Blog by David Bielik
As the calendar year and first semester of the school year come to an end, educators shift focus to final assessments and evaluations. The hard work of helping students through the fall semester is done and we’ve reached the finish line! Too often though, we race through the assessment phase to finish the semester without taking time to consider how we assess students and the critical role that assessment plays in the learning process. It is necessary to be as thoughtful during evaluation and assessment as we were during curriculum design and implementation. Asking yourself the following questions will help your end-of-the-semester assessments be more effective.
Is my evaluation a continuation of the learning process?
Evaluation/assessment is an integral part of the triad model known as CIA: Curriculum (what students should know), Instruction (how they will learn it), and Assessment (how students demonstrate what they’ve learned). Assessment of students has as much to do with learning as instruction and curriculum, but it is often overlooked when compared. We need to approach the design and implementation of assessment with the same level of thought and creativity used in curriculum and instruction, in order to help students use assessment as an extension of their learning. Through assessment, students should deepen their knowledge of the subject all while enhancing their educational experience. Before you assess students, take some time to ask yourself, “Am I evaluating students in a way that helps them assimilate their knowledge moving forward?”
Does my assessment include all the progress that has been made?
Assessment should encompass all the learning that has been done. The attainment of knowledge is an important part of learning, but it isn’t the only way that students change through the learning process. Assessments shouldn’t merely show how much students know, they should also highlight students’ determination, perseverance, and personal growth. If we only assess students through comprehensive exams/final projects/presentations all of the small achievements and changes that have been made along the way won’t receive the recognition they deserve. As a college mathematics professor, I’ve recently changed my grading procedures to make formative assessments (practice problems, small quizzes, etc.) a larger percentage of the overall grade. It was important to me to include the day-to-day, week-to-week, struggle and growth cycle in the overall grade in a more significant way. At the beginning of the semester, I spotlighted that change so that students would be invested in that struggle knowing those small steps would be a significant part of their final grades. In my work as a high school math teacher, I had success with making final assessments a more summative process, spanning several weeks, where students had time to work through problems, applying and reflecting on what they learned. That material supplemented a more formal test which allowed the students’ final grades to be based not only on the knowledge they had acquired but also the personal growth they had achieved.
Is my evaluation inclusive of all students and their circumstances?
When designing and implementing evaluation and assessment, it is important to be completely student-centered, giving students an appropriate opportunity to show their growth and demonstrate all that they have learned. Every student is different. Therefore, the approaches to their assessments must also be different. Some students may need more time, others may need more resources to adequately show what they have learned. Many students may have outside factors that affect them. We must be aware of what challenges students are facing in order to help assess them properly, just like we would during instruction. If we do not take an active role in designing assessments that help students navigate those challenges, students may only see the challenges instead of the positive progress they have made. For example, a student may think they are “bad at math” because they couldn’t finish the test in a certain amount of time or can’t multiply negative numbers. Or a student might think they are a poor writer because they can’t type quickly or don’t know every rule of grammar. By allowing a student more time/resources on a math test, or allowing them to use speech-to-text/grammar assistance when recording their thoughts, we can help to remove these barriers and assess students' actual growth and help them see how they have overcome their challenges.
As the semester comes to a close, take some time to reflect on how your assessment practices can provide students with a way to look back and see their successes, calling attention to their strengths instead of their weaknesses. In this way, you and your students can cross the finish line together with confidence.