{"id":207042,"date":"2024-02-23T01:34:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T01:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/23\/18-inconvenient-truths-about-assessment-of-learning\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:21:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:21:43","slug":"18-inconvenient-truths-about-assessment-of-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/23\/18-inconvenient-truths-about-assessment-of-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"18 Inconvenient Truths About Assessment Of Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\">\n<\/aside>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"756\" height=\"567\" alt=\"Inconvenient Truths About Assessment Of Learning\" class=\"wp-image-47834 perfmatters-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1.jpg 756w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1-750x563.jpg 750w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 756px) 100vw, 756px\"\/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"756\" height=\"567\" src=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1.jpg\" alt=\"Inconvenient Truths About Assessment Of Learning\" class=\"wp-image-47834\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1.jpg 756w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/The-Inconvenient-Truths-About-Assessment-1-750x563.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 756px) 100vw, 756px\"\/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n<p>by <strong>Terry Heick<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I. In terms of pedagogy, the primary purpose of an assessment is to provide data to revise planned instruction. It should provide an obvious answer to the question, \u201c<strong><a title=\"The Most Important Question Every Assessment Should Answer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/pedagogy\/assessment-for-learning\/\">So? So what? What now?<\/a><\/strong>\u201c<\/p>\n<p>II. It\u2019s an extraordinary amount of work to design precise and personalized assessments that illuminate pathways forward for individual students\u2013likely too much for one teacher to do so consistently for every student. This requires rethinking of learning models, or encourages corner-cutting. (Or worse, <strong><a title=\"Why Good Teachers Quit\" href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/pedagogy\/why-good-teachers-quit\/\">teacher burnout<\/a><\/strong>.)<\/p>\n<p>III. Literacy (reading and writing ability) can obscure content knowledge. Further,\u00a0language development, lexical knowledge (VL), and listening ability are all related to mathematical and reading ability (<a title=\"Flanagan 2006\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iapsych.com\/chccogachmeta\/ResultsofFlanaganetal.(2006)researchsynt.html\">Flanagan 2006<\/a>). This can mean that it\u2019s often easier to assess something other than an academic standard than it is knowledge of the standard itself.\u00a0It may not tell you what you want it to, but it\u2019s telling you something.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">See also <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/pedagogy\/favorite-articles-about-assessment\/\">12 Of Our Favorite Articles About Assessment<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IV. Student self-assessment is tricky but a key matter of understanding. According to Ross &amp; Rolheiser,\u00a0\u201cStudents who are taught self-evaluation skills are more likely to persist on difficult tasks, be more confident about their ability, and take greater responsibility for their work.\u201d (<a title=\"Ross &amp; Rolheiser 2001\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jrc.sophia.ac.jp\/courses\/pdf\/kiyou2701.pdf\">Ross &amp; Rolheiser 2001<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>V. Assessments of learning can sometimes obscure more than they reveal. If the assessment is precisely aligned to a given standard, and that standard isn\u2019t properly understood by both the teacher and assessment designer, and there isn\u2019t a common language between students, teacher, assessment designer, and curriculum developers about content and its implications, there is significant \u201cnoise\u201d in data that can mislead those wishing to use the data, and disrupt any effort towards data-based instruction.<\/p>\n<p>VI. Teachers often see understanding or achievement or career and college-readiness; students often see grades and performance (e.g., a lack or abundance of failure) (<a title=\"Atkinson 1964\" href=\"http:\/\/rer.sagepub.com\/content\/41\/2\/143.refs\">Atkinson 1964<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>VII. Self-evaluation and self-grading are different.\u00a0\u2018Self-evaluation\u2019 does not mean that the students determine the grades for their assignments and courses instead of the teacher. Here, self-evaluation refers to the understanding and application of explicit criteria to one\u2019s own work and behavior for the purpose of judging if one has met specified goals (<a title=\"Andrade 2006\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jrc.sophia.ac.jp\/courses\/pdf\/kiyou2701.pdf\">Andrade 2006<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>VIII. If the assessment is not married to curriculum and learning models, it\u2019s just another assignment. That is, if the data gleaned from the assessment isn\u2019t used immediately to substantively revise planned instruction, it\u2019s at best practice, and at worst, extra work for the teacher and student.