aspect, the gradations of quality, that differentiates a rubric from its simpler counterpart, the checklist. Even within the category of a rubric, there is lots of variety.

General rubrics describe expectations for a skill that can be generalized across assignments. Task-specific rubrics are, as their name suggests, geared toward a particular assignment.

The biggest distinction within rubrics, however, is between holistic and analytic rubrics. Holistic rubrics provide a single score to summarize a student's performance on a given task, whereas analytic rubrics provide several scores for the task, one for each different category being evaluated. See examples of each kind here.

Anatomy of the Rubric

There are four main components of a rubric:

To illustrate, for an assignment from a high school literature classroom:

The task description is a ten-page research paper

The dimensions of the assignment include:

The descriptions outline what a student needs to do to get a certain score for a certain dimension

It is with these components themselves that we already start to see how a rubric could be clear and helpful or murky and frustrating.
SAMPLE RUBRIC

Benefits of Rubrics

What good can rubrics really do? A rubric, after all, is a sheet of paper that is all too easy for students to glance at once and then shove to the bottom of an overstuffed backpack. However, rubrics are more important than they seem.

Every time you make a rubric, you articulate your educational philosophy; you indicate where students are, where they can go, and how they will get there. As English Professor Emeritus Peter Elbow explains, by offering your students a rubric, you're telling them:

"You deserve to know more about my values as a particular reader: Here are the aspects of writing that I believe are most central to my idea of excellence."

- Peter Elbow, Writing Assessment in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of Edward M. White
HOW DO RUBRICS HELP STUDENTS?
Rubrics have so much potential that even minimal engagement with them can yield great benefits.

As educator Heidi Goodrich Andrade explains, "If I were to simply circle boxes on a rubric and give it back with an assignment, I would still be providing more feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the work than if I had just assigned a letter grade, and it would not have taken me any longer."

The importance of feedback for student learning can not be overstated. In a 2015 study, rubrics that included individual advice on how to improve led to students with "significantly better performance in planning scientific experiments"; these students "perceived themselves as being more competent and were also more accurate in their self-evaluative performance judgments." That's exactly what Marco Learning hopes to achieve by pairing rubric-based scores with personalized, qualitative feedback about each student's areas of strength and areas for growth.

As educator and author Carol Jago points out, "feedback cools quickly." So anything you can do to speed up the availability of feedback for students matters.
METACOGNITION DEVELOPMENT
At their best, rubrics can encourage students to think critically about their own work and scores. It's a fairly common sentiment among students that teachers "give" certain grades rather than students "earning" them. These word choices reveal that students often don't feel involved in the assessing process; they feel as if it is being done to them rather than with them or by them. Having a clear rubric lets students in on the decision making process. Students better understand the criteria of each assignment, so they can begin to look at their assignments with the critical eye of a teacher, allowing them to understand their past mistakes and fix their current ones. One teacher found that students who assessed themselves with a rubric as they worked on a reading comprehension assignment scored higher on a content knowledge quiz afterward than students who did not use a rubric. The metacognition, or awareness of one's own learning strategies, that can result from familiarity with rubrics produces both more insightful learners in the long-term and less frustrated students when report cards come around.

TEACHERS MAKE BETTER DECISIONS
As Professor Timothy Brophy explains, rubrics are also helpful tools for teachers because they encourage "criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced" scoring. In essence, criterion-referenced scoring means that while grading, teachers ask themselves whether a paper meets the criteria of a certain score rather than consciously or unconsciously assigning grades based on the quality relative to the other papers in that class. In a vacuum, norm-referenced scoring might not seem that bad, but it seriously hinders teachers' ability to meaningfully compare scores across their own classes and across classes taught by several teachers. In addition, consistently comparing each paper to a fixed set of standards decreases the chance that a teacher will grade papers differently based on student preference, number of coffees consumed, decision fatigue, or any other factor that shouldn't affect student grades. Lastly, important nationwide tests like the AP English Language and Literature exams use criterion-referenced scoring systems, which should encourage teachers to grade similarly.
STUDENTS ARE TREATED MORE FAIRLY
Rubrics create a common language to speak about academic work, make the learning goal clear, and level the educational playing field. In this era of increasing diversity, this last point is an important one.

Researchers Kenneth Wolf and Ellen Stevens point out that first-generation students, as well as immigrant students and students from minority backgrounds, often don't come into school with the same academic assumptions as their peers. The clearer the learning target for these students, the more likely they are to meet it.

Since unconscious bias can also work against students most dissimilar to their teachers, comprehensive rubrics can also encourage fairness for all students.

Disadvantages of Rubrics

Although rubrics have many potential benefits for both students and teachers, a poorly constructed rubric can do more harm than good. Luckily, there are a number of predictable pitfalls that can be easily avoided if you know what to look out for.
EXTREME SCALES
Although the scale may seem like a fairly straightforward decision to make, there are many different options.

One teacher might use a scale of A-F, another might use the scale 1 through 5, and yet another might choose to use the words excellent, competent, and needs work as the scale. There is no right answer when it comes to using letters, numbers, or words for your scale, but there are a few choices that could lead to unproductive rubrics.

Scales quickly become ineffective when there are too many or too few options. For example, except for very basic assignments, using just a pass/fail scale will not provide you or your students with very much helpful information.

On the other hand, using a scale of 1 to 20 will make it harder to justify small differences, such as giving a student 13 rather than 14. Having three to five possible options on a scale is often effective and four is sometimes considered ideal.

That being said, one of the largest working scales in effect right now is the College Board AP English essay holistic grading scale from 1 to 9. Even so, this scale is still essentially a 5-point scale broken down into pairs: 9/8, 7/6, 5, 4/3, 2/1.

INCONSISTENT LANGUAGE
There are a number of considerations as well when it comes to descriptions of each dimension; parallelism and consistency are your friends here. For instance, let's say that your current rubric breaks down the dimension of citation in the following way:

level 1 describes a paper with incorrect citations

level 2 is a paper with sometimes accurate citations

level 3 is a paper with many correct citations

level 4 is a paper with complete citations

These levels have obvious differences, but the language isn't as clear as it could be. Choosing to describe either amount, frequency, or intensity across all parts of your scale will help to keep the language consistent automatically.

A revised version of the same rubric might look like this:

level 1 is a paper with few correct citations

level 2 is a paper with some correct citations

level 3 is a paper with many correct citations

level 4 is a paper with all correct citations

The parallel language (using "correct") of each description shows how all the levels relate to each other, easing comprehension for anyone who encounters the rubric.
NEGATIVE LANGUAGE
Another consideration when writing descriptions is valence. As researchers Tierney and Simon explain, using purely negative terms to describe lower levels on the scale can discourage students, particularly younger ones. Using words like "little," "slightly," or "seldom" will be less discouraging (and likely more accurate) than words like "none" and "never."
VAGUE LANGUAGE
Lastly, the criteria for each level should be observable and measurable in some way.

If I claim that students are supposed to "know" something, it is important to indicate what precisely that knowledge will look like. For example, I could specify in the rubric description that a paper with an argument that falls under Level 4 (always strong) must have a thesis that is defendable, specific, and evidence-supported. A paper that falls under Level 3 for argument (usually strong) will have a thesis that is only defendable and evidence-supported.

Without this kind of specificity, it would be easy for a student to argue that their paper meets Level 4 requirements rather than Level 3 requirements since "always" and "usually" can be vague and subjective terms.

How to Write a Rubric

Good rubrics are hard to write. Here are two simple strategies to make sure your rubrics are working well:
1) CALIBRATE WITH COLLEAGUES
An effort to construct effective rubrics is clearly important, but it can be difficult to tell how effective a new rubric is without discussing and revising it with colleagues. As Professor Timothy Brophy suggests, these sessions can be used to establish minimum scores for passing and develop benchmark papers for the rubric's scale.

Selecting six pieces-two high scores, two medium scores, and two low scores-is often a helpful way to show the students what papers look like on each part of your scale. College Board provides three anchor pieces (high, medium, and low) for all previously released AP essays as an example of what this might look like.

If you pass out the benchmark pieces to your department without scores and have the other teachers score them blindly, this meeting can turn into a productive discussion about how to increase grading reliability across classes.

A similar brainstorming and revision session can be helpful if you are trying to adapt previously existing rubrics-whether from another teacher or from the Marco Learning's rubric creator - for a new project.
2) REVIEW ACTUAL SCORES
Discussing rubrics after their implementation can also help teachers analyze grade breakdown.

If 75% of your students are receiving a two on a four-point scale for organization, that might be an indication that you are grading too harshly and/or the students need a review on how to arrange their thoughts. Marco Learning provides lots of this data automatically for teachers along with our qualitative feedback.

Having this quantitative data makes it significantly easier to see class-wide patterns; without a rubric, you might not realize that you are writing comments about organization on 75% of your student papers!

Conclusion

There are unlimited different ways to construct rubrics. However, not all rubrics are created equal. Rubrics with reasonable scales, consistent language, specific requirements, and positive descriptions are more helpful for students and teachers alike.

You can take an effective rubric to the next level by involving other people; refine rubrics with other teachers before their implementation, and take a day to talk your students through a new rubric. You can even go further and grade example essays using a rubric during class, an invaluable way to clarify learning goals.

By clarifying learning goals, we bring students closer to them, one rubric at a time.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Rubrics - Marco Learning

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Do teachers in your school feel like students misunderstand assignments? Are you worried that some students are graded differently than others? Do your students (and their parents) often debate grades? Do your teachers complain about spending way too much time grading?

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Why The Label ‘Exceeds Standard’ Doesn’t Work

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Why The Label ‘Exceeds Standard’ Doesn’t Work

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Why the Label ‘Exceeds Standard’ Doesn’t Work (Opinion)

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In today’s guest post, Professor of Educational Psychology and author Thomas Guskey says that “Exceeds Standards” doesn’t work.

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 2 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 2 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 2 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 1 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 1 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 1 with Rick Wormeli

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Hattie - Developing Assessment-Capable Visible Learners Grades K-12

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Hattie - Developing Assessment-Capable Visible Learners Grades K-12

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Hattie - Developing Assessment-Capable Visible Learners Grades K-12 (Ch.5).pdf

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Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design (2 of 2)

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Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design (2 of 2)

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Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design (2 of 2)

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Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design (1 of 2)

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Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design (1 of 2)

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Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design (1 of 2)

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Aligning Assessment to Learning Outcomes

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Aligning Assessment to Learning Outcomes

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Why Do I Need to Build Alignment between Assessment and Learning Outcomes?

Understanding Purpose

To students, assessment is the main component of a course because it sends a message about what is important and where their time should be focused. Clearly defining your assessment and its relationship to your student learning outcomes is therefore very helpful in ensuring students understand not just how the assessment fits into their learning but how all the practices and content you engage with assists them in achieving success in the course.

Building clear alignment between your outcomes, assessment, and practice (as well as clearly communicating this alignment to students) can build mutual clarity on the learning journey and lessen students' anxiety and questions. The role of assessment is to measure student attainment of the necessary skills and learning, so being able to demonstrate this connection in class and through the syllabus is very helpful in situating why you have made the assessment choices you have.

Understanding Student Learning Progression

Building alignment between assessment and learning outcomes also allows you to develop and communicate the pathway for students' learning progression. It enables you to explain what knowledge and skills were expected on entry to the course and the knowledge and skills that will be developed throughout the course. As students move through a program, the sophistication and difficulty of the assessment choices you make should be increased as you deepen your expectation of student learning and engagement with the material.

Beginning your outcome planning at the program level when considering assessment is helpful in making this progression clearer and more seamless as students progress through the program. Courses do not exist in isolation and considering your course's outcomes and assessment from a programmatic perspective is very beneficial in ensuring that students progress appropriately through the program and achieve the skills and knowledge that are necessary in the appropriate sequence.

Being Able to Validate Attainment

Building alignment between assessment and outcomes is driven by strategically connecting the two components of course design and allows you to communicate and validate your assessment and its role in student learning attainment. Having this clarity of what you are trying to achieve with your students, and connecting this clearly with your mechanisms for measurement through assessment, allows you to be definitive in what constitutes attainment and how it is displayed and measured through assessment. Having this clarity allows you to be able to communicate this to your students and demonstrate to them what level of performance or knowledge acquisition is essential to be successful in the course and program.

Building Effective Assessment of Learning Processes

Lessons, course activities, assessment, and instruction should be planned in a way that allows students to successfully complete assessments and to make connections, gather, organize, interact with, and practice learning outcomes. In your course development process, take each of your assessments one at a time and consider the content knowledge as well as the skill development that each would require for successful completion.

For example, if you want students to analyze a case study, you will need to prepare them to successfully complete this assessment. Here's what your aligned instructional strategies and content may look like:

Learning Outcome: Analyze organizational decision making.

Assessment: Case Study Analysis.
Instructional Strategies:

Methodologies: Provide instruction and model how to:

Do a case study analysis including identifying main issues/key points.

Create case notes.

Apply principles/theories/models.

Develop solutions and provide support for them.

Activities:

Watch YouTube videos of real-life cases with directive questions.

Practice identifying main issues or key points in a case study through self-assessments such as m/c quizzes with instant feedback.

Practice creating case notes with activities such as checklists, instructor reveals to check their work against, and small formative assignments.

Practice with applying principles, theories or models through activities that have practice application with feedback.

Practice with critical thinking, supporting statements, and problem solving through discussion board activities.

Content and materials:

Reading support resources.

Textbook reading on principles, theories or models.

Videos of real-life cases.

Case studies from Library.

Template for case analysis format.

Exemplar of an excellent case analysis.

Writing support resource.

Grading rubric.

How Do I Build Alignment between Assessment and Learning Outcomes?

Considering Stage of Learning

As has been suggested earlier, the first thing that needs to be considered is where students are in their learning stage in the program and the context of the course.

Where are your students in their program?

What learning needs to take place in order for them to move on in the program?

What assessment is relevant to measure this learning?

This will enable you to start with a sense of where you can work in relation to your outcomes and the aligned assessment you choose.

Outline Your Goals

What are the goals that you have for your students and their learning? As when considering developing outcomes, this is your starting place. How do students need to progress in this course to meet course level skill and knowledge acquisition and continue on in the program?

Determine How Attainment can be Demonstrated

Once you have determined how students need to develop, you can begin considering what they need to do to demonstrate this development, which is where we should consider our assessment tools. What do students need to do to show me that they have achieved this outcome? When you are considering this, you should consider it from both formative and summative perspectives. What does attainment of the overall course outcomes look like and how can you develop meaningful formative assessment moments for students to understand their progression?

Define What Performance Looks Like

The next step is to consider what the necessary performance looks like and how to observe and measure it. This is where assessment choice becomes clearer, and you will begin having a sense of the nature of the assessment tools that fit with your outcomes and students' learning progression. At this stage, you could look at performance through different lenses. What would it look like to exceed expectations? Meet expectations? Or not meet expectations? Defining each of these is helpful to build clarity for your students.

The Role of Rubrics

Building rubrics that clearly show what attainment looks like and can be used to grade assignments are useful tools for building clarity and allowing students to measure their own progress. Making these available for students while they are engaging with assessment is important in offering this clarity and allowing students the ability to consider measurement when performing the assessment.

Scaffolding Assessments for Depth

To assist with student development through formative feedback, consider scaffolding a large piece of assessment across the course. In breaking a large piece of assessment down into a number of deliverables across the term, students build towards a final project with a clear learning pathway. Scaffolded assessment allows multiple points of connection for students to receive and reflect on feedback throughout their progression and learning in the course as they develop and refine the larger project. Scaffolded assessments have the added benefit of developing students' time management skills and promote academic integrity through refining and developing a multi-stage project.

Back to Top | Next Section

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Aligning Assessment to Learning Outcomes

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To students, assessment is the main component of a course because it sends a message about what is important and where their time should be focused. Clearly defining your assessment and its relationship to your student learning outcomes is therefore very helpful in ensuring students understand not just how the assessment fits into their learning but how all the practices and content you engage with assists them in achieving success in the course.

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Why should assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies be aligned?

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Why should assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies be aligned?

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Assessments should reveal how well students have learned what we want them to learn while instruction ensures that they learn it. For this to occur, assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies need to be closely aligned so that they reinforce one another.

To ensure that these three components of your course are aligned, ask yourself the following questions:

Learning objectives: What do I want students to know how to do when they leave this course?

Assessments: What kinds of tasks will reveal whether students have achieved the learning objectives I have identified?

Instructional strategies: What kinds of activities in and out of class will reinforce my learning objectives and prepare students for assessments?

What if the components of a course are misaligned?

If assessments are misaligned with learning objectives or instructional strategies, it can undermine both student motivation and learning. Consider these two scenarios:

Your objective is for students to learn to apply analytical skills, but your assessment measures only factual recall. Consequently, students hone their analytical skills and are frustrated that the exam does not measure what they learned.

Your assessment measures students' ability to compare and critique the arguments of different authors, but your instructional strategies focus entirely on summarizing the arguments of different authors. Consequently, students do not learn or practice the skills of comparison and evaluation that will be assessed.

What do well-aligned assessments look like?

This table presents examples of the kinds of activities that can be used to assess different types of learning objectives (adapted from the revised Bloom's Taxonomy).

Type of learning objective

Examples of appropriate assessments

Recall
Recognize
Identify

Objective test items such as fill-in-the-blank, matching, labeling, or multiple-choice questions that require students to:

recall or recognize terms, facts, and concepts

Interpret
Exemplify
Classify
Summarize
Infer
Compare
Explain

Activities such as papers, exams, problem sets, class discussions, or concept maps that require students to:

summarize readings, films, or speeches

compare and contrast two or more theories, events, or processes

classify or categorize cases, elements, or events using established criteria

paraphrase documents or speeches

find or identify examples or illustrations of a concept or principle

Apply
Execute
Implement

Activities such as problem sets, performances, labs, prototyping, or simulations that require students to:

use procedures to solve or complete familiar or unfamiliar tasks

determine which procedure(s) are most appropriate for a given task

Analyze
Differentiate
Organize
Attribute

Activities such as case studies, critiques, labs, papers, projects, debates, or concept maps that require students to:

discriminate or select relevant and irrelevant parts

determine how elements function together

determine bias, values, or underlying intent in presented material

Evaluate
Check
Critique
Assess

Activities such as journals, diaries, critiques, problem sets, product reviews, or studies that require students to:

test, monitor, judge, or critique readings, performances, or products against established criteria or standards

Create
Generate
Plan
Produce
Design

Activities such as research projects, musical compositions, performances, essays, business plans, website designs, or set designs that require students to:

make, build, design or generate something new

This table does not list all possible examples of appropriate assessments. You can develop and use other assessments - just make sure that they align with your learning objectives and instructional strategies!

