Research and Assessment: Final Thoughts

1. Big Ideas

1.1. As teachers, our practices should be based on solid research, rather than doing what is easiest for us. Too often teachers default to the old ways (talk and chalk, textbook work, etc) rather than looking to improve their teaching. There are a lot of great improvements out there, but we have to look for them and find out what they are.

1.2. Feedback on assessments needs to be useful for students. From bad rubrics to "Good Job!" comments, there are many forms of feedback which teachers provide on assessments which do not in any way help students learning. Any time a teacher provides feedback on assessment, it needs to provide students with "next steps", or what they can work on in order to improve their future work. Without this facet, feedback is not useful.

1.3. As teachers, we need to understand that students are all unique, and that their strengths and weaknesses extend to forms of assessment. As such, teachers need to create open ended assessments which allow students the agency to demonstrate their knowledge of a subject in a way which works for them.

2. Research and Assessment as Human Activities

2.1. What this statement means to me is that we have to keep in mind that our students are humans with unique skill sets and backgrounds when creating assessments. Every student is going to thrive with some assessments and crash and burn with others, so it's important that we give students the agency to perform assessments in a way which lets them demonstrate their understanding of the concepts, rather than their proficiency with the assessment method.

3. Messages In, Messages Out

3.1. Messages Out means that when we perform assessments with our students, we need to provide effective feedback which allows students to reflect and improve their abilities in the concept. Too often teacher feedback is so generic that it provides no value to the student, which does not allow them to use the assessment to improve their skills.

4. Connecting High and Low

4.1. I believe the best (and easiest) way for teachers to connect research and practice is to identify a practice which they believe may be useful in their classroom, and then look in the research and theory behind it. This is the type of connecting I am doing with my Final Assignment, in which I am taking a look at the spiral curriculum approach to determine its merits.

5. Start and Stop

5.1. I intend to STOP relying as heavily on Tests and Quizzes to generate marks. This is not fair to my students, who may suffer from test anxiety.

5.2. I intend to START putting more thought into assessment, and using a larger variety of formats. This will allow students who learn in different ways to thrive.

5.3. I intend to START creating and using assessments which provide more learner agency, so that students have more say in what they are doing.

5.4. I intend to START putting more thought into my feedback on assessment. I hope to make my feedback a useful tool for students to improve their skills, rather than just simple comments which do not assist students.