Assessment Without Victims
Shannan Brown
Assessment: A Conversation Starter
No Child Left Behind is on its way out. Unfortunately, the power given to state tests, and now district benchmarks, has not diminished. We know this use of one-time data is short sided and the trends gleaned from them misunderstood.
However, the path of saying "no" to these tests hasn't gotten us anywhere. We are the professionals, and yet we continue to allow the district, the state and the Federal Government to not only define what assessments matter, but to interpret the results. Worse still, they tell us how to teach based on their interpretations. It is time we take ownership of this debate and take back assessment.
We know what is best for our students. We are the ones who make daily instructional decisions based on students' needs. It is time to raise awareness for all stakeholders about assessment. Determining where a student is based on biased tests is not the kind of assessment that is useful to us. And it is harmful to our students.
Black and William's meta-analysis, Inside the Black Box, finds that over-emphasis on grading and test scores causes low-achieving students to believe they cannot learn.
That deserves repeating. Struggling students are negatively impacted as focus on grades and test scores increases. Continuing this pattern does not motivate struggling students; in fact, low grades demotivate them. These students, over time, internalize their grades as their identities: "failures." We wonder what makes a student drop out of school; whether physically or emotionally, marks or grades that are given with no pre-correcting or chance to improve give students the false impression that they are not capable of learning.
Let's expand our shared understanding of the word assessment. Summative assessments, or tests, are only one type of assessment, one we rely on too heavily in education. Let me clarify, summative assessments are usually given at the end of a chapter, unit of study, semester/trimester, or at the end of the year. By the time the results are in, it is too late for the teacher or the students to make any adjustments to alter the outcome. Clearly, students need feedback along the way, but in a non-graded, informative way. They need to know what they are doing that is on track to reaching the standard and what they still need to work on. This technique helps all our students learn and grow. When students are doing something right, we tell them! We then pick one or two strategic goals (for older students, have them set their own goals based on the standard) to improve.
Formative assessment is not about more tests. Formative assessment is good teaching. We check for student understanding everyday, every lesson, multiple times during instructional time. We use the information we gather about student understanding to make instructional adjustments as needed (the pacing guide is not the word of God; it is a guide to approximate pacing). We, in turn, inform the students of how they are progressing toward the goal of the lesson (standard). Students use the feedback they receive during the instructional time to make adjustments.
I tell my students all year, "This is an end of the year standard, if you don't know it now, don't give up. Keep making progress everyday."
Formative assessment causes improvement for all students. It is a powerful form of differentiation. And it has been proven more effective than any intervention. The motivational aspect is that all students see they can learn and they are progressing. They may or may not have reached standard yet, but all have shown growth, and that should be recognized and celebrated.
It is time that we expand the understanding of the word "assessment." Let us take back this word and begin to use it in a more constructive manner. The state test and the benchmarks are only one type of assessment. There are many, many things we do as educators to inform our teaching and inform our students of their progress. We can… We must put formative assessment back in the conversation as a valuable tool in education.