CONTACT US to talk with an Eberly colleague in person!

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Align Assessments, Objectives, Instructional Strategies - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University

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Assessments should reveal how well students have learned what we want them to learn while instruction ensures that they learn it. For this to occur, assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies need to be closely aligned so that they reinforce one another.

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Principles for Fair Student Assessment Practices for Education in Canada

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Principles for Fair Student Assessment Practices for Education in Canada

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If you could narrow down your answer to the following question to just one thing, what would you say?

What is the problem with assessment practices in a typical classroom?

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If you could narrow down your answer to the following question to just one thing, what would you say?

What is the problem with assessment practices in a typical classroom?

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If you could narrow down your answer to the following question to just one thing, what would you say?

What is the problem with assessment practices in a typical classroom?
— Tyler Rablin (@Mr_Rablin) January 6, 2022

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If you could narrow down your answer to the following question to just one thing, what would you say?

What is the problem with assessment practices in a typical classroom?

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If you could narrow down your answer to the following question to just one thing, what would you say?

What is the problem with assessment practices in a typical classroom?

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If you could narrow down your answer to the following question to just one thing, what would you say?

What is the problem with assessment practices in a typical classroom?

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University of Waterloo: Curve of Forgetting

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University of Waterloo: Curve of Forgetting

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How to review and teach review for memory

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The Curve of Forgetting describes how we retain or get rid of information that we take in. It's based on a one-hour lecture.

On day 1, at the beginning of the lecture, you go in knowing nothing, or 0%, (where the curve starts at the baseline). At the end of the lecture you know 100% of what you know, however well you know it (where the curve rises to its highest point).

By day 2, if you have done nothing with the information you learned in that lecture, didn't think about it again, read it again, etc. you will have lost 50%-80% of what you learned. Our brains are constantly recording information on a temporary basis: scraps of conversation heard on the sidewalk, what the person in front of you is wearing. Because the information isn't necessary, and it doesn't come up again, our brains dump it all off, along with what was learned in the lecture that you actually do want to hold on to!

By day 7, we remember even less, and by day 30, we retain about 2%-3% of the original hour! This nicely coincides with midterm exams, and may account for feeling as if you've never seen this before in your life when you're studying for exams - you may need to actually re-learn it from scratch.

You can change the shape of the curve! Reprocessing the same chunk of information sends a big signal to your brain to hold onto that data. When the same thing is repeated, your brain says, "Oh - there it is again, I better keep that." When you are exposed to the same information repeatedly, it takes less and less time to "activate" the information in your long term memory and it becomes easier for you to retrieve the information when you need it.

Here's the formula and the case for making time to review material: within 24 hours of getting the information - spend 10 minutes reviewing and you will raise the curve almost to 100% again. A week later (day 7), it only takes 5 minutes to "reactivate" the same material, and again raise the curve. By day 30, your brain will only need 2-4 minutes to give you the feedback, "yes, I know that..."

Often students feel they can't possibly make time for a review session every day in their schedules - they have trouble keeping up as it is. However, this review is an excellent investment of time. If you don't review, you will need to spend 40-50 minutes re-learning each hour of material later - do you have that kind of time? Cramming rarely stores information in your long term memory successfully, which makes it harder to access the material for assignments during the term and exam preparation.

Depending on the course load, the general recommendation is to spend half an hour or so every weekday, and 1.5 to 2 hours every weekend in review activity. Perhaps you only have time to review 4 or 5 days of the week, and the curve stays at about the mid range. That's ok, it's a lot better than the 2%-3% you would have retained if you hadn't reviewed at all.

Many students are amazed at the difference reviewing regularly makes in how much they understand and how well they understand and retain material. It's worth experimenting for a couple weeks, just to see what difference it makes to you!

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The Curve of Forgetting describes how we retain or get rid of information that we take in. It's based on a one-hour lecture. On day 1, at the beginning of the lecture, you go in knowing nothing, or 0%, (where the curve starts at the baseline).

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Resources for teacher and self- assessment.

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Tweets by LeavingCertBio

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Assessment resources and research.

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Tweets by carpe_dcu

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Important parts to comprehensive assessment.

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Formative Assessments: Why, When & Top 5 Examples

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Formative Assessments: Why, When & Top 5 Examples

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How to use formative assessment and examples.

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Formative Assessments: Why, When & Top 5 Examples

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Assessment in Education: Top 14 Examples

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Assessment in Education: Top 14 Examples

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assessment examples to try.

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Assessment in Education: Top 14 Examples

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Where you can find tones of assessment tools and fun assignments that differentiate for many students.

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Hi, I'm Matt Miller. I love supporting teachers and saving them time. I'm all about deep, meaningful, FUN learning.

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Ditch That Textbook offers technology for teachers that allows them to revolutionize their classrooms. With these educational technology tools, teachers can embrace classroom innovation & creativity.

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Taylor and Francis Online: Test Wiseness

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Taylor and Francis Online: Test Wiseness

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An Examination of Cue-Using Strategies

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Test wiseness (TW) has been defined as the ability to respond advantageously to multiple-choice items containing extraneous clues and, therefore, to obtain credit without knowledge of the subject matter being tested. The capacity of examinees to develop cue-using strategies was examined and the results suggest that students profit from knowledge of a particular test constructor's idiosyncracies. The findings also lend weight to the argument that TW is not a general ability but rather that performance on TW items is cue-specific. Findings with respect to particular item flaws (longer correct alternative, grammar) generally support the research literature.

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Test wiseness (TW) has been defined as the ability to respond advantageously to multiple-choice items containing extraneous clues and, therefore, to obtain credit without knowledge of the subject matter being tested. The capacity of examinees to develop cue-using strategies was examined and the results suggest that students profit from knowledge of a particular test constructor's idiosyncracies.

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Teacherthought: How Single-Point Rubrics Can Improve Student Work

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Teacherthought: How Single-Point Rubrics Can Improve Student Work

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How to use single-point rubrics to improve your student's work.

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How Single-Point Rubrics Can Improve Student Work
by Drew Perkins, Director of TeachThought PD

Developing and using rubrics with students has long been a challenge for educators.

Sometimes it's an afterthought for teachers once they've planned their lesson or unit. It's most definitely an afterthought for most students. We dutifully hand them out at the beginning of the lesson or unit and watch as they stuff them into their backpacks or a random folder. Or worse, we pick them off the floor at the end of class and wonder why students don't care enough.

Students usually see them next stapled to their grade as they ask why they received whatever grade we assigned, and we say, "Didn't you look at your rubric?" I've been there and it's not only frustrating but not helpful. So how can we design and use rubrics that deepen student thinking and learning and help them improve their work?

I'm a big fan of the single point rubric and often use the 'Breakfast in Bed' example from Cult of Pedagogy in our PBL workshops. I like the simplicity for teachers and students over typical rubrics that feel like a bloated and complex matrix. Single point rubrics help teachers make an important shift with the assessment process.

With traditional rubrics we try to fit what the student has produced into one of the indicators in one of the many boxes corresponding to a number score. With single point rubrics we shift to providing evidence of meeting, exceeding, or falling short of the quality you're looking for. They're also a great way to embed Rich Inquiry, peer critique, and even involve students in identifying what quality should look like.

Single point rubrics can be used for anything, like our PBL project design rubric, but because we get so many questions about presentation rubrics, I'll use that for this example. Most rubrics have multiple categories and something like 4 columns ranging from below standard to above standard like this one from PBLWorks. I used similar rubrics for years but much prefer the thinking and process that single point rubrics help establish.
How Single Point Rubrics Work
A single point rubric designed to assess and provide feedback for presentations might look like the example below. Because I prefer simplicity I've created three categories I would like to assess and give feedback on and they're in the middle column. Most people call these standards but I prefer 'ideals' because standards implies something we reach, a static point. Using 'ideals' conveys that these are things we're constantly in pursuit of. This may be semantics but it's important as a part of a classroom culture that includes Meaningful Assessment in PBL.

It's also important to use qualitative, not quantitative, language in these target statements. So instead of "Uses 4 or more vocabulary words," save that for the evidence that they showed a depth of understanding or demonstrated content fluency.

Now we can use the evidence we see in the presentation to support those target statements. For example, things like "does not present information, arguments, ideas, or findings clearly" would be evidence of falling short of the Planning target of "Presentation was effectively organized and attention was given to the needs of the audience".

Similarly "keeps eye contact with audience most of the time, only glances at notes or slides" would be evidence of meeting or exceeding the Delivery ideal of "effectively communicating to the audience." I've purposely taken the language from the example rubric from PBLWorks to use in the single point example to make a point but of course your evidence would be what you saw and heard.

If we want students to actually use rubrics we have to provide reasons and opportunities to do so. Consider how you might use this rubric, or your version of it, to have students evaluate a presentation from their peers and/or even a presentation from a Ted Talk or something similar. What evidence did they see that supported meeting that target ideal? This opens the door to critical thinking and construction of meaning and quality by students that is important.

Consider the valuable conversation you might have with students about their work discussing what you saw and heard instead of trying to shoehorn their presentation into a preset list of bullet points in a matrix. If you're wondering how to turn this into a grade or score after that discussion check out How to Turn Rubric Scores into Grades. You'll want to work out the process to fit your situation but don't overlook the importance of delaying the score or points.

Single point rubrics are a great tool to help teachers deepen student thinking and learning. Feel free to use the clean version of the one I've shared above or modify it to meet your needs using either of the links below.
*also published at TeachThought.com

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How Single-Point Rubrics Can Improve Student Work - TeachThought PD

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How Single-Point Rubrics Can Improve Student Work by Drew Perkins , Director of TeachThought PD Developing and using rubrics with students has long been a challenge for educators. Sometimes it's an afterthought for teachers once they've planned their lesson or unit. It's most definitely an afterthought for most students.

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Cult of Pedagogy: Meet the Single Point Rubric

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Cult of Pedagogy: Meet the Single Point Rubric

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Rubric Template and instruction.

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The practice of using single point rubrics is slowly but surely catching on. The simplicity of these rubrics - with just a single column of criteria, rather than a full menu of performance levels - offers a whole host of benefits:

Teachers find them easier and faster to create, because they no longer have to spend precious time thinking up all the different ways students could fail to meet expectations.

Students find them easier to read when preparing an assignment. With only the target expectations to focus on, they are more likely to read those expectations.

They allow for higher-quality feedback, because teachers must specify key problem areas and notable areas of excellence for that particular student, rather than choosing from a list of generic descriptions.

Want to Learn More?

I first talked about this type of rubric in an earlier post ( Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics). If this is the first time you've encountered this type of rubric, reading this will give you some background knowledge on all the different types of rubrics and why the single-point deserves world domination.

To give credit where it's due, I did not come up with the name single point rubric. Although the idea for a simplified rubric with a single set of criteria came to me independently, when I went looking for academic support for its use, I found that the type of rubric I had in mind was given the name "Single Point Rubric" in 2000 during a conference presentation by someone named Mary Dietz. Attending that conference was a researcher named Jarene Fluckiger, who published a study on its effectiveness in 2010. (The reference to Dietz is in Fluckiger's paper, but no one named Dietz has published anything on the topic.)

Show Us Your Rubrics!

I urge you to take one of your most convoluted rubrics and make a single-point version of it. Then show it to the world, so other teachers can learn: Take a screenshot of it and post the picture on Twitter with the hashtag #singlepointrubric. If you aren't on Twitter or don't feel like doing this, just put a link to your rubric in the comments below. Help us start a movement to rid the world of ineffective rubrics!

Another Variation (Added in 2017)

After considering some of the limitations of this format, I played around with the rubric a bit more and came up with this variation:

The original version of the single point rubric allowed no space for actually pointing out when the student hit the standard, apart from maybe circling or highlighting the middle column. With this format, teachers can pinpoint where the student is on each descriptor, then offer feedback, either constructive, positive, or both.

To grab a copy of this for your own modification, click here.

Need Ready-Made Rubrics?

My Rubric Pack gives you four different designs in Microsoft Word and Google Docs formats. It also comes with video tutorials to show you how to customize them for any need, plus a Teacher's Manual to help you understand the pros and cons of each style. Check it out here:

Stick around.
Join my mailing list and never miss another post. You'll get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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The practice of using single point rubrics is slowly but surely catching on. Try one for yourself and let us see it!

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Ben Stein as Economic Teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

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Ben Stein as Economic Teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

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What not to do...

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Ben Stein as Economic Teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

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Rubric workshop tools.

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Rubric Materials - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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Building Better Rubrics! Resource Links to Support Building Better Rubrics Rubric Templates Rubric Template (download Word document) Rubric Template (enlarged) (download Word document) Workshop Tools Rubriques Rubriques - Tools Rubriques - Templates Gabarit grilles d'évaluation (download Word document) Gabarit grilles d'évaluation (version agrandie) (download Word document)

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Words to use in a rubric.

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Rubric sample

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Rubric template and workshop tools.

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Rubric Materials - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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Building Better Rubrics! Resource Links to Support Building Better Rubrics Rubric Templates Rubric Template (download Word document) Rubric Template (enlarged) (download Word document) Workshop Tools Rubriques Rubriques - Tools Rubriques - Templates Gabarit grilles d'évaluation (download Word document) Gabarit grilles d'évaluation (version agrandie) (download Word document)

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Assessment tools and resources.

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The 3 main effects of grading.

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HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE

March 1999

By Alfie Kohn

Pour lire cet article en français, cliquer ici.

You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.

Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.

Three Main Effects of Grading

Researchers have found three consistent effects of using - and especially, emphasizing the importance of - letter or number grades:

1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. One of the most well-researched findings in the field of motivational psychology is that the more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward (Kohn, 1993). Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that when students are told they'll need to know something for a test - or, more generally, that something they're about to do will count for a grade - they are likely to come to view that task (or book or idea) as a chore.

While it's not impossible for a student to be concerned about getting high marks and also to like what he or she is doing, the practical reality is that these two ways of thinking generally pull in opposite directions. Some research has explicitly demonstrated that a "grade orientation" and a "learning orientation" are inversely related (Beck et al., 1991; Milton et al., 1986). More strikingly, study after study has found that students - from elementary school to graduate school, and across cultures - demonstrate less interest in learning as a result of being graded (Benware and Deci, 1984; Butler, 1987; Butler and Nisan, 1986; Grolnick and Ryan, 1987; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Hughes et al., 1985; Kage, 1991; Salili et al., 1976). Thus, anyone who wants to see students get hooked on words and numbers and ideas already has reason to look for other ways of assessing and describing their achievement.

2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. Students of all ages who have been led to concentrate on getting a good grade are likely to pick the easiest possible assignment if given a choice (Harter, 1978; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Kage, 1991; Milton et al., 1986). The more pressure to get an A, the less inclination to truly challenge oneself. Thus, students who cut corners may not be lazy so much as rational; they are adapting to an environment where good grades, not intellectual exploration, are what count. They might well say to us, "Hey, you told me the point here is to bring up my GPA, to get on the honor roll. Well, I'm not stupid: the easier the assignment, the more likely that I can give you what you want. So don't blame me when I try to find the easiest thing to do and end up not learning anything."

3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. Given that students may lose interest in what they're learning as a result of grades, it makes sense that they're also apt to think less deeply. One series of studies, for example, found that students given numerical grades were significantly less creative than those who received qualitative feedback but no grades. The more the task required creative thinking, in fact, the worse the performance of students who knew they were going to be graded. Providing students with comments in addition to a grade didn't help: the highest achievement occurred only when comments were given instead of numerical scores (Butler, 1987; Butler, 1988; Butler and Nisan, 1986).

In another experiment, students told they would be graded on how well they learned a social studies lesson had more trouble understanding the main point of the text than did students who were told that no grades would be involved. Even on a measure of rote recall, the graded group remembered fewer facts a week later (Grolnick and Ryan, 1987). A brand-new study discovered that students who tended to think about current events in terms of what they'd need to know for a grade were less knowledgeable than their peers, even after taking other variables into account (Anderman and Johnston, 1998).

More Reasons to Just Say No to Grades

The preceding three results should be enough to cause any conscientious educator to rethink the practice of giving students grades. But as they say on late-night TV commercials, Wait - there's more.

4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective. A "B" in English says nothing about what a student can do, what she understands, where she needs help. Moreover, the basis for that grade is as subjective as the result is uninformative. A teacher can meticulously record scores for one test or assignment after another, eventually calculating averages down to a hundredth of a percentage point, but that doesn't change the arbitrariness of each of these individual marks. Even the score on a math test is largely a reflection of how the test was written: what skills the teacher decided to assess, what kinds of questions happened to be left out, and how many points each section was "worth."

Moreover, research has long been available to confirm what all of us know: any given assignment may well be given two different grades by two equally qualified teachers. It may even be given two different grades by a single teacher who reads it at two different times (for example, see some of the early research reviewed in Kirschenbaum et al., 1971). In short, what grades offer is spurious precision - a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation.

5. Grades distort the curriculum. A school's use of letter or number grades may encourage what I like to call a "bunch o' facts" approach to instruction because that sort of learning is easier to score. The tail of assessment thus comes to wag the educational dog.

6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning. Add up all the hours that teachers spend fussing with their grade books. Then factor in all the (mostly unpleasant) conversations they have with students and their parents about grades. It's tempting to just roll our eyes when confronted with whining or wheedling, but the real problem rests with the practice of grading itself.

7. Grades encourage cheating. Again, we can continue to blame and punish all the students who cheat - or we can look for the structural reasons this keeps happening. Researchers have found that the more students are led to focus on getting good grades, the more likely they are to cheat, even if they themselves regard cheating as wrong (Anderman et al., 1998; Milton et al., 1986; also see "Who's Cheating Whom?").

