Topic: Next Generation Assessment

Formative or Per-formative: Using Student Evidence of Learning in the Right Ways

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If your classroom was to become (or currently is) a picture for a social media post, how many likes would it get? How many retweets?

In truth, to how many of you would that even matter? What if your principal or superintendent suddenly broadcasts a message saying, “Everyone, stop what you’re doing and take a picture of your learning environment right now!” Would you be eager to share or completely mortified? I can admit, at various moments throughout my career, I have been on both ends of that continuum…and everyplace in between! Read more

How Does Assessment Change in a Remote or Hybrid Environment?

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Just like many of you, I had to develop a whole new set of skills in the last few months, as learning went online for the adults I work with in the same way most of you moved to remote teaching with your students.

Truthfully, I’ve gotten caught up in exploring many of the online tools teachers are using to share learning experiences with their students. Read more

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Enough: (Re)Designing Assessment Practice to Interrupt Racial Inequities in our Schools

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Enough.

How many times have you uttered that same word in these past few months? Pause for a moment. How often has the word “enough” emerged as an emotion or direction toward your children? To your spouse or partner? To your neighbor? To your social media feed?

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Are You a Tough Grader or a ‘Tough Grader?’

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The caricature of the tough grader is familiar to most; the teacher who only doles out As or top marks to the truly elite performances. They often begin grading a stack of papers with the idea of holding back the As early on, in case someone deeper in the stack produced a truly exceptional paper.  

Often, this caricature has a sense of pride about the competitive nature of grades, whether that competitive culture was inadvertently or intentionally created. Read more

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Next Generation Assessment: Moving from Counting to Quality

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In Growing Tomorrow’s Citizens in Today’s Classrooms: Assessing 7 Critical Competencies (2019), Cassandra Erkens, Nicole Dimich, and I outline how critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, communication, self-regulation, digital citizenship, and social competence are the necessary skills for students to succeed as future citizens. In the book, we highlight two important, overarching aspects of teaching and learning in the 21st century.

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