Varied and ongoing assessments advance learning as well as measure it

Varied and ongoing assessments advance learning as well as measure it

Explain:

The 5^th characteristic of effective middle schools is that “varied and ongoing assessments advance learning as well as measure it” (This We Believe, pg 24). Assessments, both formative and summative, are essential to an effective learning environment. Formative assessments serve to “select immediate learning goals and plan further education” (This We Believe, pg 24). Summative assessments rather are to evaluate the effectiveness of the students learning, or of the teachers teaching. There should be balance between these two types of assessment, but also between the forms that these assessments take. Assessments can tests, but they can also be written text, projects, aural presentations, portfolios, journals, peer feedback, personal reflection, teacher observation, etc.

Describe:

School of the Future is a middle and high school, public school for students in New York City. The school spends extensive time figuring out what critical thinking skills their students will need to excel in the modern world and within their communities. They claim that “what you assess becomes what you teach” and so they have a huge focus on authentic assessment because they want their students to learn how to think in a range of disciplines, rather than just learning the content of these disciplines. Additionally, they use assessment to empower their students as they can see and track their own growth. They look at the data gathered through assessments to ensure that student compliance is not confused with progression and understanding.

The School of the Future’s assessment strategy is laid out in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKnGlqHUoPk

Analyze:

I believe the School of the Future’s assessment focus is so beneficial because of their underlying mission statement about how the purpose of education is for students to think critically and in a relevant, applicable way to the world around them. As a result they have geared their assessments to test these specific skills, rather than test only basic content knowledge. Additionally, it is extremely beneficial that they use assessment to drive instruction, but also to motivate students as they are able to evaluate their own progress. While it would be amazing if all students simply wanted to learn for the sake of learning, many find being able to literally track their growth and learning very rewarding and a huge motivator. It is easy to confuse the reasoning for assessment as teachers, but this school manages to successfully integrate them into the curriculum and maintain their priorities.

Apply:

What is most applicable about the assessment strategy used by the School of the Future is their focus on the real world applicability of assessments. For example in math when learning about money and finances, the assessment rather than a worksheet with numbers with money values next to them, should be set in a real world context, or at least a simulation of the way in which we engage with money in real life. Additionally, I believe that it is beneficial to have frequent assessments and to let students into the loop with this so that they can track their own progress. While I don’t want students to be competitive with each other, they should be pushing themselves to be better than they weren’t before, and valuating what is going right when they are excelling and what is going wrong when they aren’t.