8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students. Consider this lament, which could have been offered by a teacher in your district:

I'm getting tired of running a classroom in which everything we do revolves around grades. I'm tired of being suspicious when students give me compliments, wondering whether or not they are just trying to raise their grade. I'm tired of spending so much time and energy grading your papers, when there are probably a dozen more productive and enjoyable ways for all of us to handle the evaluation of papers. I'm tired of hearing you ask me 'Does this count?' And, heaven knows, I'm certainly tired of all those little arguments and disagreements we get into concerning marks which take so much fun out of the teaching and the learning. . . (Kirschenbaum et al., 1971, p. 115).

9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other. The quality of students' thinking has been shown to depend partly on the extent to which they are permitted to learn cooperatively (Johnson and Johnson, 1989; Kohn, 1992). Thus, the ill feelings, suspicion, and resentment generated by grades aren't just disagreeable in their own right; they interfere with learning.

The most destructive form of grading by far is that which is done "on a curve," such that the number of top grades is artificially limited: no matter how well all the students do, not all of them can get an A. Apart from the intrinsic unfairness of this arrangement, its practical effect is to teach students that others are potential obstacles to their own success. The kind of collaboration that can help all students to learn more effectively doesn't stand a chance in such an environment.

Sadly, even teachers who don't explicitly grade on a curve may assume, perhaps unconsciously, that the final grades "ought to" come out looking more or less this way: a few very good grades, a few very bad grades, and the majority somewhere in the middle. But as one group of researchers pointed out, "It is not a symbol of rigor to have grades fall into a 'normal' distribution; rather, it is a symbol of failure - failure to teach well, failure to test well, and failure to have any influence at all on the intellectual lives of students" (Milton et al., 1986, p. 225).

The competition that turns schooling into a quest for triumph and ruptures relationships among students doesn't just happen within classrooms, of course. The same effect is witnessed at a schoolwide level when kids are not just rated but ranked, sending the message that the point isn't to learn, or even to perform well, but to defeat others. Some students might be motivated to improve their class rank, but that is completely different from being motivated to understand ideas. (Wise educators realize that it doesn't matter how motivated students are; what matters is how students are motivated. It is the type of motivation that counts, not the amount.)

Grade Inflation . . . and Other Distractions

Most of us are directly acquainted with at least some of these disturbing consequences of grades, yet we continue to reduce students to letters or numbers on a regular basis. Perhaps we've become inured to these effects and take them for granted. This is the way it's always been, we assume, and the way it has to be. It's rather like people who have spent all their lives in a terribly polluted city and have come to assume that this is just the way air looks - and that it's natural to be coughing all the time.

Oddly, when educators are shown that it doesn't have to be this way, some react with suspicion instead of relief. They want to know why you're making trouble, or they assert that you're exaggerating the negative effects of grades (it's really not so bad - cough, cough), or they dismiss proven alternatives to grading on the grounds that our school could never do what others schools have done.

The practical difficulties of abolishing letter grades are real. But the key question is whether those difficulties are seen as problems to be solved or as excuses for perpetuating the status quo. The logical response to the arguments and data summarized here is to say: "Good heavens! If even half of this is true, then it's imperative we do whatever we can, as soon as we can, to phase out traditional grading." Yet many people begin and end with the problems of implementation, responding to all this evidence by saying, in effect, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we'll never get rid of grades because . . ."

It is also striking how many educators never get beyond relatively insignificant questions, such as how many tests to give, or how often to send home grade reports, or what grade should be given for a specified level of achievement (e.g., what constitutes "B" work), or what number corresponds to what letter. Some even reserve their outrage for the possibility that too many students are ending up with good grades, a reaction that suggests stinginess with A's is being confused with intellectual rigor. The evidence indicates that the real problem isn't grade inflation; it's grades. The proper occasion for outrage is not that too many students are getting A's, but that too many students have accepted that getting A's is the point of going to school.

Let's consider the most frequently heard responses to the above arguments - which is to say, the most common objections to getting rid of grades.

First, it is said that students expect to receive grades and even seem addicted to them. This is often true; personally, I've taught high school students who reacted to the absence of grades with what I can only describe as existential vertigo. (Who am I, if not a B+?) But as more elementary and even some middle schools move to replace grades with more informative (and less destructive) systems of assessment, the damage doesn't begin until students get to high school. Moreover, elementary and middle schools that haven't changed their practices often cite the local high school as the reason they must get students used to getting grades regardless of their damaging effects - just as high schools point the finger at colleges.

Even when students arrive in high school already accustomed to grades, already primed to ask teachers, "Do we have to know this?" or "What do I have to do to get an A?", this is a sign that something is very wrong. It's more an indictment of what has happened to them in the past than an argument to keep doing it in the future.

Perhaps because of this training, grades can succeed in getting students to show up on time, hand in their work, and otherwise do what they're told. Many teachers are loath to give up what is essentially an instrument of control. But even to the extent this instrument works (which is not always), we are obliged to reflect on whether mindless compliance is really our goal. The teacher who exclaims, "These kids would blow off my course in a minute if they weren't getting a grade for it!" may be issuing a powerful indictment of his or her course. Who would be more reluctant to give up grades than a teacher who spends the period slapping transparencies on the overhead projector and lecturing endlessly at students about Romantic poets or genetic codes? Without bribes (A's) and threats (F's), students would have no reason to do such assignments. To maintain that this proves something is wrong with the kids - or that grades are simply "necessary" - suggests a willful refusal to examine one's classroom practices and assumptions about teaching and learning.

"If I can't give a child a better reason for studying than a grade on a report card, I ought to lock my desk and go home and stay there." So wrote Dorothy De Zouche, a Missouri teacher, in an article published in February . . . of 1945. But teachers who can give a child a better reason for studying don't need grades. Research substantiates this: when the curriculum is engaging - for example, when it involves hands-on, interactive learning activities - students who aren't graded at all perform just as well as those who are graded (Moeller and Reschke, 1993).

Another objection: it is sometimes argued that students must be given grades because colleges demand them. One might reply that "high schools have no responsibility to serve colleges by performing the sorting function for them" - particularly if that process undermines learning (Krumboltz and Yeh, 1996, p. 325). But in any case the premise of this argument is erroneous: traditional grades are not mandatory for admission to colleges and universities. (See Sidebar A.)

A friend of mine likes to say that people don't resist change - they resist being changed. Even terrific ideas (like moving a school from a grade orientation to a learning orientation) are guaranteed to self-destruct if they are simply forced down people's throats. The first step for an administrator, therefore, is to open up a conversation - to spend perhaps a full year just encouraging people to think and talk about the effects of (and alternatives to) traditional grades. This can happen in individual classes, as teachers facilitate discussions about how students regard grades, as well as in evening meetings with parents, or on a website - all with the help of relevant books, articles, speakers, videos, and visits to neighboring schools that are farther along in this journey.

The actual process of "de-grading" can be done in stages. For example, a high school might start by freeing ninth-grade classes from grades before doing the same for upperclassmen. (Even a school that never gets beyond the first stage will have done a considerable service, giving students one full year where they can think about what they're learning instead of their GPAs.)

Another route to gradual change is to begin by eliminating only the most pernicious practices, such as grading on a curve or ranking students. Although grades, per se, may continue for a while, at least the message will be sent from the beginning that all students can do well, and that the point is to succeed rather than to beat others.

Anyone who has heard the term "authentic assessment" knows that abolishing grades doesn't mean eliminating the process of gathering information about student performance - and communicating that information to students and parents. Rather, abolishing grades opens up possibilities that are far more meaningful and constructive. These include narratives (written comments), portfolios (carefully chosen collections of students' writings and projects that demonstrate their interests, achievement, and improvement over time), student-led parent-teacher conferences, exhibitions and other opportunities for students to show what they can do.

Of course, it's harder for a teacher to do these kinds of assessments if he or she has 150 or more students and sees each of them for 45-55 minutes a day. But that's not an argument for continuing to use traditional grades; it's an argument for challenging these archaic remnants of a factory-oriented approach to instruction, structural aspects of high schools that are bad news for reasons that go well beyond the issue of assessment. It's an argument for looking into block scheduling, team teaching, interdisciplinary courses - and learning more about schools that have arranged things so each teacher can spend more time with fewer students (e.g., Meier, 1995).

Administrators should be prepared to respond to parental concerns, some of them completely reasonable, about the prospect of edging away from grades. "Don't you value excellence?" You bet - and here's the evidence that traditional grading undermines excellence. "Are you just trying to spare the self-esteem of students who do poorly?" We are concerned that grades may be making things worse for such students, yes, but the problem isn't just that some kids won't get A's and will have their feelings hurt. The real problem is that almost all kids (including yours) will come to focus on grades and, as a result, their learning will be hurt.

If parents worry that grades are the only window they have into the school, we need to assure them that alternative assessments provide a far better view. But if parents don't seem to care about getting the most useful information or helping their children become more excited learners - if they demand grades for the purpose of documenting how much better their kids are than everyone else's, then we need to engage them in a discussion about whether this is a legitimate goal, and whether schools exist for the purpose of competitive credentialing or for the purpose of helping everyone to learn (Kohn, 1998; Labaree, 1997).

Above all, we need to make sure that objections and concerns about the details don't obscure the main message, which is the demonstrated harm of traditional grading on the quality of students' learning and their interest in exploring ideas.

High school administrators can do a world of good in their districts by actively supporting efforts to eliminate conventional grading in elementary and middle schools. Working with their colleagues in these schools can help pave the way for making such changes at the secondary school level.

Finally, there is the question of what classroom teachers can do while grades continue to be required. The short answer is that they should do everything within their power to make grades as invisible as possible for as long as possible. Helping students forget about grades is the single best piece of advice for creating a learning-oriented classroom.

When I was teaching high school, I did a lot of things I now regret. But one policy that still seems sensible to me was saying to students on the first day of class that, while I was compelled to give them a grade at the end of the term, I could not in good conscience ever put a letter or number on anything they did during the term - and I would not do so. I would, however, write a comment - or, better, sit down and talk with them - as often as possible to give them feedback.

At this particular school I frequently faced students who had been prepared for admission to Harvard since their early childhood - a process I have come to call "Preparation H." I knew that my refusal to rate their learning might only cause some students to worry about their marks all the more, or to create suspense about what would appear on their final grade reports, which of course would defeat the whole purpose. So I said that anyone who absolutely had to know what grade a given paper would get could come see me and we would figure it out together. An amazing thing happened: as the days went by, fewer and fewer students felt the need to ask me about grades. They began to be more involved with what we were learning because I had taken responsibility as a teacher to stop pushing grades into their faces, so to speak, whenever they completed an assignment.

What I didn't do very well, however, was to get students involved in devising the criteria for excellence (what makes a math solution elegant, an experiment well-designed, an essay persuasive, a story compelling) as well as deciding how well their projects met those criteria. I'm afraid I unilaterally set the criteria and evaluated the students' efforts. But I have seen teachers who were more willing to give up control, more committed to helping students participate in assessment and turn that into part of the learning. Teachers who work with their students to design powerful alternatives to letter grades have a replacement ready to go when the school finally abandons traditional grading - and are able to minimize the harm of such grading in the meantime.

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For a more detailed look at the issues discussed in this article, please see the books Punished by Rewards and The Schools Our Children Deserve as well as the DVD No Grades + No Homework = Better Learning. Click here for a more recent article about the subject that offers a skeptical look at "standards-based" grading, a more comprehensive analysis of why grading is inherently counterproductive, and more examples of teachers who have stopped doing it.

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SIDEBAR A:
Must Concerns About College Derail High School Learning?

Here is the good news: college admissions is not as rigid and reactionary as many people think. Here is the better news: even when that process doesn't seem to have its priorities straight, high schools don't have to be dragged down to that level.

Sometimes it is assumed that admissions officers at the best universities are 80-year-old fuddy-duddies, peering over their spectacles and muttering about "highly irregular" applications. In truth, the people charged with making these decisions are often just a few years out of college themselves and, after making their way through a pile of interchangeable applications from 3.8-GPA, student-council-vice-president, musically-accomplished hopefuls from high-powered traditional suburban high schools, they are desperate for something unconventional. Given that the most selective colleges have been to known to accept home-schooled children who have never set foot in a classroom, secondary schools have more latitude than they sometimes assume. It is not widely known, for example, that at least 280 colleges and universities don't require applicants to take either the SAT or the ACT. [By 2010, that number had grown to nearly 850, representing almost 40 percent of all accredited four-year institutions in the U.S.]

Admittedly, large state universities are more resistant to unconventional applications than are small private colleges simply because of economics: it takes more time, and therefore more money, for admissions officers to read meaningful application materials than it does for them to glance at a GPA or an SAT score and plug it into a formula. But I have heard of high schools approaching the admissions directors of nearby universities and saying, in effect, "We'd like to improve our school by getting rid of grades. Here's why. Will you work with us to make sure our seniors aren't penalized?" This strategy may well be successful for the simple reason that not many high schools are requesting this at present and the added inconvenience for admissions offices is likely to be negligible. Of course, if more and more high schools abandon traditional grades, then the universities will have no choice but to adapt. This is a change that high schools will have to initiate rather than waiting for colleges to signal their readiness.

At the moment, plenty of admissions officers enjoy the convenience of class ranking, apparently because they have confused being better than one's peers with being good at something; they're looking for winners rather than learners. But relatively few colleges actually insist on this practice. When a 1993 NASSP survey asked 1,100 admissions officers what would happen if a high school stopped computing class rank, only 0.5 percent said the school's applicants would not be considered for admission, 4.5 percent said it would be a "great handicap," and 14.4 percent said it would be a "handicap" (Levy and Riordan, 1994). In other words, it appears that the absence of class ranks would not interfere at all with students' prospects for admission to four out of five colleges.

Even more impressive, some high schools not only refuse to rank their students but refuse to give any sort of letter or number grades. Courses are all taken pass/fail, sometimes with narrative assessments of the students' performance that become part of a college application. I have spoken to representatives of most of the following schools, and all assure me that, year after year, their graduates are accepted into large state universities and small, highly selective colleges. Even the complete absence of high school grades is not a barrier to college admission, so we don't have that excuse for continuing to subject students to the harm done by traditional grading.

Any school considering the abolition of grades might want to submit a letter with each graduating student's transcript that explains why the school has chosen this course (see Sidebar B). In the meantime, feel free to contact any of these successful grade-free high schools:

Carolina Friends School, Durham, NC

Eagle Rock School, Estes Park, CO

Jefferson County Open School, Lakewood, CO

Lehman Alternative Community School, Ithaca, NY

Metropolitan Learning Center, Portland, OR

Poughkeepsie Day School, Poughkeepsie, NY

Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY

Waring School, Beverly, MA

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We at ______________ High School believe our graduates are uniquely qualified to take advantage of what your institution of higher learning has to offer because they are interested in what they will be able to learn rather than in what grade they will be able to get. By the time they leave us, our students have grown into scholars, and that's due in large part to the absence of traditional ratings. Students in other schools spend much of their time and mental effort keeping track of their grade-point averages, figuring out what is required for an A and then doing only that and no more. At ___________, that time and energy are devoted exclusively to encountering great ideas and great literature, using the scientific method, thinking like an historian or a mathematician, and learning to speak and write with precision. Our students not only think clearly - they take joy in doing so . . . precisely because their efforts have not been reduced to letters or numbers.

The enclosed transcript includes a wealth of other information about the applicant - a descriptive list of the courses s/he has completed and the special projects and extracurricular activities s/he has undertaken, as well as what selected members of our staff have to say about the student as a thinker and as a person. We believe that these data, together with the personal essay you may request and the interview we hope you will conduct, will give you a rich and complete portrait of this applicant such that a list of grades would add little in any case.

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REFERENCES
Anderman, E. M., T. Griesinger, and G. Westerfield. "Motivation and Cheating During Early Adolescence." Journal of Educational Psychology 90 (1998): 84-93.

Anderman, E. M., and J. Johnston. "Television News in the Classroom: What Are Adolescents Learning?" Journal of Adolescent Research 13 (1998): 73-100

Beck, H. P., S. Rorrer-Woody, and L. G. Pierce. "The Relations of Learning and Grade Orientations to Academic Performance." Teaching of Psychology 18 (1991): 35-37.

Benware, C. A., and E. L. Deci. "Quality of Learning With an Active Versus Passive Motivational Set." American Educational Research Journal 21 (1984): 755-65.

Butler, R. "Task-Involving and Ego-Involving Properties of Evaluation: Effects of Different Feedback Conditions on Motivational Perceptions, Interest, and Performance." Journal of Educational Psychology 79 (1987): 474-82.

Butler, R. "Enhancing and Undermining Intrinsic Motivation: The Effects of Task-Involving and Ego-Involving Evaluation on Interest and Performance." British Journal of Educational Psychology 58 (1988): 1-14.

Butler, R., and M. Nisan. "Effects of No Feedback, Task-Related Comments, and Grades on Intrinsic Motivation and Performance." Journal of Educational Psychology 78 (1986): 210-16.

De Zouche, D. "'The Wound Is Mortal': Marks, Honors, Unsound Activities." The Clearing House 19 (1945): 339-44.

Grolnick, W. S., and R. M. Ryan. "Autonomy in Children's Learning: An Experimental and Individual Difference Investigation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 (1987): 890-98.

Harter, S. "Pleasure Derived from Challenge and the Effects of Receiving Grades on Children's Difficulty Level Choices." Child Development 49 (1978): 788-99.

Harter, S. and Guzman, M. E. "The Effect of Perceived Cognitive Competence and Anxiety on Children's Problem-Solving Performance, Difficulty Level Choices, and Preference for Challenge." Unpublished manuscript, University of Denver. 1986.

Hughes, B., H. J. Sullivan, and M. L. Mosley. "External Evaluation, Task Difficulty, and Continuing Motivation." Journal of Educational Research 78 (1985): 210-15.

Johnson, D. W., and R. T. Johnson. Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research. Edina, Minn.: Interaction Book Co., 1989.

