Assessment in abnormal times

Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

​Like many educators I know, this return to blogging is long overdue ....

Disclaimer: I am not an assessment expert. The aim of this post is two fold -- to provide some key strategies as well as some examples -- in regards to what I feel has had successful outcomes in terms of assessment during school closures due to COVID-19.

To begin, here are three key strategies that I feel could be applied to any context...

Key Strategy One: Transparency (i.e. "No Secret Teacher Business")

A winning strategy in any classroom, whether you're physically distant from your learners or not, is transparency (i.e. "No secret teacher business") among stakeholders.

Something that works very well for my learners, parents and I is a shared Google Sheet that all have viewing access to, communicated in more channels that they could ask for. This document serves as our first port of call for any 1:1 conference or discussion. It also includes links to student work, where necessary, that are only accessible to those who need to see it. 

This document includes a legend, and three tabs, one for inquiry, math and literacy, respectively. Not pictured are the student's names in rows of the first column.

Legend for the document included at the top of each tab.

Unit of inquiry information report writing with ample self, peer, family and teacher feedback loops

Snippet of student sections for math units of inquiry.

If I've sold you already on doing something like this, awesome. I'd strongly suggest that before you introduce it to students and parents, that you elucidate that any learning in life happens at different times. Some learners, particularly during COVID-19 school closures, are going to take longer than others.

Let them know that this is okay.

Whilst we have been using this document all year, parent/guardian and student feedback is overwhelmingly positive as they know exactly where to channel their focus and see where to next. They also know what I'm looking for, have responded to, what is due, and more. It is a wonderful starting point to any conference with either stakeholder.

In students, I find that it promotes self-regulation, self-efficacy and more.

Key Strategy Two: Honor the asynchronous aspects of learning

Sure, some lessons or projects need have a due date and, when left too long, the learning, concepts and/or big ideas fall out of context. However, in my experience, the majority doesn't and we have to honor that humans develop and learn at different paces. The asynchronous nature of learning things at different times and locations is particularly amplified at present. Some of our learners are not on the same schedule as us (i.e. the teachers) due to a variety of reasons out of their control. In my context, I have learners that are overseas in their home country (including different time zones), sharing one device with multiple people in their family, and others that need to work at a pace or schedule that works better for their family.

Be flexible. Let go. Know that you'll be doing right by your people!

Imagine a world where every three year old had to ride a bike on the same due date? Photo by Malcolm Garret from Pexels

Key Strategy Three: Provide more opportunities for assessment AS learning happens

Again, I don't think any of these strategies are isolated to being physically distant from our learners -- these are pillars of sound pedagogical philosophy. In a world where we are trying to step away from the pernicious industrial models of education, assessment as the learning takes place naturally creates a home for more of a student-centered approach.

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely times where we, as educators, need some quick assessment for learning to gain prior knowledge or inform us on where to next. And surely, after multiple assessment opportunities as the learning takes place, there eventually needs to be a point where there is an assessment of learning. 

Assessment as the learning takes place promotes a student-centered learning environment because it fosters the ownership piece of learner agency. Some ways we can achieve this can be giving more opportunities for our students to create their own success criteria, giving ample opportunities to self assess and reflect upon their work, as well as allowing for more time to reflect, practice and improve on the feedback given to them.

When it comes to examples - think BIG - projects that is!

Bigger projects, allow opportunities for inquiry, choice, exploration of big concepts, knowledge transfer and more.

But what about academic honesty? This is not the cure all - end all on this question many of you have ruminated upon during this time, however bigger projects allow for ample opportunities for feedback (i.e. assessment as learning).  Since all educators have a pretty good pin on the voices of their learners, my personal opinion is that this issue is quite easy to highlight when or if it becomes apparent. Multiple feedback loops give the opportunity for teachable moments, student reflection and correction of this if it academic honesty were ever to arise. From my experience, I feel that the more voice and choice that you give within the spectrum of the project, you'll find that this concern becomes a non-issue. 

Let's look at a couple examples: #1 - Geometry town

After learning about various concepts of shape and space, students were asked to engage in an independent  Geometry Town project. My colleagues and I decided to make the task 2D over 3D because most of the things that needed to be assessed could be done in 2D, which also be less time and material intensive for the students. Next, we gave our learners their three-part assessment checklist and provided an exemplar of "a way" the project could look like once completed. This was supported with video instructions as well. Students could choose to represent their town digitally or on paper.

Before submitting their projects, students were encouraged to self-assess their work using the criteria, and get feedback from an elder in their household, too.

Where we fell short was not including student voice in the assessment criteria, which could have been easily accomplished with a Google Form. This will be an area of improvement for next year.

Where did students benefit? They could design their town as creatively as they liked and could work on or offline. There were some constraints in order to achieve the assessment criteria, but it was designed to allow for as much diversity as possible. Plus, following an Understanding by Design approach, students were given the criteria before they started the project. Best of all, there was no hard due date (even though we gave them one) and they could go through as many feedback loops and photo submissions that they wanted in order to achieve success. 

Pictured below, is an example of a how, through multiple feedback loops and submissions, a student was able to achieve a greater amount of success.

​Example #2: Literacy and inquiry  - Information report

In a summative project for a PYP, How the world works, inquiry into scientific topics of their choosing, students were asked to write an information report. 

To try and be as brief as possible, students chose topics generated from the science curriculum domains, then chose big questions to explore within that topic. Some key research skills taught and developed were learning how find resources (mostly online and our digital databases, given the current situation and limited access to offline material), how to TRAAP test these resources, skimming and scanning, summarizing, and more. Then, came all the scaffolding and teaching of skills of how to write a five paragraph information report - the text features, structure, writing introductions, body paragraphs, conclusions, referencing and more.

No easy feat in any context, particularly a home learning one. This took longer. That was okay. 

This is a salient point - learning takes longer in a context without our learners physically present. It needs to slow down. Bigger concepts need to be broken down to their finest nuance and explained succinctly and explicitly through multiple methods. Remember: Keep things as simple as possible.

For this project, my colleagues and I also wanted to create as many opportunities as possible for a variety of feedback loops. These loops included all the people they had access to - self, peers on chats, elders in their households, and their teachers. 

This project had roughly twenty feedback loops. Many were with the teacher through submission and response, but I will also include some of the other ways that we varied our assessment as the learning was taking place.

​To conclude

Assessment in lieu of physical presence of your kiddos does require some additional "out of the box" creativity and thought. Some key strategies, regardless of whether or not you're in front of your learners, are being transparent as possible with your stakeholders, honoring the asynchronous nature of learning, and thinking of more ways to include assessment as the learning takes place. These strategies are not synonymous with learning at home -- the bonus is that you're probably familiar with doing some or all of these already. 

Embedded in the examples and strategies above is creating plenty of opportunity for student voice and choice in ways that they can demonstrate their understanding. Through this, students become empowered and more intrinsically motivated. As a result, they take more ownership in their learning. In the excellent book, Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning, John Spencer and A.J. Julianni posit that more ownership develops students that are able to, "Figure out what they know, don't know, want to master and what they'll do to improve." Thus, is it is crucial that we teach and provide opportunities to consolidate these 21st century skills. Our learners will only stand to benefit by being more meta cognitive, self-regulated and efficacious souls in the driver's seat of their own learning.

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I'd love to hear from you! What have been some of your key strategies and/or examples for assessment during this time? Please share in the comments below. 😊