The New Assessment.

 

Since Covid hit a year ago, we’ve had to readjust our thinking on how to assess students, especially if having to teach by distance.  There are ways to create assessments for these times.  One of the first things recommended is to quit assessing everything students turn in.  I know I had to get my students over the “Will this count for my grade?”.  They seemed to think that they should receive credit if they turned it in but I only grade some of it but I don’t tell them which ones I’ll be grading.

Performance tasks and projects are wonderful for this situation but they should be designed so that students are required to apply their knowledge to new and different situations.  When performance tasks are applied to new and different situations, the teacher is creating an potentially engaging opportunity for them to apply multi-standard thinking. 

If performance tasks and projects are designed to be large, multi week assignments, one might consider breaking it down into smaller units, especially if it requires students to research a topic.  When a big task or project is broken down into smaller units, students are less inclined to feel overwhelmed.  

Rather than assigning tons of problems, cut down on the number of problems to one or two and have them create a google slide showing their work and then they can record an explanation of their thinking as they solved the problem.  They could discuss what they had trouble with on the problem, or where they got stuck, or where their thinking was wrong. Or students could create videos to share how to do a problem with the others.  They become the teacher and help other students.  

Take advantage of technology tools such as google classroom to administer tests and quizzes.  If one chooses the short answer possibility, students can provide a written explanation of their work or show their work for the problem.  It is also possible to create  multiple choice questions but I’ve discovered one has to check student answers because if their answer does not match the solution exactly, it might be marked wrong. 

I’ve been known to assign a Kahoot or Quizzes to students and disabled  the timer so students didn’t feel rushed when completing it. I analyze the answers and assign a grade based on their work.  I’ve found that students usually like the games so much, they want to complete the assignment rather than trying to “find” the answer on the internet.

Hopefully, everyone will be back at school for the 2021-2022 school year but if not, these are some things to think about.  Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear.  Have a great day.