Kage, M. "The Effects of Evaluation on Intrinsic Motivation." Paper presented at the meeting of the Japan Association of Educational Psychology, Joetsu, Japan, 1991.

Kirschenbaum, H., S. B. Simon, and R. W. Napier. Wad-Ja-Get?: The Grading Game in American Education. New York: Hart, 1971.

Kohn, A. No Contest: The Case Against Competition. Rev. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

Kohn, A. Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993

Kohn, A. "Only for My Kid: How Privileged Parents Undermine School Reform." Phi Delta Kappan, April 1998: 569-77.

Krumboltz, J. D., and C. J. Yeh. "Competitive Grading Sabotages Good Teaching." Phi Delta Kappan, December 1996: 324-26.

Labaree, D. F. How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997.

Levy, J., and P. Riordan. Rank-in-Class, Grade Point Average, and College Admission. Reston, Va.: NASSP, 1994. (Available as ERIC Document 370988.)

Meier, D. The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem. Boston: Beacon, 1995.

Milton, O., H. R. Pollio, and J. A. Eison. Making Sense of College Grades. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.

Moeller, A. J., and C. Reschke. "A Second Look at Grading and Classroom Performance: Report of a Research Study." Modern Language Journal 77 (1993): 163-69.

Salili, F., M. L. Maehr, R. L. Sorensen, and L. J. Fyans, Jr. "A Further Consideration of the Effects of Evaluation on Motivation." American Educational Research Journal 13 (1976): 85-102.

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HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE March 1999 By Alfie Kohn Pour lire cet article en français, cliquer ici. You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students.

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 2 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 2 with Rick Wormeli

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How to give good feedback.

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 2 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 1 with Rick Wormeli

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 1 with Rick Wormeli

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How to give good feedback.

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Descriptive Feedback Techniques Part 1 with Rick Wormeli

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How to think about feedback and give feedback.

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waggl: The John Wooden Approach to Actionable Feedback

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waggl: The John Wooden Approach to Actionable Feedback

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Affects of actionable feedback.

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John Wooden is one of the most legendary coaches - in any sport - of all-time. He lead his team to 10 NCAA Championships at UCLA and, at one point, they won 88 consecutive games. For context, the coaches with the next-highest number of championships have four - meaning they'd need to win titles for over a half-decade to catch Wooden. The next longest winning streak is 60 games - and the one after that is 47, also held by Wooden.

In short, he was a great coach and leader.

In the 1970s, two psychologists - Ron Gallimore and Roland Thorp - studied Wooden. They recorded 2,300 instances of feedback , and the results were:

6.6% were expressions of displeasure

Over 75% contained pure information - what to do and how to do it, with no emotional context

Now, yes, coaching 18-to-22 year-olds at high-level college basketball is different than running a 500+-person widget company. But these findings are crucial: as Dale Carnegie has also pointed out, people are creatures of emotion - not inherently creatures of logic. We want our workplace to be logical, which is why we create process. But because the people that work on projects are inherently emotional, workplaces often become so too.

The Wooden research underscores the importance of focusing on the how in feedback - direct, actionable improvement items, stripped bare of office politics as background context.

Over 3 in 4 directions that Wooden gave were delivered in this way, and he's arguably the best all-time in his profession.

When effective feedback is actionable information, the likely result is increased productivity toward a goal. That is the similarity between coaching college basketball athletes and running an organization: both strive for more productivity and trying goal achievement.

At , we partner with companies to design employee feedback pulses; which questions to send at the right frequency, how to receive and act on the feedback, and determine the next steps - diving deeper into select areas such as Change, Strategy or Culture, allowing time for action to be taken (based on feedback received), and clear guidance on how to track progress.

That's part of our Wooden approach. We want to make sure leaders understand how to maximize productive feedback and clearly define actionable items.

As we're in the midst of NBA Playoffs , you may wonder how many of today's pro players like Steph Curry , Kevin Durant , LeBron James , or DeMar DeRozan have been influenced by John Wooden's coaching style. There's little doubt that true leadership, based on solid principles such as inspiring players to become their best possible selves (on and off the court), transcends time.

Waggl helps organizations distill the wisdom in the system. If simple, agile, and more actionable insights are what you're after, while working to make your workplace more human - we would love to connect with you and exchange ideas. Contact us: [email protected]

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The John Wooden Approach to Actionable Feedback

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John Wooden is one of the most legendary coaches -- in any sport -- of all-time. He lead his team to 10 NCAA Championships at UCLA and, at one point, they won 88 consecutive games. For context, the coaches with the next-highest number of championships have four -- meaning they'd need to win titles for...

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Important things to remember about feedback.

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"Most of the feedback that students receive about their classroom work is from other students - and much of that feedback is wrong." (John Hattie)
The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ( ASCD) is an international non-profit organization for teachers and educators. Its mission is "to develop programs, products, and services essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead." The Educational Leadership Magazine is ASCD's flagship publication that is sent to its members eight times a year; subscriptions and individual issues are also available.

EL's issue on "Feedback for learning" (Vol. 70/1) brings together renowned experts in this field: Grant Wiggins, John Hattie, Susan M. Brookhart, Dylan William and many more. The educators and researchers share valuable insights about what feedback is (and isn't) and how feedback works to improve learning. As a quick takeaway EL has put together this handy infographic with an overview of seven things to remember about feedback. You can download the infograpic at www.ascd.org (PDF).

You can order your issue of Educational Leadership (Vol. 70/1) "Feedback for Learning" at shop.ascd.org.

Further reading about "Feedback for learning"

Here is a selection of books by Grant Wiggins, Susan M. Brookhart, Dylan William and John Hattie if you want to dive deeper into some of the aspects of effective feedback and formative assessment in the classroom.

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Feedback for Learning Infographic - VISIBLE LEARNING

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"Most of the feedback that students receive about their classroom work is from other students - and much of that feedback is wrong." (John Hattie) The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ( ASCD) is an international non-profit organization for teachers and educators.

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Austin’s Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work

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Austin’s Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work

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How to motivate and encourage student engagement.

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Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work

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Ron Berger from EL Education demonstrates the transformational power of models, critique, and descriptive feedback to improve student work. Here he tells the story of Austin's Butterfly. First-grade students at ANSER Charter School in Boise, ID, helped Austin take a scientific illustration of a butterfly through multiple drafts toward a high-quality final product.

This video accompanies the book Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming Schools through Student-Engaged Assessment.

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LEARNING HUB: So you think you provide quality feedback?

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LEARNING HUB: So you think you provide quality feedback?

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Key points to giving quality feedback.

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John Hattie on Visible Learning and Feedback in the Classroom

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John Hattie on Visible Learning and Feedback in the Classroom

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John Hattie on Visible Learning and Feedback in the Classroom

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Ditch That Textbook: Draw, choose, write or say: Fantastic formative assessments

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Ditch That Textbook: Draw, choose, write or say: Fantastic formative assessments

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Formative assessment ideas.

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Draw, choose, write or say: Fantastic formative assessments

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Formative assessment can be fantastic! Here are options for letting students draw, choose, write and say as a formative assessment tool. Formative

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Ditch That Textbook: Fun formative assessment: 12 easy, no-tech ideas you can use tomorrow

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Ditch That Textbook: Fun formative assessment: 12 easy, no-tech ideas you can use tomorrow

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Formative assessment ideas.

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Fun formative assessment: 12 easy, no-tech ideas you can use tomorrow

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Formative assessment means providing students with opportunities to show you what they are learning while you are teaching it. These assessments inform

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National Council of Teachers of English: Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction

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National Council of Teachers of English: Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction

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The Dos and Donts of formative assessment.

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Formative assessment is the lived, daily embodiment of a teacher's desire to refine practice based on a keener understanding of current levels of student performance, undergirded by the teacher's knowledge of possible paths of student development within the discipline and of pedagogies that support such development.
Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction
See the new Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction, written by the NCTE Task Force on Assessment and approved by the NCTE Executive Committee October 21, 2013 (also in a printable booklet format and html Web page format).

Listen as Cathy Fleischer and Scott Filkins, members of the NCTE Task Force on Assessment, talk about formative assessment and this new statement: Part 1 and Part 2.

" A Formative Assessment System for Writing Improvement," " A Better Grading System: Standards-Based, Student-Centered Assessment," and other articles in " Knowing Better: Examining Assessment," the September 2013 English Journal, and " Feed-Forward: Linking Instruction with Assessment," the December 2013 Voices from the Middle.

Hear Kathleen Blake Yancey talk about the response from K-20 educators to the NCTE Assessment Story Project (Education Talk Radio interview, March 4, 2015).

#nctechat Twitter Chat Archive: Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction with NCTE member guest hosts Franki Sibberson (@frankisibberson) and Antero Garcia (@anterobot).

Excerpt from Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction:
Choosing a Formative Assessment Stance
As school decision makers are poised to select new assessments, we urge them to choose a path that supports a formative assessment stance. Teachers deserve protected time and quality support as they learn to observe closely and analyze deeply; students deserve a classroom context that allows teachers to do this. Over time, this professional development raises the quality of teaching and, in turn, the level of student learning. The more teachers can see and understand what students are doing, the better they can support those students in their learning.

Beyond that, decision makers can critically analyze what authentic formative assessment is and is not. Keeping in mind the following chart, teachers and administrators together can choose and create tools and strategies that will truly inform practice, support students, and improve learning.

Highlight the needs of each student

View all students as being, or needing to be, at the same place in their learning

Provide immediately useful feedback to students and teachers

Provide feedback weeks or months after the assessment

Occur as a planned and intentional part of the learning in a classroom

Always occur at the same time for each student

Focus on progress or growth

Focus solely on a number, score, or level

Support goal setting within the classroom curriculum

Occur outside of authentic learning experiences

Answer questions the teacher has about students' learning

Have parameters that limit teacher involvement

Reflect the goals and intentions of the teachers and the students

Look like mini-versions of pre-determined summative assessments

Rely on teacher expertise and interpretation

Rely on outsiders to score and analyze results

Occur in the context of classroom life

Interrupt or intrude upon classroom life

Focus on responsibility and care

Focus on accountability

Inform immediate next steps

Focus on external mandates

Allow teachers and students to better understand the learning process in general and the learning process for these students in particular

Exclude teachers and students from assessing through the whole learning process

Encourage students to assume greater responsibility for monitoring and supporting their own learning.

Exclude students from the assessment process

This position statement may be printed, copied, and disseminated without permission from NCTE.

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Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction

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Formative assessment is the lived, daily embodiment of a teacher's desire to refine practice based on a keener understanding of current levels of student performance, undergirded by the teacher's knowledge of possible paths of student development within the discipline and of pedagogies that support such development.

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AAC: Key Principles of Assessment - from the AAC Perspective

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AAC: Key Principles of Assessment - from the AAC Perspective

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Key points to formative assessment.

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Whether you are a beginning teacher, or an experienced teacher who wants to think more deeply about classroom assessment, these professional learning modules are for you!

The goal of AAC professional learning is to provide food for thought. Whether you are browsing these materials on your own, or looking for something to use for a conversation with colleagues, we're confident you will find something here to spark your curiosity and deepen your understanding of classroom assessment.

And when you're ready to move beyond Assessment 101, there are plenty of other professional learning modules on the site to help you continue on your assessment journey.

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Assessment 101 - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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Key Principles of Assessment - from the AAC Perspective Whether you are a beginning teacher, or an experienced teacher who wants to think more deeply about classroom assessment, these professional learning modules are for you! The goal of AAC professional learning is to provide food for thought.

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Understanding by Design: What Is Backward Design?

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Understanding by Design: What Is Backward Design?

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Understanding how to use backwards design and when.

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Professional Learning Services: Improve Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction Using the Understanding by Design® Framework

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Professional Learning Services: Improve Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction Using the Understanding by Design® Framework

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How to improve assessment.

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List of books about assessment.

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ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

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Vanderbuilt University: Understanding by Design

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Vanderbuilt University: Understanding by Design

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Ideas to help understand assessment design and tools.

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Cite this guide: Bowen, R. S. (2017). Understanding by Design. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/understanding-by-design/.

Overview

Understanding by Design is a book written by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe that offers a framework for designing courses and content units called "Backward Design." Instructors typically approach course design in a "forward design" manner, meaning they consider the learning activities (how to teach the content), develop assessments around their learning activities, then attempt to draw connections to the learning goals of the course. In contrast, the backward design approach has instructors consider the learning goals of the course first. These learning goals embody the knowledge and skills instructors want their students to have learned when they leave the course. Once the learning goals have been established, the second stage involves consideration of assessment. The backward design framework suggests that instructors should consider these overarching learning goals and how students will be assessed prior to consideration of how to teach the content. For this reason, backward design is considered a much more intentional approach to course design than traditional methods of design.

This teaching guide will explain the benefits of incorporating backward design. Then it will elaborate on the three stages that backward design encompasses. Finally, an overview of a backward design template is provided with links to blank template pages for convenience.

The Benefits of Using Backward Design
"Our lessons, units, and courses should be logically inferred from the results sought, not derived from the methods, books, and activities with which we are most comfortable. Curriculum should lay out the most effective ways of achieving specific results... in short, the best designs derive backward from the learnings sought."
In Understanding by Design, Wiggins and McTighe argue that backward design is focused primarily on student learning and understanding. When teachers are designing lessons, units, or courses, they often focus on the activities and instruction rather than the outputs of the instruction. Therefore, it can be stated that teachers often focus more on teaching rather than learning. This perspective can lead to the misconception that learning is the activity when, in fact, learning is derived from a careful consideration of the meaning of the activity.

As previously stated, backward design is beneficial to instructors because it innately encourages intentionality during the design process. It continually encourages the instructor to establish the purpose of doing something before implementing it into the curriculum. Therefore, backward design is an effective way of providing guidance for instruction and designing lessons, units, and courses. Once the learning goals, or desired results, have been identified, instructors will have an easier time developing assessments and instruction around grounded learning outcomes.

The incorporation of backward design also lends itself to transparent and explicit instruction. If the teacher has explicitly defined the learning goals of the course, then they have a better idea of what they want the students to get out of learning activities. Furthermore, if done thoroughly, it eliminates the possibility of doing certain activities and tasks for the sake of doing them. Every task and piece of instruction has a purpose that fits in with the overarching goals and goals of the course.

As the quote below highlights, teaching is not just about engaging students in content. It is also about ensuring students have the resources necessary to understand. Student learning and understanding can be gauged more accurately through a backward design approach since it leverages what students will need to know and understand during the design process in order to progress.
"In teaching students for understanding, we must grasp the key idea that we are coaches of their ability to play the 'game' of performing with understanding, not tellers of our understanding to them on the sidelines."
The Three Stages of Backward Design
"Deliberate and focused instructional design requires us as teachers and curriculum writers to make an important shift in our thinking about the nature of our job. The shift involves thinking a great deal, first, about the specific learnings sought, and the evidence of such learnings, before thinking about what we, as the teacher, will do or provide in teaching and learning activities."

The Backward Design Template

A link to the blank backward design template is provided here ( https://jaymctighe.com/resources/), and it is referred to as UbD Template 2.0. The older version (version 1.0) can also be downloaded at that site as well as other resources relevant to Understanding by Design. The template walks individuals through the stages of backward design. However, if you are need of the template with descriptions of each section, please see the table below. There is also a link to the document containing the template with descriptions provided below and can be downloaded for free.

Backward Design Template with Descriptions (click link for template with descriptions).

References

1. Sample, Mark. (2011). Teaching for Enduring Understanding. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/teaching-for-enduring-understanding/35243.

2. Wiggins, Grant, and McTighe, Jay. (1998). Backward Design. In Understanding by Design (pp. 13-34). ASCD.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Ryan S. Bowen Print Version Cite this guide: Bowen, R. S. (2017). Understanding by Design. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/understanding-by-design/. Overview The Benefits of Using Backward Design The Three Stages of Backward Design The Backward Design Template Overview Understanding by Design is a book written by Grant Wiggins and Jay...

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Tones of resources for assessment and assignments.

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Resources for Gifted Children & their Families | Davidson Institute

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Our resource library provides articles, guides, research and more to help inform and support gifted students, parents and educators.

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The importance of diagnostic assessment and how to use it.

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What is

A diagnostic assessment is a form of pre-assessment or a pre-test where teachers can evaluate students' strengths, weaknesses, knowledge and skills before their instruction. These assessments are typically low-stakes and usually don't count for grades. An identical assessment may be given post-instruction to identify if students have met a course's required learning objectives. With this form of assessment, teachers can plan meaningful and efficient instruction and can provide students with an individualized learning experience. Written by students, the diagnostic assessment is a tool for teachers to better understand what students already know about a topic when submitted before the start of a course. Diagnostic assessments are used to gauge where students currently stand, that is intellectually, emotionally and ideologically.

A diagnostic assessment refers to an assignment written at the beginning and end of a course. Post-course assessments can be compared with pre-course assessments and can show students' potential improvement in certain areas. These assessments allow the instructor to adjust the curriculum to meet the needs of current-and future-students.

What is the purpose of diagnostic assessment? Educators may facilitate diagnostic assessments to gauge proficiency or comprehension levels before beginning a new learning unit. The purpose of diagnostic assessments is to help identify learning gaps and provide insights into comprehension that can be addressed in future instruction. Diagnostic assessments are designed to measure students' strengths, weaknesses, knowledge levels and skill sets. These assessments aim to answer: what do students already know about a specific topic?

What are common diagnostic assessment tools? There are several methods and tools for diagnostic assessment design. Likert-scale surveys are among the most common tools, where students are asked to choose a ranking from 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree' when reviewing course facts. A more visual diagnostic assessment tool involves concept mapping. Students draw a visual diagram of a concept or piece of information and are asked to form connections between different components of the topic at hand. Discussion boards are a third diagnostic tool. You might ask students to reflect on the questions they have related to an upcoming topic and ask them to reply to a peer's discussion thread.

