On Assessment: 3 Things

Three things I believe about assessment is that it cannot be static, it needs to be free of bias, and ideally, it is tailored as much as possible to the individual student.

I realized very quickly in my first year of teaching Language Arts to middle school students that a quiz every Friday on grammar and vocabulary was not going to cut it week after week. What I realized was is that group A was always going to do well, Group B was somewhere in the middle, and group C was typically at the bottom. What I wasn’t sure was how well the students actually understood the concepts presented on the prior Monday. There is always an element of chance in matching and multiple choice assessments.

I eventually turned grammar and vocabulary assessment into a writing assignment. Students were able to write on any topic they chose, with some limited prompting and guidance. What this did was shake things up a bit so that it wasn’t the same exact process every week. I was able to remove any unintended bias that may be present in the context or wording of the quiz questions. Now students are creating the content, not me. And each writing assignment is an opportunity for students to express themselves how they see fit. It is inherently tailored to them, because they are the authors.

Now my assessment consists of reading student work, seeing how well they were able to use each vocabulary word in a given context to show understanding, and see how well they were able to implement the week’s grammar target understanding by identifying it in their own writing. When submitted electronically in a Google doc, I can give line item feedback, make suggestions, ask them questions about their writing and then have them self-assess to make any needed adjustments, and see their edits when they are done. These three elements of assessment work well in this particular weekly task.