View Content #20504

Stephanie Knight is the Language Technology Specialist at CASLS.

Assessment, when employed correctly, is a powerful and transformative tool that motivates learning. However, in its current, mainstream iteration, it is as dangerous as it is ubiquitous. Important classroom time is lost in the name of standardized testing, educators are bullied when results are below what is desired, and perhaps most importantly, the top-down dissemination of assessment results leaves learners with little autonomy in setting learning goals and few opportunities for developing metacognitive skills. In short, the current approach to assessment is oftentimes as limited as it is limiting.

This observation of the current approach proposes a singular, inherently complex question: How should assessment be used in the classroom? The answer, unsurprisingly, lies in the students. To tell students what test results reveal to be their deficiencies in knowledge is belittling and uninspiring. However, teaching students to self-assess and to develop awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses and strategies for addressing those strengths and weaknesses is empowering. In order to engage in this thinking, McMillan and Hearn (2008) propose a “combination of three components related in a cyclical, ongoing process: self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and identification and implementation of instructional correctives as needed” (p. 41). In other words, learners must be aware of how they think about, process, and use material, where they stand in relationship to certain benchmarks, and what they need to do in order to meet certain goals.  Logic therefore holds that the current interpretation of the delineation between summative and formative assessment is much too stark; all summative assessments should involve each student’s voice in analyzing results to inform subsequent experiences within the classroom. In this sense, providing feedback to students after they are supposed to have learned something is a largely futile effort. Instead, students must receive feedback as they learn. Simply put, assessment must no longer be contextualized as a tool used to punish learning that hasn’t happened yet. It should instead be an integral part of the learning process, shifting students away from a performance (grade) focus and towards a mastery (learning) focus (McMillan and Hearn, 2008).

The classroom in which assessment is used as a tool to inspire progress is a much different classroom than that in which assessment punishes gaps in knowledge and understanding. The environment of the former is supportive, and all contributions made by learners are valued, regardless of their relative depth or superficiality (Clark, 2011). The implication of this placement of value then is that learners are celebrated for the knowledge that they possess due to its foundational implications for future growth rather than demeaned for what it is that they don’t know. Additionally, learners engage in metacognitive training, and expectations are scaffolded in such a way that learners see a clear pathway towards the appropriation and use of knowledge. The teacher plays the all-important role of guide, but it is the learners who propel themselves towards success through self-assessment and analysis.

References

Clark, I. (2011). Formative assessment and motivation: Theories and themes. Prime Research on Education (PRE), May 6^th 2001, 27-36. Retrieved from http://www.primejournal.org/PRE/pdf/2011/may/Clark.pdf.

McMillan, J. and Hearn, J. (2008). Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and Higher Achievement. Educational Horizons, 87(1), 40-49. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ815370.pdf.