What are diagnostic assessment examples? The tools and methods used to build diagnostic assessments will likely remain the same no matter your discipline. However, the subject matter you evaluate students on will vary. Here are some sample diagnostic assessments across various fields. Psychology: Students are asked to visually illustrate the order in which Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development take place. English: Students are asked to complete a survey examining which of Shakespeare's texts they have read before and which themes apply to each play. Chemistry: Students review and complete a checklist of all the necessary steps they must take before completing a chemical experiment in the lab. Economics: Students are given an entry slip to complete upon arriving to class that is used to gauge their understanding of how supply and demand trends have impacted one area of their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additional reading Diagnostic assessment design to boost student learning in any online course Ebook: 25+ effective ways to assess and grade

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Diagnostic Assessment Definition and Meaning | Top Hat

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What is A diagnostic assessment is a form of pre-assessment or a pre-test where teachers can evaluate students' strengths, weaknesses, knowledge and skills before their instruction. These assessments are typically low-stakes and usually don't count for grades. An identical assessment may be given post-instruction to identify if students have met a course's required learning objectives.

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Tones of assessment tools and resources.

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Assessment for learning, assessment as learning and assessment of learning are approaches that can be used individually or together, formally or informally, to gather evidence about student achievement and to improve student learning.

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Assessment tools and resources.

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Whether you are a beginning teacher, or an experienced teacher who wants to think more deeply about classroom assessment, these professional learning modules are for you!

The goal of AAC professional learning is to provide food for thought. Whether you are browsing these materials on your own, or looking for something to use for a conversation with colleagues, we're confident you will find something here to spark your curiosity and deepen your understanding of classroom assessment.

And when you're ready to move beyond Assessment 101, there are plenty of other professional learning modules on the site to help you continue on your assessment journey.

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Assessment 101 - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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Key Principles of Assessment - from the AAC Perspective Whether you are a beginning teacher, or an experienced teacher who wants to think more deeply about classroom assessment, these professional learning modules are for you! The goal of AAC professional learning is to provide food for thought.

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How to balance assessment.

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Many people have the same question when it comes to discussing education: What is assessment and what value does it hold? Christopher R. Gareis and Leslie W. Grant, authors of "Teacher Made Assessment", speak to the value of assessment and why it has merit in the education system. Curriculum is an important part of teaching, in that it outlines the specific learning expectations per subject in grade-level increments. Instruction is where the teaching comes to life. Teachers take the curriculum topics and provide opportunities for students to learn this knowledge. But how do we know that the students have truly learned from these lessons? To what degree have they learned the topic? This is where assessment comes in.

Figure 1.1 displays the three components of student learning (curriculum, instruction, assessment) in a simple metaphor: a stool. Curriculum is what information is being taught, instruction is how we teach this knowledge, and assessment is the nature and degree of student learning. The imagery of the stool metaphor speaks volumes in that student learning can only be stable when all three components are present. Without assessment, education becomes a one-way, teacher-to-student transfer of information with no expectation or accountability of actually learning.

In my experience as a student, I always feared assessment, but understood its value. Assessment typically becomes a grade, which can be intimidating and stress-provoking for many students. Without assessment, though, how does a teacher know we've learned? Also, what is the point of learning if we don't put it into action? Assessment provides us with that opportunity to use our learning to complete a task.

Now, as a teacher, I find myself spending a lot of brain power into creating the assessment component of any lesson or unit. What do I actually want my students to get out of this? How are they going to show me that they've learned the information? How can I assess my students without scaring the you-know-what out of them? Assessment serves an important purpose. Let's continue to explore assessment so that our students learning remains as stable as a stool.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved.

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Many people have the same question when it comes to discussing education: What is assessment and what value does it hold? Christopher R. Gareis and Leslie W. Grant, authors of "Teacher Made Assessment", speak to the value of assessment and why it has merit in the education system.

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Education Act

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A way to formatively or summatively assess students

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You can create and save whiteboards in a Google Meet meeting or web browser or on a Google Meet Series One Desk 27 or Jamboard device.

Your changes automatically save to Google Drive. Files you own appear in your My Drive folder.

During a Google Meet video meeting

Important: To start or open a whiteboard, you must join the video meeting from a computer.

1. Start or Join a meeting.

2. At the bottom right, click Activities Whiteboarding.

3. Select an option:

To create a new Jamboard: Click Start a new whiteboard.

To open an existing Jamboard from your drive, shared drives, or computer: Click Choose from Drive.

Tip: The Jamboard file will open in a new tab and a link is shared automatically via the in-call chat.

The whiteboard opens in a new tab. Everyone in the meeting gets a link to the whiteboard in the Meet chat.

Using a Meet Hardware device

See Use a whiteboard with Desk 27.

Using the Jamboard web app

1. In a browser window, open jamboard.google.com.

2. At the bottom, click New .

Using the mobile app

1. Open the Jamboard app.

2. Tap Add .

Using a Jamboard 55-inch device

1. If you see a screensaver, tap the screen to start a new whiteboard.

2. Tap Menu Save .

3. Enter your email address.

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Start, open, or save a whiteboard - Jamboard Help

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You can create and save whiteboards in a Google Meet meeting or web browser or on a Google Meet Series One Desk 27 or Jamboard device. Your changes automatically save to Google Drive.

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How to teach math.

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How to Teach Math Effectively Using the Concrete Representational Abstract Model

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WHAT IS THE CONCRETE REPRESENTATIONAL ABSTRACT MODEL? The CRA Model is an instructional approach for teaching math. It consists of three phases: Concrete Representational Abstract In the concrete phase, we focus on using hands-on manipulatives. Students should

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Great way to do formative assessment in low-risk environments.

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Steve Wyborney\\\'s Blog: I\\\'m on a Learning Mission.

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Steve Wyborney's Blog: I'm on a Learning Mission

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Steve Wyborney is on a learning mission to spread math joy to classrooms everywhere! On this blog you'll find math resources for teachers and for kids of all ages.

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Resources to help teach math.

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If your only math PD has been around a curriculum you must use.

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Resilient Educator: 3 Tips for Assessment of ELL Students

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Resilient Educator: 3 Tips for Assessment of ELL Students

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Assessment tips for ELL students.

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The proper assessment of ELL students (English Language Learners) can be a challenging task for teachers, even as the need for such assessments continues to grow. As the country's classrooms continue to diversify, the need for testing students' abilities and understanding remains constant.

More and more students are learning to speak English right along with their standard core curriculum. For teachers, the ability to accurately assess these ELL students becomes increasingly important. Tests are necessary to measure ability, and accurate results are required to teach most effectively.

The ability to truly measure the knowledge of ELL students takes time to develop. The crafting of a good ELL assessment, along with the training of students to take such assessments, is as much an art as it is a science. That being said, there are certainly some useful guidelines teachers can refer to in order to get off to the right start.

What follows are three powerful tips for the assessment of ELL students. These are useful approaches to creating and conducting effective assessments. Teachers should remember, however, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the assessment of such students, and it is always worthwhile to consult an ELL professional for advice on the subject.

Three tips for ELL assessments

Determine the goal

This may seem obvious, but it is paramount to conducting an effective assessment. Assessments can become confused very quickly if one is not careful to define what it is that is being assessed. If the teacher fails to construct the test around a particular goal, he or she may fail to create a test that measures anything other than the student's English proficiency.

Consider an assessment to determine a student's ability to use addition and subtraction. If the goal is to measure his or her ability with arithmetic, the test can be constructed to contain little to no English. The teacher can even read the instructions aloud, in the native language if possible, to avoid potential confusion.

In contrast, if the teacher were to hand out the assessment with only instructions written in English, the students could become quickly confused.

When testing ELL students, teachers should determine what it is that needs to be measured, and ensure the test does so as efficiently as possible while taking into account the English level of those being tested.

Use a dual language approach

Vera Gutierrez-Clellen, researcher in ELL assessment techniques, stresses the value of using a dual language approach when testing ELL students. She points out that the ability of ELL students may vary significantly in differing areas, depending on the language being used. A child may be better at counting in one language and reading in another, and it is important to take this into consideration when attempting to accurately measure such abilities.

The idea of using two languages in the classroom may seem prohibitively difficult, but it does not have to be. If the teacher only speaks English, it is still possible to seek the services of a Spanish speaker, for instance, for help with assessments. Teachers can have instructions translated beforehand if necessary. If possible, they may also request the help of a fluent speaker during test taking.

Teach test-taking skills

The emphasis on test taking instruction can be frustrating for teachers at times, as it seems to take away from time that could be spent learning actual academic subjects. However, for some ELL students, instructions in test taking may remove a significant barrier between them and an accurate assessment.

Some ELL students, especially those new to the U.S. school system, might not be familiar with common test structures. Teachers can remove this obstacle for ELL students by explaining, preferably in their native language, the structure of tests and the appropriate strategies used in taking them.

A learning process

As with any other kind of testing, teachers will develop their own approach and style to ELL assessments. However, there are some key factors that remain constant when approaching the assessment of ELL students. By using the tips above, teachers can learn to better focus both their assessments and the minds of their students on the task at hand. Assessments are meant to measure ability, and anything teachers can do to aid in their effectiveness is worthwhile.

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Assessment of ELL Students | Resilient Educator

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The proper assessment of ELL students (English Language Learners) can be a challenging task for teachers, even as the need for such assessments continues to grow. As the country's classrooms continue to diversify, the need for testing students' abilities and understanding remains constant.

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Assessment tools for English Language Learners.

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Key Areas of Assessment

When assessing ELLs, it's important to assess the following:

Content knowledge

Social language proficiency

Academic language proficiency

Ensure assessment involves these areas during assessment of oral language, reading and writing abilities.

Modifications to Assessment for ELL

Give extra time for students to process and respond

Use alternative forms of assessment such as oral interviews, learning logs, or portfolios

Use simplified language and instructions

Assess content knowledge and language proficiency separately

Avoid multiple-choice and true/false assessments as they often depend on comprehension of subtle differences

Observe and record student progress and and Include observations as part of other assessments

Involve students in assessment by having them set their own goals and evaluate their progress

Ensure that you are not asking ELLs to respond to content they have not yet learned or about cultural situations with which they may be unfamiliar

Reduce homework demands or allow for additional time, as work may take longer to complete

Referral for psychological assessment of learning difficulties is appropriate when the student is not responding to teaching of English.

Consult with an ESL/ELL teacher to inform service decisions.

Oral Language

Strategies to assess listening and speaking skills:

One-on-one conversations with students, student-led conferences on topics of interest

Role-plays, oral presentations, and think-alouds

Audio or video record student progress (e.g., oral presentations)

Sequencing/sorting/matching pictures activities or games that require rule following

Observe dialogues between students

Reading

Strategies to assess phonemic awareness, letter-sounds knowledge, word recognition, sight words, reading fluency, and reading comprehension respectively include:

Letter and sound naming activities

Sight words flash cards

Running records of student read-alouds

Cloze passages with fill-in-the blanks where students need to use contextual clues to assess comprehension

Use drawings or pictures to assess comprehension of texts

Writing

Strategies to assess spelling and writing skills (letter formation, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure):

Written response to a writing prompt, topic of interest, picture, video clip, etc.

Label pictures, figures or diagrams, create brochures, write e-mails, compose journal entries, describe places or people, create books, and summarize oral presentations

Create portfolio of dated written work throughout the year

Summary

The best measure for language proficiency is performance in class, not standardized tests. Ongoing assessments are especially important for ELLs. Use classroom learning tasks as opportunities for assessment and provide specific feedback to students. Engage ELLs in assessment by making it fun! Conduct your own initial assessments and, when possible, also conduct the initial assessment in the student's first language to better understand their language development and content knowledge.

Strategies and Support

Make assessment fun and engage ELLs by using games, interactive activities, and motivating classroom tasks.

Watch an ESL teacher talk about how interactive assessment is motivating for students and informative for teachers:

Additional Tips

ELLs often go through a "non-verbal/silent period" in which they are absorbing information, which is part of learning a second language. Use non-verbal forms of assessment such as manipulatives, pictures and illustrations, and observe and record student progress and include observations as part of assessments.

Avoid multiple-choice and true/false assessments as they involve reading and often depend on comprehension of subtle differences.

Featured Videos:

Dr. Esther Geva discusses the process involved in identifying a learning disability in ELL students

Concentration with Sight Words: Using Games for Assessment

Story Re-enactment: Assessing Comprehension with an Oral Retell

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BALANCEDLITERACYDIET :: ESL ELL Assessment :: Balanced Literacy Diet

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When assessing ELLs, it's important to assess the following: Content knowledge Social language proficiency Academic language proficiency Ensure assessment involves these areas during assessment of oral language, reading and writing abilities.

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Watch Them Grow: 5 Non-test Alternatives for Assessing English Language Learners

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Watch Them Grow: 5 Non-test Alternatives for Assessing English Language Learners

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How to assess ELL students without testing.

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Seeing growth and improvement can be a huge motivator for ELL students.

But you can't see growth if you don't measure it.

That's why no great class is complete without some way of assessing students.

Not only is it a fantastic way for both you and your students to see what they've learned, but you can also use the results to help you plan future lessons.

However, don't rely solely on tests to assess your students!

They're not always an accurate way to measure their skill levels. Instead, I have five alternative ways you can assess your ELL students, and examples of what each might look like. But first, let's take a closer look at the issue with tests.

Contents

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Why Tests Aren't an Accurate Way to Measure Performance

One of the most common reasons why teachers shouldn't only use tests is because students may have test anxiety. What tends to happen is that students are so nervous when presented with a test that they don't do as well. You then aren't able to see what the student is really capable of. For ELL students, they can be extra nervous because not only do they have to recall information they've learned, but they may have to decipher what the test question is asking in the first place.

Also, tests really only measure what students can memorize or recall, not necessarily what work they can produce. For example, if you give a multiple choice test about vocabulary they learned, it really only tests if they understand one meaning of the word, and not necessarily whether they understand how to apply the same word in different contexts.

Another example would be oral skills. If students understand certain phrases you've taught them, they may not understand if another person outside the classroom says it, especially if that person has an accent.

If an ELL student is a little slower to read or decipher material (especially if they've had lots of support in their class), a time constraint on a test won't give them sufficient time to complete the test. Just because a student didn't finish a test, doesn't mean they don't understand the material. You then are left guessing as to whether or not your student actually understood what you were testing them on.

So how can you start assessing English language learners without tests?

5 Alternative Ways to Assess English Language Learners

1. Rubrics and Performance Criteria

Using rubrics and performance criteria is a great way to assess a variety of student work. It's usually based on language proficiency and academic progression through work such as presentations, written assignments and reading activities. You can not only use these to grade your students, but to chart their growth over a set period of time.

Both tools feature a list of criteria or standards that students know you're assessing. Rubrics show what is considered below level, at level and above level. A performance criteria can simply be a checklist of what to assess for each student. With either of these assessment tools, it's important to develop your own, as assessments are based on the teacher's judgment.

A tool like RubiStar is helpful, as it can show you sample rubrics other teachers have developed, and anyone can modify them for their own use.

When creating rubrics or performance criteria, make sure that what you're assessing is clear and fair from the beginning. As well, don't assess too much at once, as it'll not only overwhelm you but your students as well. If it helps, ask other teachers how they created their rubrics, or simply have someone look over yours to see if it looks okay.

You can even take it a step further by bringing FluentU into the classroom.

Using authentic content in the target language is a great way to let your students see the language used in context-and FluentU has a wide array of videos to choose from. From music videos and movie trailers to interesting talks, you can use these videos in your English lessons to help immerse your students in the language. You can even assign homework for your students to complete outside of the classroom and monitor their progress.

2. Oral Presentations or Performances

Many students who have test anxiety might get nervous because their reading or writing skills aren't very good. That doesn't mean, however, that they aren't proficient in oral skills.

Assessing oral presentations or performances typically include role-plays, interviews, oral reports and summarizing/paraphrasing pieces of text. When used on an ongoing basis, it's a great way to monitor a student's comprehension through a longer period of time.

Here are some ideas to incorporate oral presentations or performances as part of your assessments:

Role-plays: Role-plays can be used to assess students individually or as a group. Some ideas include having students write a play and performing it or even having the students teach the teacher as part of a review class.

Interviews: This type of assessment is very helpful if you have students that are early English learners. To help test students on content knowledge, try to use a lot of visual cues. For example, have students pick from a pile of pictures, and ask questions to elicit responses from them. You can assess the student based on vocabulary used or comparing concepts.

Describing/explaining/retelling/paraphrasing/summarizing texts: Instead of a written book report or summary of a piece of text, you can have your students retell the plot in front of the class or just to you. Other ideas can include asking the students to pick a character in the book and tell a story from their point of view, or even to describe their favorite part of the text.

When assessing oral work, it's helpful to use a checklist of things to look for, such as pronunciation, volume, pace and content. Use the same checklist for the same types of oral presentations to see the progression over time.

3. Non-verbal Assessments

For students who are shy or aren't as proficient in English, using non-verbal assessments is a great way to see a student's academic progress. What you're looking for in this type of assessment is their understanding of vocabulary.

Examples include:

Charades: Give a student vocabulary words you've taught, and have them act it out to see if they understand what the word or concept is. You could even have them summarize a text by miming it.

Pictures: You can ask students to draw or collect pictures to show their knowledge on a topic. For example, if you're assessing a student on their knowledge of nouns, ask students to pick out pictures of nouns in a magazine. Pictures can also be used to assess reading comprehension. Students can read a paragraph and then draw a picture to show their understanding of the text. If the picture is mostly accurate except for a few details, it could be a vocabulary issue.

4. Written Assessments

Written assessments are a nice way to see how students can apply their knowledge of English over a wide variety of concepts. For example, you can use assignments to see just how well they understand a text, or even different forms of writing.

Some different ways to incorporate written assessments in your class include:

Creative and structured writing assignments: Ask students to write a creative story, or even give them a writing prompt-where students read the beginning of a story and are asked to write the ending.

Editing writing: Give students a piece of text with grammatical mistakes and ask them to correct it, to test their knowledge of grammar.

Reading response logs: Give students a list of questions, such as how do they know a character is evil, or how would they change the ending of a story. When students are finished reading a book or article, have them write down the answers to these questions. Make sure to only assess for content, and not spelling or grammar, unless you specify to your students that you're doing so.

