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Student Engagement and Assessment: Including Students in the Assessment Process

Assessment should be used to inform practice through teacher reflection, however,  that analysis can be very much removed from the information relayed to students.  The purpose of my study was to help design an assessment system that supports teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of their practice as well as provide feedback to students so they can enhance student performance.

Research

As we enter this new era of Common Core State Standards students are being taught to be creative, to communicate, to collaborate, and to think critically.  This is an exciting time to be an educator—teachers can now design tasks for students that are not tied to single, discrete standards, but are a blend of several standards and skills.  Due to the exponential evolution of technology in our society our teachers are educating students for a world that doesn’t yet exist and preparing them for jobs we may not even be able to imagine (Robinson, n.d.) And yet, for too many the assessment system hasn’t changed.  Students are still asked to sit in isolation to complete tasks.

Design Process

To understand how teachers use assessments in their classroom we need to know the number and types of assessments they find the most meaningful for their practice. Reviewing how teachers are currently sharing information with their students about assessments is critical to knowing how to revise the information sharing process. Principals are the drivers of culture in a school and so it is important to know, too, how principals respond to the ways in which teachers use assessments. ​

Support and Next Steps

The vision of Browns Valley Elementary is to provide students with the best learning environment possible to meet the ever-changing demands of our 21st century world.  To do this we will invest in technology as an integral part of classroom instruction.  When used effectively, technology changes how students learn.  It also transforms the ability of staff to personalize their own professional growth.