A confession:
Like many educators working today, I went to school at a time when “assessment” was mostly limited to quizzes, tests, and completed assignments–all things summative! There was such a thing as feedback, of course, and my teachers back in the day worked to make sure that their students understood what was expected of them, though I am unable to say for certain how many of them or to what extent went beyond feedback to shape their lessons in response to what the students were learning. Granted, this process at its best ought to be seamless and fairly invisible, but thinking back now I have the impression that we students were all held to a common and unchanging standard, to be reached by the same proven methods.
We teach what we know, and so when I started teaching I found myself falling into this pattern of teaching. I gave my students feedback as they worked on assignments, then graded them and moved on. At the end of units I gave out tests. All very systematic, and generated lots of data points for evaluation. Some students did well, others did not. The latter received extra attention and support, but did not, alas benefit from substantial changes in the teacher’s approach or methodology, though I was at least flexible enough to adjust pacing.
In short, I have seen firsthand as a teacher what the absence of purposeful formative assessment – assessment for learning – looks like in a classroom. It’s not ideal.
Towards a better assessment practice:
Actually learning how to teach has, perhaps unsurprisingly, changed how I understand a great many things about the profession. For no aspect of teaching has this proven more true than in the area of assessment. Summative assessment remains in the toolbox, but only as a means of verifying student understanding following a long chain of formative assessment for learning.
For me, assessment for learning can take multiple forms and serve a variety of purposes.
Assessment for learning, of course, must reveal to the teacher the level of student understanding and any lacunae therein. Ideally, assessment for learning should also provide an opportunity for timely and actionable feedback to students, and allow the student to understand and feel positive about their understanding thus far.
Assessment for learning should be capable of being acted upon by both teacher and learner. The teacher should use methods that provide them with meaningful information they can use to adjust learning targets or pedagogical methodology. The learner should receive feedback or instruction they can use to change their approach, thinking, or goals.
Crucially, assessment for learning does not comprise only those formal moments which are officially classed as assessment.
During the very first day of one of my practicum classes, I led the students through an activity which did not go as I had hoped. The activity was meant as a fairly simple and hopefully enjoyable entry into the course, and was not meant for assessment at all. Nevertheless, it became an important incidence of assessment for learning, as the student response made it clear that the approach I had envisioned for the course would need to change. For the remainder of the week, the class and I sampled various different ways of learning, not structured or recorded as assessment, which nevertheless allowed me to assess how the class learned and the pace at which the students were able to progress. Based on these first few lessons, despite the absence of formal, designated assessment, I was able to completely redo my initial unit plan and adjust my teaching to better suit the class.