Content logs: Have students write down facts they learned about a text. You can also have them write what parts they didn't understand. This is helpful for you to see if there are concepts you may need to reteach or review, particularly if a lot of students are confused about similar parts of the same text.

With writing, don't assess too much at once. For a writing piece, you could assess just spelling, complete sentences or unity in paragraphs. Build it up to assess more than a few criteria once you see that your students have mastered what you have taught them.

5. Portfolios

Portfolios are powerful assessments and are used to gather various samples of student work to track their development over a period of time. In order to maximize the potential of using a portfolio as an assessment tool, you should regularly curate student work to include in them, and have scheduled conferences with students about their work.

You should also have a checklist of qualities that are important to showcase student achievement. Not only do you critique and assess the work, but so should the students. That way, they're responsible for their learning and take more ownership of making sure they improve.

Material you can include in a portfolio can include the following:

performance criteria or rubrics

recording of oral presentations

tests

writing samples, drafts and final copies

book reports

interview checklists

In order to best assess a student, you should include more than one kind of student work in the portfolio. The work does not have to be the best work they've done, rather a wide variety is best. Based on your judgment, you can even ask students for their opinion as to what types of work they should include.

In a portfolio, you are looking for any type of improvement in their work. For example, if you keep a couple of a student's writing pieces, look to see if their sentence or paragraph structure gets better. When looking at tests, see if their spelling tests, for example, have gotten higher scores over time. If you notice that they continually lack in certain skills, this would be the time to address it. You can either give the student extra support in class or find ways for them to practice with extra work at home.

Tests aren't bad, but they're not the only way to assess student achievement.

If you use a wide variety of assessments, you'll be able to portray an accurate picture of your student's English abilities.

In turn, you, your students and their parents will be able to see their progress, which can greatly motivate students!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

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Measuring Growth: 5 Ways to Start Assessing English Language Learners Without Tests | FluentU English Educator Blog

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Assessing English language learners with a range of assessments will help demonstrate your students' abilities. From written assessments and portfolios to speaking assessments and activities, there are so many options available! Click here to see 5 simple alternatives to tests for assessing English language learners!

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Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education: Robinson PhD, Sir Ken, Aronica, Lou: 9780143108061: Books - Amazon.ca

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Assessment Strategies for Online Learning: Engagement and Authenticity

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Assessment has provided educational institutions with information about student learning outcomes and the quality of education for many decades. But has it informed practice and been fully incorporated into the learning cycle? Conrad and Openo argue that the potential inherent in many of the new learning environments being explored by educators and students has not been fully realized. In this investigation of a variety of assessment methods and learning approaches, the authors aim to discover the tools that engage learners and authentically evaluate education. They insist that moving to new learning environments, specifically those online and at a distance, afford opportunities for educators to adopt only the best practices of traditional face-to-face assessment while exploring evaluation tools made available by a digital learning environment in the hopes of arriving at methods that capture the widest set of learner skills and attributes.

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Assessment Strategies for Online Learning

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Assessment has provided educational institutions with information about student learning outcomes and the quality of education for many decades. But has it informed practice and been fully incorporated into the learning cycle? Conrad and Openo argue that the potential inherent in many of the new learning environments being explored by educators and students has not been fully realized.

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Resources and tools to assess higher-order thinking skills.

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What are students doing to show their learning.

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Prodigy: 9 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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Prodigy: 9 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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Summative assessment tools to try.

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All Posts

When gauging student learning, two approaches likely come to mind: a formative or summative assessment.

Fortunately, feeling pressure to choose one or the other isn't necessary. These two types of learning assessment actually serve different and necessary purposes.

Definitions: What's the difference between formative and summative assessment?

Formative assessment occurs regularly throughout a unit, chapter, or term to help track not only how student learning is improving, but how your teaching can, too.

According to a WestEd article, teachers love using various formative assessments because they help meet students' individual learning needs and foster an environment for ongoing feedback.

Take one-minute papers, for example. Giving your students a solo writing task about today's lesson can help you see how well students understand new content.

Catching these struggles or learning gaps immediately is better than finding out during a summative assessment.

Such an assessment could include:

In-lesson polls

Partner quizzes

Self-evaluations

Ed-tech games

One-minute papers

Visuals (e.g., diagrams, charts or maps) to demonstrate learning

Exit tickets

So, what is a summative assessment?
Credit: Alberto G.
It occurs at the end of a unit, chapter, or term and is most commonly associated with final projects, standardized tests, or district benchmarks.

Typically heavily weighted and graded, it evaluates what a student has learned and how much they understand.

There are various types of summative assessment. Here are some common examples of summative assessment in practice:

End-of-unit test

End-of-chapter test

Achievement tests

Standardized tests

Final projects or portfolios

Teachers and administrators use the final result to assess student progress, and to evaluate schools and districts. For teachers, this could mean changing how you teach a certain unit or chapter. For administrators, this data could help clarify which programs (if any) require tweaking or removal.

The differences between formative and summative assessment

While we just defined the two, there are five key differences between formative and summative assessments requiring a more in-depth explanation.
Formative assessment:

1. Occurs through a chapter or unit

2. Improves how students learn

3. Covers small content areas

4. Monitors how students are learning

5. Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

1. Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit

2. Evaluates what students learn

3. Covers complete content areas

4. Assigns a grade to students' understanding

5. Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

Teachers use formative assessment at many points during a unit or chapter to help guide student learning.

Summative assessment comes in after completing a content area to gauge student understanding.

Improving vs evaluating

If anyone knows how much the learning process is a constant work in progress, it's you! This is why formative assessment is so helpful - it won't always guarantee students understand concepts, but it will improve how they learn.

Summative assessment, on the other hand, simply evaluates what they've learned. In her book, Balanced Assessment: From Formative to Summative, renowned educator Kay Burke writes, "The only feedback comes in the form of a letter grade, percentage grade, pass/fail grade, or label such as 'exceeds standards' or 'needs improvement.'"

Little vs large

Let's say chapter one in the math textbook has three subchapters (i.e., 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3). A teacher conducting formative assessments will assign mini tasks or assignments throughout each individual content area.

Whereas, if you'd like an idea of how your class understood the complete chapter, you'd give them a test covering a large content area including all three parts.

Monitoring vs grading

Formative assessment is extremely effective as a means to monitor individual students' learning styles. It helps catch problems early, giving you more time to address and adapt to different problem areas.

Summative assessments are used to evaluate and grade students' overall understanding of what you've taught. Think report card comments: did students achieve the learning goal(s) you set for them or not?

Process vs product

"It's not about the destination; it's about the journey"? This age-old saying sums up formative and summative assessments fairly accurately.

The former focuses on the process of student learning. You'll use it to identify areas of strength and weakness among your students - and to make necessary changes to accommodate their learning needs.

The latter emphasizes the product of student learning. To discover the product's "value", you can ask yourself questions, such as: At the end of an instructional unit, did the student's grade exceed the class standard, or pass according to a district's benchmark?

In other words, formative methods are an assessment for learning whereas summative ones are an assessment of learning.

Now that you've got a more thorough understanding of these evaluations, let's dive into the love-hate relationship teachers like yourself may have with summative assessments.

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

The pros are plenty. However, before getting to that list, let's outline some of its perceived cons. Summative assessment may:

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

Rigid and strict assignments or tests can lead to a regurgitation of information. Some students may be able to rewrite facts from one page to another, but others need to understand the "why" before giving an answer.

2) Not accurately reflect learning

"Teaching to the test" refers to educators who dedicate more time teaching lessons that will be emphasized on district-specific tests.

A survey conducted by Harvard's Carnegie-Knight Task Force on the Future of Journalism asked teachers whether or not "preparing students to pass mandated standardized tests" affects their teaching.

A significant 60% said it either "dictates most of" or "substantially affects" their teaching. While this can result in higher scores, curriculum distortion can prevent students from learning other foundational subject areas.

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

Because summative assessment occurs at the end of units or terms, teachers can fail to identify and remedy students' knowledge gaps or misconceptions as they arise.

Unfortunately, by this point, there's often little or no time to rectify a student's mark, which can affect them in subsequent units or grades.

4) Result in a lack of motivation

The University of London's Evidence for Policy and Practice conducted a 19-study systematic review of the impact summative assessment and tests have on students' motivation for learning.

Contrary to popular belief, researchers found a correlation between students who scored poorly on national curriculum tests and experienced lower self-esteem, and an unwillingness to put more effort into future test prep. Beforehand, interestingly, "there was no correlation between self-esteem and achievement."

For some students, summative assessment can sometimes be seen as 'high stakes' testing due to the pressure on them to perform well. That said, 'low-stakes' assessments can also be used in the form of quizzes or practice tests.

5) Be inauthentic

Summative assessment has received criticism for its perceived inaccuracy in providing a full and balanced measure of student learning.

Consider this, for example: Your student, who's a hands-on, auditory learner, has a math test today. It comes in a traditional paper format as well as a computer program format, which reads the questions aloud for students.

Chances are the student will opt for the latter test format. What's more, this student's test results will likely be higher and more accurate.

The reality is that curricula - let alone standardized tests - typically don't allow for this kind of accommodation. This is the exact reason educators and advocates such as Chuck Hitchcock, Anne Meyer, David Rose, and Richard Jackson believe:

6) Be biased

Depending on a school district's demographic, summative assessment - including standardized tests - can present biases if a group of students is unfairly graded based on their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or social class.

In his presentation at Kansas State University, emeritus professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Dr. W. James Popham, explained summative assessment bias:

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

Overall, these are valid points raised against summative assessment. However, it does offer fantastic benefits for teachers and students alike!

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

Although we mentioned lack of motivation above, this isn't true for every student. In fact, you've probably encountered numerous students for whom summative assessments are an incredible source of motivation to put more effort into their studies.

For example, final exams are a common type of summative assessment that students may encounter at the end of a semester or school year. This pivotal moment gives students a milestone to achieve and a chance to demonstrate their knowledge.

In May 2017, the College Board released a statement about whether coaching truly boosts test scores:

2) Allow students to apply what they've learned

It's one thing to memorize multiplication tables (which is a good skill), but another to apply those skills in math word problems or real-world examples.

Summative assessments - excluding, for example, multiple choice tests - help you see which students can retain and apply what they've learned.

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

Before moving on to a new unit, it's vital to make sure students are keeping up. Naturally, some will be ahead while others will lag behind. In either case, giving them a summative assessment will provide you with a general overview of where your class stands as a whole.

Let's say your class just wrote a test on multiplication and division. If all students scored high on multiplication but one quarter of students scored low on division, you'll know to focus more on teaching division to those students moving forward.

4) Help identify possible teaching gaps
Credit: woodleywonderworks
In addition to identifying student learning gaps, summative assessment can help target where your teaching style or lesson plans may have missed the mark.

Have you ever been grading tests before, to your horror, realizing almost none of your students hit the benchmark you hoped for? When this happens, the low grades are not necessarily related to study time.

For example, you may need to adjust your teaching methods by:

Including/excluding word problems

Incorporating more visual components

Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

5) Give teachers valuable insights
Credit: Kevin Jarrett
Summative assessments can highlight what worked and what didn't throughout the school year. Once you pinpoint how, where and what lessons need tweaking, making informed adjustments for next year becomes easier.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes... and, for teachers, new students year after year. So although old students may miss out on changes you've made to your lessons, new ones get to reap the benefits.

This not only improves your skills as an educator, but will ensure a more enriching educational experience for generations of students to come.

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

Certain summative assessments also provide valuable data at district, national, and global levels. Depending on average test scores, this can determine whether or not certain schools receive funding, programs stay or go, curriculum changes occur, and more. Burke writes:

The seven aims of summative assessment

Dr. Nancy P. Gallavan, a professor of teacher education at the University of Central Arkansas, believes teachers can use performance-based summative assessments at any grade level.

However, in an article for Corwin, she suggests crafting yours with seven aims in mind:

1. Accompanied with appropriate time and task management

2. Achievable as in-class activities and out-of-class assignments

3. Active involvement in planning, preparation, and performance

4. Applicable to academic standards and expectations

5. Appropriate to your students' learning styles, needs, and interests

6. Attractive to your students on an individual and group level

7. Authentic to curricular content and context

Ideally, the assessment method should also measure a student's performance accurately against the learning objectives set at the beginning of the course.

Keeping these goals in mind, here's a list of innovative ways to conduct summative assessments in your classroom!

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

If you want to switch things up this summative assessment season, keep reading. While you can't change what's on standardized tests, you can create activities to ensure your students are exhibiting and applying their understanding and skills to end-of-chapter or -unit assessments. In a refreshing way.

Why not give them the opportunity to express their understanding in ways that apply to different learning styles?
Note: As a general guideline, students should incorporate recognition and recall, logic and reasoning, as well as skills and application that cover major concepts and practices (including content areas you emphasized in your lessons).
1) One, two, three... action!

Write a script and create a short play, movie, or song about a concept or strategy of your choosing.

This video from Science Rap Academy is a great - and advanced - example of students who created a song about how blue-eyed children can come from two brown-eyed parents:

2) TXT MSG

Using a tool such as iPhone Fake Text Generator, have students craft a mock text message conversation conveying a complex concept from the unit, or each chapter of that unit.

Students could create a back-and-forth conversation between two historical figures about a world event, or two friends helping each other with complex math concepts.

3) Podcast

Have your students create a five to 10-minute podcast episode about core concepts from each unit. This is an exciting option because it can become an ongoing project.

Individually or in groups, specific students can be in charge of each end-of-chapter or -unit podcast. If your students have a cumulative test towards the end of the year or term, the podcast can even function as a study tool they created together.
Credit :Brad Flickinger
You can use online tools such as Record MP3 Online or Vocaroo to get your class started!

4) Infographic

Creating a detailed infographic for a final project is an effective way for students to reinforce what they've learned. They can cover definitions, key facts, statistics, research, how-to info, graphics, etc.

You can even put up the most impressive infographics in your classroom. Over time, you'll have an arsenal of in-depth, visually-appealing infographics students can use when studying for chapter or unit tests.

5) Compare and contrast

Venn diagrams are an old - yet effective - tool perfect for visualizing just about anything! Whether you teach history or social studies, English or math, or something in between, Venn diagrams can help certain learners visualize the relationship between different things.

For example, they can compare book characters, locations around the world, scientific concepts, and more just like the examples below:

6) Living museum

This creative summative assessment is similar to one, two, three... action! Individuals will plan and prepare an exhibit (concept) in the Living Museum (classroom). Let's say the unit your class just completed covered five core concepts.

Five students will set up around the classroom while the teacher walks from exhibit to exhibit. Upon reaching the first student, the teacher will push an imaginary button, bringing the exhibit "to life." The student will do a two to three-minute presentation; afterwards, the teacher will move on to the next one.

7) Ed-Tech games

Now more than ever, students are growing up saturated with smartphones, tablets, and video games. That's why educators should show students how to use technology in the classroom effectively and productively.

More and more educators are bringing digital tools into the learning process. Pew Research Center surveyed 2,462 teachers and reported that digital technologies have helped in teaching their middle and high school students.

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

80% report using the internet at least weekly to help them create lesson plans

84% report using the internet at least weekly to find content that will engage students

69% say the internet has a "major impact on their ability to share ideas with other teachers

80% report getting email alerts or updates at least weekly that allow them to follow developments in their field

92% say the internet has a "major impact" on their ability to access content, resources, and materials for their teaching

67% say the internet has a "major impact" on their ability to interact with parents and 57% say it has had such an impact on enabling their interaction with students

To make the most of EdTech, find a tool that actually engages your students in learning and gives you the insightful data and reports you need to adjust your instruction

With Prodigy Math, you can:

Start using Prodigy

8) Shark Tank/Dragon's Den

Yes, just like the reality TV show! You can show an episode or two to your class or get them to watch the show at home. Next, have students pitch a product or invention that can help change the world outside of school for the better.

This innovative summative assessment is one that'll definitely require some more thought and creativity. But it's important that, as educators, we help students realize they can have a huge positive impact on the world in which they live.

9) Free choice

If a student chooses to come up with their own summative assessment, you'll need to vet it first. It'll likely take some collaboration to arrive at something sufficient.

However, giving students the freedom to explore content areas that interest them most could surprise you. Sometimes, it's during those projects they form a newfound passion and are wildly successful in completing the task.

We're sure there are countless other innovative summative assessment ideas out there, but we hope this list gets your creative juices flowing.

With the exclusion of standardized state and national tests, one of the greatest misconceptions about summative assessments is that they're all about paper and pencil. Our hope in creating this list was to help you see how fun and engaging summative assessments can truly be.

10) Group projects

Group projects aren't just a fun way to break the monotony, but a dynamic and interactive form of summative assessment. Here's why:

Collaborative learning: Group projects encourage students to work as a team, fostering their communication and collaboration skills. They learn to listen, negotiate, and empathize, which are crucial skills in and beyond the classroom.

Promotes critical thinking: When students interact with each other, they get to explore different perspectives. They challenge each other's understanding, leading to stimulating debates and problem-solving sessions that boost critical thinking.

In-depth assessment: Group projects offer teachers a unique lens to evaluate both individual performances and group dynamics. It's like getting a sneak peek into their world - you get to see how they perform under different circumstances and how they interact with each other.

Catering to different learning styles: Given the interactive nature of group projects, they can cater to different learning styles - auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Every student gets a chance to shine!

However, it's important to set clear instructions and criteria to ensure fairness. Remember, it's not just about the final product - it's about the process too.

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

Create a Mini Documentary: Students could work together to research a historical event and create a mini documentary presenting their findings.

Plan a Community Service Project: This could involve identifying a problem in the local community and creating a detailed plan to address it.

Design a Mobile App: For a more tech-focused project, students could identify a problem and design an app that solves it.

Summative assessment strategies for keeping tests clear and fair
Credit: woodleywonderworks
In addition to using the summative assessment examples above to accommodate your students' learning styles, these tips and strategies should also help:

Use a rubric - Rubrics help set a standard for how your class should perform on a test or assignment. They outline test length, how in-depth it will be, and what you require of them to achieve the highest possible grades.

Design clear, effective questions - When designing tests, do your best to use language, phrases, and examples similar to those used during lessons. This'll help keep your tests aligned with the material you've covered.

