Week 6 Blog and Final Reflection

This past class has brought us to the end of our year 2 math journey. The main topic of conversation was assessment and testing, which I thought was a great way to wrap up the year. In my experience assessment in math classes has always been something to dread. I would go through the year struggling to wrap my mind around concepts and just when I thought I had achieved a measure of understanding, the math test would come around and completely shatter my confidence with questions that seemed to come straight out of left field. Needless to say, as a student, I always thought of assessment as a form judgment of my abilities and often felt it was a reflection of my ‘smartness’. As a result, when I got a good grade (which I frequently did in classes that were not math related) I felt really smart… and when I got a bad grade (frequently math classes) I felt really dumb. However, discussions about assessment in many of our classes as well as the Growing Success document, has changed my view on assessment and the role it plays in schools. As per the Growing Success document the primary purpose of assessment is not to gather information to ‘pass judgment’ on the student’s understanding and knowledge, as I had previously thought, but rather is to ‘gather information that accurately reflects how well [the student] is achieving the curriculum expectations […] and to improve student learning’. (Growing Success, 2008, p. 28)

In other words, assessment is primarily done FOR the STUDENT’s benefit and not for the teacher. I think this is an important aspect of assessment that needs to be shared with and understood by students in order for them to feel more comfortable with assessments in general.  One way to approach this is not only through discussion about assessment but also through assessment AS learning. One great aspect about assessment ‘AS’ learning is that students receive constructive feedback from their peers. As per Growing Success the information gathered during Assessment as learning can be used by the student to ‘monitor their own progress towards achieving their learning goals (self-assessment), make adjustments in their learning approaches, reflect on their learning, and set individual goals for learning.’ (Growing Success, 2008, p. 31). This process of self-assessment and frequent peer assessment will allow students to take charge and take responsibility of their own learning while breaking down some of the stigma associated with assessment.

 Feedback is another topic that was covered in our last math class. All too frequently, when giving feedback, instructors rely on remarks that are only surface deep like ‘good work’, ‘well done’ and ‘excellent’.  One of the seven fundamental principles of assessment that is listed in Growing Success is to ‘provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement’ (Growing Success, 2008, p. 6).. This means that simply providing a grade and ‘good job’ or ‘needs improvement’ is neither clear, sufficient nor useful enough to our students; this is because this type of feedback provides no substance from which the students can glean areas of success and areas that require improvement. It is essential for teachers to provide feedback to students that has substance; which acknowledges areas of success, achievements and areas that require further improvement. This type of feedback empowers students; it gives them the opportunity to take their learning in their own hands and provides further motivation to improve because it sincerely acknowledge their efforts.

An idea that was mentioned in class was providing students with feedback on their work without actually giving them a grade. Although, personally, this would have driven me absolutely nuts in school, I find it to be a very interesting concept. This is because I believe it would remove a substantial amount of the anxiety related to being graded and ‘judged’. Students would also be able to benefit more from the feedback they receive on their assessments than they would from a grade.  I’m also left wondering whether the only reason why not receiving a grade would have driven me crazy is because I was conditioned by the schooling system to look for a grade and to want a higher one. Maybe it’s time to move away from that path of thinking, especially in elementary schools, and lean more heavily on feedback.

Thanks for reading guys and have a great placement!! 

Photo by Animesh Basnet on Unsplash

Growing success: Assessment, evaluation and reporting: Improving student learning. (2008). Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education.