\u00a0If assessment, curriculum, and learning models don\u2019t \u2018talk\u2019 to one another, there is slack in the chain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">See also <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/pedagogy\/modern-assessment-trends-in-education\/\">Assessment Trends In Education: A Shift To Assessment For Learning<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IX. As with rigor,\u00a0\u2018high\u2019 is a relative term. High expectations\u2013if personalized and attainable\u2013can promote persistence in students (Brophy 2004). Overly simple assessments to boost \u2018confidence\u2019 are temporary. The psychology of assessment is as critical as the pedagogy and content implications.<\/p>\n<p>X. Designing assessment that has diverse measures of success that \u2018speak\u2019 to the student is critical to meaningful assessment.\u00a0Students are often motivated to avoid failure rather than achieve success\u00a0(<a title=\"Atkinson 1964\" href=\"http:\/\/rer.sagepub.com\/content\/41\/2\/143.refs\">Atkinson 1964<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>XI. In a perfect world, we\u2019d ask not \u201cHow you do on the test,\u201d but \u201cHow\u2019d the test do on you?\u201d That is, we\u2019d ask how accurately the test illuminated exactly what we do and don\u2019t understand rather than smile or frown at our \u2018performance.\u2019 Put another way, it can be argued that an equally important function of an assessment is to identify what a student <em>does\u00a0<\/em>understand. If it doesn\u2019t, the test failed, not the student.<\/p>\n<p>XII. The classroom isn\u2019t \u2018the real world.\u2019 It\u2019s easy to say invoke \u2018the real world\u2019 when discussing grading and assessments (e.g., \u201cIf a law school student doesn\u2019t study for the Bar and fail, they don\u2019t get to become lawyers. The same applied to you in this classroom, as I am preparing you for the real world.\u201d) Children (in part) practicing to become adults is different than the high-stakes game of actually being an adult. The classroom should be a place where students come to understand the \u2018real world\u2019 without feeling its sting.<\/p>\n<p>When students fail at school, the lesson they learn may not be what we hope.<\/p>\n<p>XIII. Most teachers worth their salt can already guess the range of student performance they can expect before they even give the assessment. Therefore, it makes sense to design curriculum and instruction to adjust to student performance on-the-fly without Herculean effort by the teacher.\u00a0If you don\u2019t have a plan for the assessment data before you give the assessment, you\u2019re already behind.<\/p>\n<p>XIV. Every assessment is flawed. (Nothing is perfect.) That means that the more frequent, student-centered, and \u2018non-threatening\u2019 the assessment is (here are some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/pedagogy\/formative-assessment-strategies\/\"><strong>examples of non-threatening assessments<\/strong><\/a>) the better. It\u2019s tempting to overvalue each assessment as some kind of measuring stick of human potential. At best, it\u2019s an imperfect snapshot\u2013and that\u2019s okay. We just need to make sure teachers and students and parents are all aware and respond to results accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>XV. As a teacher, it\u2019s tempting to take assessment results personal; it\u2019s not. The less personal you take the assessment, the more analytical you\u2019ll allow yourself to be.<\/p>\n<p>XVI. Confirmation bias within assessment is easy to fall for\u2013looking for data to support what you already suspect. Force yourself to see it the other way. Consider what the data says about what you\u2019re teaching and how students are learning rather than looking too broadly (e.g., saying \u2018they\u2019 are \u2018doing well\u2019) or looking for data to support ideas you already have.<\/p>\n<p>XVII. Assessment doesn\u2019t have to mean \u2018test.\u2019\u00a0All student work has a world of \u2018data\u2019 to offer. How much you gain depends on what you\u2019re looking for. (Admittedly, this truth isn\u2019t really inconvenient at all.)<\/p>\n<p>XVIII. Technology can help make data collection simpler and more effective but that\u2019s not automatically true. In fact, if not used properly, technology can even make things worse by providing too much data about the wrong things (making it almost unusable to teachers).<\/p>\n<p><em>The Inconvenient Truth About Assessment<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/pedagogy\/truths-about-assessment\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] by Terry Heick I. In terms of pedagogy, the primary purpose of an assessment is to provide data to revise planned instruction. It should<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207042"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343088,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207042\/revisions\/343088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}