Try blind grading - Most teachers prefer knowing whose tests they're grading. But if you want to provide wholly unbiased grades and feedback, try blind grading. You can request your students write their names on the bottom of the last test page or the back.

Assess comprehensiveness - Make sure the broad, overarching connections you're hoping students can make are reasonable and fluid. For example, if the test covers measurement, geometry and spatial sense, you should avoid including questions about patterning and algebra.

Create a final test after, not before, teaching the lessons - Don't put the horse before the carriage. Plans can change and student learning can demand different emphases from year to year. If you have a test outline, perfect! But expect to embrace and make some changes from time to time.

Make it real-world relevant - How many times have you heard students ask, "When am I going to use this in real life?" Far too often students assume math, for example, is irrelevant to their lives and write it off as a subject they don't need. When crafting test questions, use culturally-relevant word problems to illustrate a subject's true relevance.

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

Throughout your teaching career, you'll spend a lot of time with formative and summative assessments. While some teachers emphasize one over the other, it's vital to recognize the extent to which they're interconnected.

In the book Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, Richard Stiggins, one of the first educators to advocate for the concept of assessment for learning, proposes something called "a balanced assessment system that takes advantage of assessment of learning and assessment for learning."

If you use both effectively, they inform one another and "assessment becomes more than just an index of school success. It also serves as the cause of that success."

In fact, Stiggins argues teachers should view these two types of assessment as "in sync."

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

Implementing these innovative summative assessment examples should engage your students in new and exciting ways.

What's more, they'll have the opportunity to express and apply what they've learned in creative ways that solidify student learning.

So, what do you think - are you ready to try out these summative assessment ideas? Prodigy is a game-based learning platform teachers use to keep their students engaged.

Sign up for a free teacher account and set an Assessment today!

Such an assessment could include:
Credit: Alberto G.

Formative assessment: Summative assessment:

Repeated practice tests reinforce the low self-image of the lower-achieving students... When test scores are a source or pride and the community, pressure is brought to bear on the school for high scores.

Similarly, parents bring pressure on their children when the result has consequences for attendance at high social status schools. For many students, this increases their anxiety, even though they recognize their parents as being supportive.

Curriculum matters and 'fixing' the one-size-fits-all, inflexible curriculum will occupy both special and general educators well into the future... Students with diverse learning needs are not 'the problem'; barriers in the curriculum itself are the root of the difficulty.

This doesn't necessarily mean that if minority students are outperformed on a summative test by majority students that the test is biased against that minority. It may instead indicate that the minority students have not been provided with the appropriate instruction...

An example of content bias against girls would be one in which students are asked to compare the weights of several objects, including a football. Since girls are less likely to have handled a football, they might find the item more difficult than boys, even though they have mastered the concept measured by the item.

Summative assessment can:

Data shows studying for the SAT for 20 hours on free Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy is associated with an average score gain of 115 points, nearly double the average score gain compared to students who don't use Khan Academy. Out of nearly 250,000 test-takers studied, more than 16,000 gained 200 points or more between the PSAT/NMSQT and SAT...

In addition to the 115-point average score increase associated with 20 hours of practice, shorter practice periods also correlate with meaningful score gains. For example, 6 to 8 hours of practice on Official SAT Practice is associated with an average 90-point increase.

Credit: woodleywonderworks Credit: Kevin Jarrett

Summative assessments also provide the public and policymakers with a sense of the results of their investment in education and give educators a forum for proving whether instruction works - or does not work.

Credit :Brad Flickinger

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Credit: woodleywonderworks

They can even be the exact same thing - only the purpose and the timing of the assessment determine its label. Formative assessments provide the training wheels that allow students to practice and gain confidence while riding their bikes around the enclosed school parking lot.

Once the training wheels come off, the students face their summative assessment as they ride off into the sunset on only two wheels, prepared to navigate the twists and turns of the road to arrive safely at their final destination.

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10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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All Posts When gauging student learning, two approaches likely come to mind: a formative or summative assessment. Fortunately, feeling pressure to choose one or the other isn't necessary. These two types of learning assessment actually serve different and necessary purposes.

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61 Effective Assessment Strategies for Teachers To Use

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Future Focused Learning:5 Great Formative Assessment Strategies That Never Miss

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Future Focused Learning:5 Great Formative Assessment Strategies That Never Miss

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Formative assessment strategies to try.

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Formative assessment strategies in the classroom provide both teachers and students with invaluable information about what students understand, and what they don't. These ungraded assessments are valuable guides for students to help them enhance their performance.

They also help teachers determine if further instruction is necessary. When formative assessments are used consistently, and effectively, neither teachers nor students are surprised by their final grades. Some formative assessments can take just a few minutes, while others require longer periods of time. The following are 5 great formative assessment strategies for teachers.

1. Analysis of Student Work

A great deal of information can be learned from students' homework, tests, and quizzes-especially if the students are required to explain their thinking. When teachers take the time to analyze student work, they gain knowledge about:

A student's current knowledge, attitudes, and skills about subject matter

Strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles

Need for further, or special, assistance

The analysis of students' classroom work allows teachers to modify their instruction so that they will be more effective in the future.

2. Strategic Questioning Strategies

Questioning strategies may be used with individuals, small groups, or the entire class. Effective formative assessment strategies involve asking students to answer well-thought-out, higher-order questions such as "why" and "how."

Higher-order questions require more in-depth thinking from the students, and help the teacher discern the level and extent of the students' understanding. You can find plenty of question prompts on our Critical Thinking Cheatsheet.

Another strategic questioning strategy used in formative assessment is to give the students a "wait time" to respond. Studies have found that most students become more engaged in classroom dialogue when higher-order questions are combined with a wait period.

3. Think-Pair-Share

This is one of the many formative assessment strategies that is simple for teachers to use. The instructor asks a question, and students write down their answers. Students are then placed in pairs to discuss their responses.

Teachers are able to move around the classroom and listen to various discussions, gaining insight into an individual's levels of understanding. After a time, the students discuss their responses with the entire class.

Research has indicated that when students are responsible for their own learning, their performance is enhanced. This is another benefit of formative assessment strategies, especially this one.

4. Exit/Admit Tickets

A simple but effective formative assessment is the Exit Ticket. Exit Tickets are small pieces of paper, or index cards, that students deposit as they leave the classroom. Students are required to write down an accurate interpretation of the main idea behind the lesson taught that day, and then provide more detail about the topic.

Teachers review the responses, and gain insight as to which students have fully learned the concept, and those that are still struggling. The information obtained can be used to plan a whole-group or partial-group lesson to re-teach the concept.

Admit Tickets are done at the very beginning of the class. Students may respond to questions about homework, or on the lesson taught the day before.

5. One-Minute Papers

One-minute papers are usually done at the end of the day. Students in groups (or individually) are asked to answer a brief question in writing. The papers are collected and analyzed by the instructor to gain awareness of the students' understanding. One-minute papers have been found to be more effective when done on a frequent basis. Typical questions posed by teachers center around:

Main point

Most surprising concept

Questions not answered

Most confusing area of topic

What question from the topic might appear on the next test?

Without formative assessments, the first indication that a student doesn't grasp the material is when they fail a quiz or a test. Effective and engaging formative assessment strategies like this can take failure out of the classroom.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. Originally published Oct 10, 2019, updated September 21, 2021

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5 Great Formative Assessment Strategies That Never Miss

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Formative assessment strategies in the classroom provide both teachers and students with invaluable information about what students understand, and what they don't. These ungraded assessments are valuable guides for students to help them enhance their performance. They also help teachers determine if further instruction is necessary.

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teachthought: 22 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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teachthought: 22 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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Tones of easy assessment strategies that can be used daily.

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22 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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Here are 22 simple assessment strategies and tips to help you become more frequent in your teaching, planning, and curriculum design.

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An open-ended question that gets them writing/talking

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An open-ended question that gets them writing/talking

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How to assess Learning Outcomes.

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On behalf of the campus Accreditation Liaison Officer, we are currently gathering information about how UC Davis programs assess student learning outcomes as part of our 2019 Mid-Cycle Review with WSCUC. The questions provided to undergraduate program chairs and vice-chairs are linked here: 2019-Condensed-UGQs.pdf. (Similar questions were distributed to graduate program representatives.)

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AAC: Why are we still talking about formative assessment?

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AAC: Why are we still talking about formative assessment?

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Building relationships to improve formative assessment.

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Designed for formal school and system leaders, as well as for those performing a variety of teacher leadership roles, this resource supports sound classroom assessment practices within the Alberta context.

Background information, AAC resource listings, and discussion questions are included to guide conversations with colleagues.

This resource provides school and system leaders with practical support for meeting professional standards relative to instructional leadership in assessment.

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AAC Blog - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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Designed for formal school and system leaders, as well as for those performing a variety of teacher leadership roles, this resource supports sound classroom assessment practices within the Alberta context. Background information, AAC resource listings, and discussion questions are included to guide conversations with colleagues.

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Teacherhead: Understanding Assessment and Reporting: A blog guide

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Teacherhead: Understanding Assessment and Reporting: A blog guide

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How to assess and report what was assessed.

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In my experience, assessment is widely misunderstood by a lot of people in education - which is a worry given how much of it we do and how high the stakes are with formal assessment issues. There all kinds of confusions, false premises, false promises and circularities across the system. There are too many people driving decisions who don't really understand the mechanisms at work. That's what I see.

What we can measure, the meaning of different modes of assessment, the weight we place on assessments and the degree of reliability in data - these are all questions teachers and leaders need to explore. Sometimes things get so mixed up it's as if all the tools have got jumbled:

Your high jump is Amber; you are developing the ability to secure a high height.

Your art work has a score of 4.7. This represents progress of -0.46

Your working-at grade is 6 minus and you should be aiming for 6 plus; in order to progress you must produce better work.

Your maths score is 17/25. www - you got 17/25; ebi, you get more answers right.

Your essay is 'Emerging'. www - you included some detail; ebi, write in more detail by adding more detail.

You can demonstrate that you are beginning to approach the ability to develop knowledge of life, the universe and..... Smiley Face.

I jest. But only just....

I have written a lot of blogs about assessment over the years and this blog is basically a guide to them. Some still refer to NC levels - because of when they were written - but the underlying critique of levels helps to understand a range of assessment fundamentals.

If you read all these posts - (or some of them!) I think you'll have plenty of food for thought as you explore this important area. Often there are more questions than answers. I also recommend that anyone interested in assessment read's Daisy Christodoulou's excellent Making Good Progress. It's full of insights and her recipe at the end is certainly the way to go.

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In my experience, assessment is widely misunderstood by a lot of people in education - which is a worry given how much of it we do and how high the stakes are with formal assessment issues. There all kinds of confusions, false premises, false promises and circularities across the system.

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This blog was written by professor Madhabi Chatterji and James Harvey, the executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable.

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ALL THINGS ASSESSMENT: Making Learning Matter

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ALL THINGS ASSESSMENT: Making Learning Matter

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I have two adult children who have spent multiple years immersed in post-secondary education. Their experiences in this phase of schooling have impacted my own thinking about many aspects of assessment. Most recently, I have been thinking about the purpose assessment holds in communicating the importance and relevance of what is being learned.

In my assessment work, I have long considered relevance as part of strong assessment design. Humans simply perform better when experiences matter to them; when the tasks they are engaged in hold strong meaning in terms of interest and aspiration. Considering authentic audiences and engaging purposes when crafting assessment experiences is part of effective assessment architecture.

However, my concept of relevance expanded when my eldest child entered medicine. In this professional college, assessment is a large part of her daily experience. She is assessed on her understanding of anatomy and pathology, as well as her skill in engaging with patients and colleagues and analyzing diagnostic information. Her assessment experiences connect directly to the work she will be engaged in after graduation, and this makes total sense. However, even understanding the logic of this alignment between assessment design and real-life experience, the notion of relevance became even more clear to both of us following her first term in the college.

Read more

Effectively using the data that we gain from our assessments is always important, and perhaps never more so than right now. There is a reason that accurate interpretation is a tenet in the Solution Tree Assessment Center model, and it is certainly worth taking the time to explore. There are a few definitions of the word "interpret"; some focus on more artistic endeavors, while many others focus on the idea of explaining something. As educators, we must interpret things each and every day-from whether we will be able to accomplish everything in our lesson plan to whether our students are really understanding what we want them to know. We should strive to draw informed inferences in our work, recognizing that doing this requires professional knowledge, skill, and ongoing effort. Read more

Educators across the country are sharing how this school year was far more difficult than the previous two years during the pandemic. There have been many pivots (I know, I know . . . that is like a four-letter word), many shifts, and many concerns raised as students return to school and socialize with peers they have not seen for a long time. This was a year like no other. As it comes to an end, educators have an opportunity to take a breath and reflect on what worked well and areas in which to seek growth. There is also an opportunity to think about going back to the basics with assessment practices. The pace of the year had many teachers juggling way too many responsibilities; summer brings time to reflect and opportunities for collaboration. This time allows teams to dig into the skills and knowledge students struggled with the most and design formative and summative assessment practices that align with the standards. Read more

"Whether we plan it or not, culture will happen. Why not create the culture we want?"

-Carmine Gallo, The Storyteller's Secret

Have you ever started a new book and just . . . lost interest? Have you ever started a book and found yourself so enthralled that you could hardly put it down? Each school year, educators have the opportunity to write a new story-and the beginning of that story is critical. No matter the setting ( face-to-face, virtual, blended), many educators begin with a similar focus: creating a culture of learning. Time dedicated to this work varies. Some educators feel the pressure of beginning content and spend minimal time focused on culture. Some believe the work of culture never truly ends. Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, do you know the impact your assessment practices have on the culture you are trying to create? Read more

"Feedback is honesty. Don't just tell me 'good job' when I didn't." -Middle years student
My colleagues and I work with systems across North America who are undergoing assessment reform. Educators and leaders alike are asking themselves how to shift their assessment practices, when to do it, and what it will entail. The questions generated in a single coaching session illuminate the complexity of this shift. Teachers are wondering how assessment should be designed, which symbol (if any) to attach to products and performances, and how to respond to assessment evidence in ways that will advance learning. This work is both significant and challenging, and no one is taking it lightly. However, in the quest to "get it right," adults often forget a key source of wisdom and insight available to us every single day. Perhaps we see this source as a receptor of our refined assessment system, rather than as a collaborative partner in its design. Whatever the reason, maybe it is time we turned to this source-our students-and consulted them on decisions we are making.

Read more

Each day, we make choices. Some decisions yield good outcomes, and some do not. Whatever the result, we know these decisions are the ones we made; we considered the situation and chose. However, this sense of agency in our choices may be illusory. Researchers Banaji and Greenwald found that "our rationality is often no match for our automatic preferences" (Pg. 42, 2016). Researchers find that we make decisions less from our conscious processing in other studies (Maitland & Sammartino, 2015). Instead, much of what factors into our choices result from quicker, more automatic processes that are less available in our conscious thinking (Blumenthal-Barby, 2016). These automatic processes are what is commonly known as heuristics.

At their core, heuristics are "judgments of likelihood in the absences of deliberative intent" (Fischhoff et. al, 2002. p. 5). They are a kind of natural assessment that can influence the judgment of a person, place, or thing without being used deliberately or strategically (Blumenthal-Barby, 2016). For example, someone may pass a broken-down building as they walk to work. Upon seeing the building and without the time to thoroughly investigate the reason for its condition, they will rely on heuristics and conclude that fire destroyed the building and that it is unsafe. When someone does this, they make generalized judgments about the building without thoroughly investigating its history, which, as you are probably thinking, can sometimes be inaccurate. Read more

Despite decades of research on sound assessment practices, misunderstandings and myths still abound. In particular, the summative purpose of assessment continues to be an aspect where opinions, philosophies, and outright falsehoods can take on a life of their own and hijack an otherwise thoughtful discourse about the most effective and efficient processes.

Assessment is merely the means of gathering of information about student learning (Black, 2013). We either use that evidence formatively through the prioritization of feedback and the identification of next steps in learning, or we use it summatively through the prioritization of verifying the degree to which the students have met the intended learning goals. Remember, it is the use of assessment evidence that distinguishes the formative form the summative.

The level of hyperbole that surrounds summative assessment, especially on social media, must stop. It's not helpful, it's often performative, and is even sometimes cynically motivated to simply attract followers, likes, and retweets. Outlined below are my responses to six of the most common myths about summative assessment. These aren't the only myths, of course, but these are the six most common that seem to perpetuate and the six that we have to undercut if we are to have authentic, substantive, and meaningful conversations about summative assessment.
Myth 1: "Summative assessment has no place in our 21st century education system"
While the format and substance of assessments can evolve, the need to summarize the degree to which students have met the learning goals (independent of what those goals are) and report to others (e.g., parents) will always be a necessary of any education system in any century. Whether it's content, skills, or 21st century competencies, the requirement to report will be ever-present.

However, it's not just about being required; we should welcome the opportunity to report on student successes because it's important that parents and even our larger community or the general public understand the impact we're having on our students. If we started looking at the reporting process as a collective opportunity to demonstrate how effective we've been at fulfilling our mission then a different mindset altogether about summative assessment may emerge. It's easy to become both insular and hyperbolic about summative assessment but using assessment evidence for the summative purpose is part of a balanced assessment system. Cynical caricatures of summative assessment detract from meaningful dialogue.
Myth 2: "Summative assessments are really just formative assessments we choose to count toward grade determination."
Summative assessment often involves the repacking of standards for the purpose of reaching the full cognitive complexity of the learning. Summative assessment is not just the sum of the carefully selected parts; it's the whole in its totality where the underpinnings are contextualized.

A collection of ingredients is not a meal. It's a meal when all of those ingredients are thoughtfully combined. The ingredients are necessary to isolate in preparation; we need to know what ingredients are necessary and their quantity. But it's not a meal until the ingredients are purposefully combined to make a whole.

