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"Many times in education we believe the only way to hold students accountable is by giving some form of assessment." What is the aversion to assessment? If I d

by jmilloy 15y ago

"Many times in education we believe the only way to hold students accountable is by giving some form of assessment." What is the aversion to assessment? If I did work in a class, or in any context with a mentor, and did not receive assessment, I would feel cheated. This is a great thing to do. I did something similar teaching English writing abroad - 80% free time (except it had to be writing of some sort) and I assessed heavily. This doesn't mean dry numbers tied to a near-sighted rubric. Giving students ownership over their learning is essential, and this is the right direction. You have to extend this paradigm to all aspects of teaching (including assessment) rather than just leaving some parts out.

invalidOrTaken 15y ago
The aversion is to assessment in the service of future employers. Assessment for feedback's sake is a great help to learning, but grades are much more of the first type than the second.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  The aversion is to assessment in the service of future employers. I don't think this is true. Based on the behavior of my students (back when I taught), they all seemed to care a great deal about assessment that would help future employers evaluate them (i.e., their grade). In contrast, they cared very little about actual learning or feedback that helped them to achieve it.
aik 15y ago
There is a difference between assessment/evaluation and feedback, and the teacher may simply have the aversion to assessment/evaluation. That is, that one can provide excellent feedback without the feeling of evaluation. The focus is simply different but can have a major impact, and should result in the complete opposite of making you feel cheated (receiving feedback for feedback's sake, rather than for artificial reasons such as grades). Simply receiving feedback without grades means the only factor that leads to action is an intrinsic motivation, meaning learning and accomplishment are the most important things for the student. Assessment/evaluation always has a component of extrinsic motivation present (ie. an artificial targets), which often leads to the importance of grades over learning. Importance of grades over learning leads to shallow-learning practices, which often leads to horrible retention and a dislike for learning... and so the self-destructive process often proceeds.
- jmilloy 15y ago
  Great! It sounds like we're just using the terminology differently (and perhaps the same is true for ajjuliani and myself). When young students improve as writers, they broaden their executive function in which, in large part, they learn distance themselves from the writing. They learn to assess it independently from themselves as the writer. As a teacher of writing, one of your goals is to develop these functions, to teach the student how to assess their own writing. Usually this comes in the form of pointing out when they have done in naturally, or showing them how you do it by writing in real time in front of them (or using other students as examples). I think it's the same in other subjects. Giving students time and freedom is just the start, and we agree about the importance of providing some sort of assessment/evaluation/feedback about the work that's outside the realm of grades and external consequences. But formal assessments done well in such a program are one of the most important things you are teaching. To relate this specifically to the article, to just give students time and rely (essentially) on public shaming to hold them accountable isn't enough. In addition to giving the student ownership of the project topic and ownership of time management, we can give the student ownership over his/her (formal and informal) assessment, too, and of course use it.

by jmilloy 15y ago

invalidOrTaken 15y ago

The aversion is to assessment in the service of future employers. Assessment for feedback's sake is a great help to learning, but grades are much more of the first type than the second.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
The aversion is to assessment in the service of future employers. I don't think this is true. Based on the behavior of my students (back when I taught), they all seemed to care a great deal about assessment that would help future employers evaluate them (i.e., their grade). In contrast, they cared very little about actual learning or feedback that helped them to achieve it.

aik 15y ago

There is a difference between assessment/evaluation and feedback, and the teacher may simply have the aversion to assessment/evaluation. That is, that one can provide excellent feedback without the feeling of evaluation. The focus is simply different but can have a major impact, and should result in the complete opposite of making you feel cheated (receiving feedback for feedback's sake, rather than for artificial reasons such as grades). Simply receiving feedback without grades means the only factor that leads to action is an intrinsic motivation, meaning learning and accomplishment are the most important things for the student. Assessment/evaluation always has a component of extrinsic motivation present (ie. an artificial targets), which often leads to the importance of grades over learning. Importance of grades over learning leads to shallow-learning practices, which often leads to horrible retention and a dislike for learning... and so the self-destructive process often proceeds.

jmilloy 15y ago
Great! It sounds like we're just using the terminology differently (and perhaps the same is true for ajjuliani and myself). When young students improve as writers, they broaden their executive function in which, in large part, they learn distance themselves from the writing. They learn to assess it independently from themselves as the writer. As a teacher of writing, one of your goals is to develop these functions, to teach the student how to assess their own writing. Usually this comes in the form of pointing out when they have done in naturally, or showing them how you do it by writing in real time in front of them (or using other students as examples). I think it's the same in other subjects. Giving students time and freedom is just the start, and we agree about the importance of providing some sort of assessment/evaluation/feedback about the work that's outside the realm of grades and external consequences. But formal assessments done well in such a program are one of the most important things you are teaching. To relate this specifically to the article, to just give students time and rely (essentially) on public shaming to hold them accountable isn't enough. In addition to giving the student ownership of the project topic and ownership of time management, we can give the student ownership over his/her (formal and informal) assessment, too, and of course use it.