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Assessment Scenarios Then and Now
Twenty years ago, a typical classroom may have encompassed one of three assessment scenarios: students taking a written exam, students making oral presentations, or the teacher administering a quiz with oral questions, while students responded on paper. The teacher would teach the content, assess the students using one of these strategies, record the grade, and move on to the next unit of study.
Today’s classroom reflects a very different assessment scenario. Tests and quizzes are still present but are not the sole method of assessing student learning. Instead, a variety of assessment strategies take place at multiple points in a unit of study, including:
- Teachers and students give and receive feedback in the form of peer and teacher conferencing.
- Checklists and rubrics help students understand expectations and manage learning progress.
- Self-assessments support metacognition and reflections on learning.
- Rubrics define quality for products and performances that are assessed by peers and the teacher.
Purpose of Assessment
The primary purpose of classroom assessment today is to improve learning and refine instruction. Assessment is not a solitary event but rather a continual process throughout a project. Embedded and ongoing assessment is at the heart of project-based learning and provides a means for students to show what they know in many ways. Assessment becomes a tool for improvement rather than a test of intelligence or accumulation of facts. With assessment embedded throughout a unit of instruction, teachers learn more about their students’ needs and can adjust instruction to improve student achievement.
To fully take advantage of the benefits of these strategies, assessments should target specific informational goals, such as:
- how students are progressing toward learning goals
- which thinking skills students use
- whether students are improving in self-management and using reflection to improve their learning
- how well students are integrating and applying new information
- what motivates students
- the effectiveness of special interventions
- whether teaching strategies need modification
With student-centered assessment, students have more involvement in all assessment processes and need opportunities to learn and practice:
- Creating project plans, checklists, and rubrics
- Using reflection prompts to help them think about and self-assess their own learning
- Setting goals, defining tasks, predicting what will be learned
- Identifying difficulties they have in learning and considering strategies they can use to improve
- Giving and receiving feedback from their peers.
Being engaged in assessment at this level fosters feelings of control over learning and students come to see themselves as successful, capable learners.
To help students succeed, provide students with:
- Clear criteria up front
- Opportunities to monitor their own progress
- Methods for giving constructive feedback to peers and incorporating feedback from peers to improve work
- Time to reflect and improve on their processes and products
- Support in setting new goals for future learning
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