Unpacking standards to identify granular underpinnings is necessary to create a learning progression toward success. We unpack standards for teaching (formative assessment) but we repack standards for grading (summative assessment). Isolated skills are not the same thing as a synthesized demonstration of learning. Reaching the full cognitive complexity of the standards often involves the combination of skills in a more authentic application, so again, pull apart for instruction, but pull back together for grading.
Myth 3: "Summative assessment is a culminating test or project at the end of the learning."
While it can be, summative assessment is really a moment in time where a teacher examines the preponderance of evidence to determine the degree to which the students have met the learning goals or standard; it need not be limited to an epic, high stakes event at the end. It can be a culminating test or project as those would provide more recent evidence, but since we know some students need longer to learn, there always needs to be a pathway to recovery in that these culminating events don't become disproportionately pressure packed and one-shot deals.

Thinking of assessment as a verb often helps. We have, understandably, come to see assessment as a noun - and they often are - but it is crucial that teachers expand their understanding of assessment to know that all of the evidence examined along the way also matters; evidence is evidence. Examining all of the evidence to determine student proficiency along a few gradations of quality (i.e., a rubric) is not only a valid process, but is one that should be embraced.
Myth 4: "Give students a grade and the learning stops."
This causal relationship has never been established in the research. While it is true that grades and scores can interfere with a student's willingness to keep learning, that reaction is not automatic. The nuances of whether the feedback was directed to the learning or the learner matters. Avraham Kluger & Angelo DeNisi (1996) emphasized the importance of student responses to feedback as the litmus test for determining whether feedback was effective.

There are no perfect feedback strategies but there are more favorable responses. If we provide a formative score alongside feedback, and the students reengage with the learning and attempts to increase their proficiency then, as the expression goes, no harm, no foul. If they disengage from the learning then clearly there is an issue to be addressed. But again, despite the many forceful assertions made on social media and in other forums, that relationship is not causal.

Again, context and nuance matters, especially when it comes to the quality of feedback. Remember, when it comes to feedback, substance matters more than form. Tom Guskey (2019) submits that had the Ruth Butler (1988) study, the one so widely cited to support this assertion that grades stop learning, examined the impact of grades that were criterion-referenced and learning focused versus ego-based feedback toward the learner (as in you need to work a little harder) then the results of those studies may have been quite different.

The impact in those studies was disproportionate to lower achieving students so common sense would dictate that if you received a low score and were told something to the effect of, "You need to work harder" or "This is a poor effort" that a student would likely want to stop learning. But a low score alongside a "now let's work on" or "here's what's next" comment could produce a different response.
Myth 5: "Grades are arbitrary, meaningless, and subjective."
Grades will be as meaningful or as meaningless as the adults make them; their existence is not the issue. Grades will be meaningful when they are representative of a gradation of quality derived from clear criteria articulated in advance. What some call subjective is really professional judgment. Judging quality against the articulated learning goals and criteria is our expertise at work.

Pure objectivity is the real myth. Teachers decide what to assess, what not to assess, the question stems or prompts, the number of questions, the format, the length, etc. We use our expertise to decide what sampling of learning provides the clearest picture. It is an erroneous goal to think one can eliminate all teacher choice or judgment from the assessment process. During one of our recent #ATAssessment chats on Twitter, Ken O'Connor reminded participants that the late, great Grant Wiggins often said: (1) We shouldn't use subjective pejoratively and (2) The issue isn't subjective or objective; the issue is whether our professional judgments are credible and defensible.
Myth 6: "Students should determine their own grades; they know better than us."
Students should definitely be brought inside the process of grade determination; even asked to participate and understand how evidence is synthesized. But the teacher is the final arbiter of student learning; that is our expertise at work. This claim might sound like student empowerment but it marginalizes teacher expertise. Are we really saying a student's first experience is greater than a teacher's total experience? Again, bring them inside the process, give them the full experience, but don't diminish your expertise while doing so.
This does not have to be a zero-sum game; more student involvement need not lead to less teacher involvement. This is about expansion within the process to include students along every step of the way; however, our training, expertise, and experience matter in terms of accurately determining student proficiency. Students and parents are not the only users of assessment evidence. Many important decisions both in and out of school depend on the accuracy of what is reported about student learning which means teacher must remain disproportionately involved in the summative process.

Combating these myths is important because there continues to be an oversimplified narrative that vilifies summative assessment as all things evil when it comes to our assessment practices. That mindset, assertion, or narrative is not credible. Not to mention, it's naïve and really does reveal a lack of understanding of how a balanced assessment system operates within a classroom.

The overall point here is that we need grounded, honest, and reasoned conversations about summative assessment that are anchored in the research, not some performative label or hollow assertion that we defend at all costs through clever turns of phrases and quibbles over semantics.

Black, P. (2013). Formative and summative aspects of assessment: Theoretical and research foundations
in the context of pedagogy. In J. H. McMillan (Ed.), SAGE handbook of research on classroom assessment (pp. 167-178). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Butler, R. (1988). Enhancing and undermining intrinsic motivation: The effects of task- involving
and ego-involving evaluation on interest and performance. British Journal of Educational
Psychology,58(1), 1-14.

Guskey, T., 2019. Grades versus Feedback: What does the research really tell us?.
[Blog] Thomas R. Guskey & Associates, Available at: [Accessed 30 Nov. 2021].

Kluger, A., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A
historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254-284.

This is a guest post written by Nina Pak Lui and Colin Madland
Assessment is at the heart of formal learning environments. Assessment practices in K-12 contexts have been the subject of significant research, especially since the late 20th century. However, the assessment practices and beliefs of higher education instructors have not been researched to nearly the same degree. This likely stems from the relative lack of preparation university instructors outside of Schools of Education receive in pedagogy and assessment (Massey, 2020). This has led to the current situation in which higher education has much to learn from K-12. In this post, we outline the problem that exists between modern assessment and pedagogical practices in higher education, and provide two ways assessment practices can shift in higher education.

Background
It is helpful to think about assessment in terms of a model. In Knowing what Students Know, Pellegrino, et al. (2001) provide the accessible model of the "assessment triangle", a modified version of which is shown below. The assessment triangle comprises three interdependent elements: (1) a cognitive model of the domain, which can be understood for our purposes as learning standards; (2) an instrument or process used to gather evidence of proficiency, and; (3) an interpretation of the evidence of learning. High quality assessment practices require that each of these three elements are in alignment with each other. For example, if the learning standard specifies that learners will be able to critically analyze historical texts, and the instrument used to gather evidence asks learners to identify a correct answer, there is misalignment between those two elements and the interpretation will lack validity.

In the mid- to late-20th century, assessment practices and pedagogy in higher education were in quite close alignment. The prevailing theory of learning was that of behaviourism as popularized by BF Skinner who argued that learning is maximized when learners receive immediate, positive feedback when they supply the correct answer to a question. This led to pedagogical practices that prioritized breaking down concepts into smaller and smaller ideas and having learners memorize the correct answers. Accordingly, assessment practices prioritized instruments filled with selected-response items requiring examinees to recognize correct answers.

Over time, however, our understanding of the cognitive processes involved with learning have evolved. We now recognize that learning is a complex social process and that knowledge is constructed through social interactions. As such, the characteristics of pedagogy in K-12 and increasingly in higher education have shifted away from rote memorization and moved towards the 21st century goals of collaboration, critical thinking, analysis, creativity and life-long learning. Unfortunately, however, Shepard (2000) and Lipnevich et al. (2020) point out that assessment practices in higher ed remain stuck in the behaviourist views of the mid-20th century with a heavy emphasis on high-stakes selected-response tests.

For me, Nina, the stages of Chappuis & Stiggins' Assessment Development Model (ADM) and key principles of Standards Based Learning (SBL) significantly shifted my assessment practices to reflect modern assessment theory and aims of 21st century learning. To illustrate, a "Then and Now" reflection below shows two ways assessment practices can shift in higher education:

1. From using predominantly selected-response methods, toward implementing performance-based and personal communication methods that are better aligned and reflective of course learning standards.
2. From students as passive participants in the assessment process, toward students as active users of assessment as a learning opportunity.

Then and Now
I used to stick to common types of assessment instruments used in higher education. Although learning can be experienced and demonstrated in multiple ways, I was hesitant to take pedagogical risks in the early years of teaching in higher education. Looking back, my lack of assessment literacy and my preconceived assumptions of what assessment practices should look and sound like in higher education were barriers to effective teaching and student learning. Although course learning standards were present in syllabi, I used to plan activities and assessment tasks before identifying priority standards and clarifying proficiency. Wiggins & McTighe (2011) call this the "Twin Sins" of traditional planning.

Then I learned that clearly knowing what is being assessed and choosing the optimal method depends foremost on the kinds of learning being assessed (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2019). In the planning and development stages of ADM and SBL, priority course learning standards are identified, and the underpinning learning targets are clarified with and for students (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2019; Schimmer et al., 2018). Unpacking learning standards and clarifying proficiency allows instructors to thoughtfully consider how they will summatively and formatively assess student learning (Schimmer et al., 2018; White, 2017). This process helps me select appropriate assessment methods and design assessment instruments aligned with proficiency of the learning standards. Before any assessment instruments are used, I take into consideration potential bias and barriers, and critique the overall assessment for quality (Chappuis & Stiggins, 2109). As a result of intentional planning and sound development, I am able to gather information - evidence of learning - to make formative and summative decisions based on interpretations of student learning with greater validity. Chappuis & Stiggins (2019) suggest that if there is no accuracy, there is no way to know if there has been a gain in knowledge, ability, or understanding.

Now I realize that course learning standards are cognitively complex. Students critically analyze, synthesize, make judgments, gain empathy and self-knowledge, transfer, co-create, and apply course learning in meaningful and transformative ways. These aims reflect 21st century learning goals of higher education. Wiggins & McTighe (2011) point out that knowing facts in order to recall them is superficial learning that can be quickly forgotten, whereas the ability to connect facts and create meaning is deeper learning or enduring understanding. In my current practice, assessment methods and instruments are designed for students to demonstrate higher-order thinking and meaning-making (Pak Lui & Skelding, 2021). Students continue to demonstrate their reasoning and creative abilities through written expression. They also engage in free inquiry which gives them the opportunity to choose their own questions related to the course that are of deep personal interest to them. Students communicate their learning through performance-based and personal communication assessment methods. In a free inquiry, instead of prescribing what the authentic piece should be, students choose the creative mediums and share their learning publicly (MacKenzie, 2016).

Here are a couple of examples from my practice, as recounted in a recent book chapter (Pak Lui and Skelding, 2021):
A former student investigated how to destigmatize mental health in education and had the bravery to include their own mental health journey in their authentic piece. They shared a raw and honest four-stanza poem and accompanied it with related and provoking images in the form of a photo essay. There was not a dry eye in the classroom; the community of learners were drawn into their peer's learning at an intellectual and emotional level. Another example is of a student who inquired about the standardization of assessment in education. They too combined their research findings and unpacked their own educational experiences with high-stakes assessment by writing and performing a musical rap. The lyrics, rhythm and physical expression of the rap illustrated their key inferences and implications of the urgent need for assessment reform in education.

What I noticed as a result of using assessment methods that are a good match for assessing cognitively complex learning standards (such as written response, performance assessment, or personal communication) was an increased ability as an instructor to interpret evidence of learning. I have greater confidence that the inferences I make accurately reflect achievement of intended learning. Additionally, increasing the value of and use of formative assessment practices shifted students from being passive participants in the learning process to students being active users of assessment results as a learning opportunity. Students regularly receive feedback, and they are given time to act on feedback. Moreover, their involvement as self-assessors of their own learning leads to greater awareness of strengths and areas for improvement and growth before evaluation. As my own assessment practices shift and evolve, I notice teaching and learning becoming a genuine partnership. Students and I are able to develop relational trust, and we are more confident in taking risks in pedagogy together (Pak Lui & Skelding, 2021). It is my hope for students to see that my assessment practices have clear purpose, align to course learning standards, and provide necessary support to move their learning forward. According to White (2019), "without continuous formative assessment built into the classroom, creativity would suffer, risk-taking would lack purpose, and products students create would be meaningless" (p. 33).

Concluding Thoughts
COVID-19 provides an opportunity for many university instructors to re-examine both pedagogy and assessment practices in higher education. As we look forward to establishing a new normal, research-based shifts in assessment practices can be a way for 21st century learners to experience a high quality education.

Nina Pak Lui is an Assistant Professor of Education at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. She studies and teaches curriculum design and assessment for learning. In 2020, she won the Provost Teaching and Innovation Award. You can find her on Twitter @npaklui.

Colin Madland is a PhD candidate in Educational Technology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia where he is studying approaches to assessment in higher education. You can find him at https://cmad.land and on Twitter @colinmadland.

Chappuis, J. & Stiggins, R. (2019). Classroom assessment for student learning: Doing it right - Using it well (3rd ed.). Pearson Education.

Lipnevich, A. A., Guskey, T. R., Murano, D. M., & Smith, J. K. (2020). What do grades mean? Variation in grading criteria in American college and university courses. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 27(5), 480-500. https://doi.org/10/ghjw3k

Massey, K. D., DeLuca, C., & LaPointe-McEwan, D. (2020). Assessment literacy in college teaching: Empirical evidence on the role and effectiveness of a faculty training course. To Improve the Academy, 39(1). https://doi.org/10/gj5ngz

MacKenzie, T. (2016). Dive into inquiry: Amplify learning and empower student voice.
EdTechTeam Press.

McTighe, J. and Wiggins, G. (2011). The understanding by design guide to creating high-quality units. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Pak Lui, N. & Skelding, J. (2021). An emergent course design framework for imaginative pedagogy and assessment in higher education. In Cummings, J. & Fayed, I. (Eds.), Teaching in the post COVID-19 era. [In Print Stage]. Springer Publishing.

Pellegrino, J. W., Chudowsky, N., & Glaser, R. (2001). Knowing what students know: The science and design of educational assessment. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/10019

Schimmer, T., Hillman, T., and Stalets, M. (2018). Standards based learning in action: Moving from theory to practice. Solution Tree Press.

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14. https://doi.org/10/cw9jwc

White, K. (2017). Softening the edges: Assessment practices that honor K to 12
teachers and learners. Solution Tree Press.

White, K. (2019). Unlocked: Assessment as the key to everyday creativity in the
classroom. Solution Tree Press.

Let me start by saying the most obvious statement. The past year and a half has been incredibly hard. For everyone. The summer for me is usually a time for reflection, for finishing incomplete to-do lists, and for getting excited about the next year. I do not mind admitting that the last one was pretty hard for me this year. Watching (and re-watching) some episodes of Ted Lasso has helped a little. Reading some of my favorite authors has helped a lot. I found myself revisiting Essential Assessment: Six Tenets for Bringing Hope, Efficacy, and Achievement to the Classroom this summer and revelling again in the authors' brilliant and elegant ways of describing assessment (and not just because they're three of my favorite people!)

So I found myself reading the Accurate Interpretation chapter of Essential Assessment, partially to look for some nuggets to share with the educators in my own district. I came across a sentence that is rather perfect for now, "Educators who believe all students can learn deliberately adopt a tone of influence and possibility as a means to promote learning, especially in the toughest situations." (p. 67) This sentence seems perfectly suited for the 2021-2022 school year and beyond.

Keeping the focus
As educators, we are always working to keep the focus on the things that we can control. There are so many things that can impact a student's success and many of them do not have anything to do with us. But the educators that truly believe in their hearts that all students can learn are deeply focused on the many, many things that we can control.

One incredibly powerful category of the things we can control is how we use the information that we gain from our assessments. Are we using the data that we have to help us change our actions which we can control, or to blame our students or situations that we cannot control? Do we talk about that data in ways that validate our own influence as educators and reveal the possibilities in how we can respond? Do we see data as a way to build our self-efficacy and our collective efficacy or just another challenge that cannot be met?

In data lies opportunity
In this school year, we should all be looking for ways to talk about our data that communicates how we can leverage that data to influence our actions in creating opportunities for our students. Our language should reflect both our belief that all students can learn and that we are committed to do the things to make that happen.

One of the biggest lessons that I have learned through the years is that there is nothing wrong with starting small. Find an area in the data and work together to address it. We often beat ourselves up for not doing everything all at once and perfectly. Give yourself and your teams permission to take one thing at a time to build knowledge and confidence.

This same perfect and elegant phrase, a tone of influence and possibility, should be applied to how we talk about learning with our students. We have all been inundated with deficit messages about how students and their learning has been impacted by the pandemic. I am encouraged that many of those messages are now focusing on acceleration and not just remediation. We need to continue to make sure that our language emphasizes the strengths in our students as well as the opportunities we are planning to address any concerns. Our assessment data should help students see where they are in relation to that learning goal and our actions should help students see that there is a way for them to reach that goal.

Far-reaching impact
There is much that we can control and one of the most significant things we can control is our language and our reactions. If we move forward with a belief that we can use the information we gain about our students to create better possibilities for our students, the impacts will go far beyond our own psyche. We can also use a quote from another of my idols, Ted Lasso, "Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing," which feels like it was custom-made for educators today as well.

Erkens, C., Schimmer, T., Dimich Vagle, N. 2017. Essential assessment: Six tenets for bringing hope, efficacy, and achievement to the classroom. Solution Tree Press.

Educators have been inundated with news articles and media posts focused on the amount of "learning loss" that students have experienced since the requirement to close on-campus learning in March of 2020. While some schools were able to fully return to onsite instruction for the '20-'21 school year, others were required to remain fully virtual and many offered hybrid approaches to learning. Even those who were able to return to a face-to-face environment experienced times of entire school or class quarantines, emergency returns to virtual learning, and staff shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With those challenges came the necessity for educators to learn to teach their subject areas across many platforms while also taking on the task of investigating new technologies and addressing safety concerns for themselves, their families and their students. Are there gaps in student learning? Absolutely. But certainly not for a lack of blood, sweat, and millions of tears by every educator in our field. Read more

Tags: assessment and instruction, collaboration, feedback, intervention, learning, learning gap, response to intervention, teaching

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I have two adult children who have spent multiple years immersed in post-secondary education. Their experiences in this phase of schooling have impacted my own thinking about many aspects of assessment. Most recently, I have been thinking about the purpose assessment holds in communicating the importance and relevance of what is being learned.