Is There a Better Way to Measure Student Learning Beyond Standardized Assessment?

I often struggle when it comes to assessment. When I hear the word, my mind immediately goes to a chapter test or some culminating project to show what I have learned. I feel my perspective of this topic has been negatively tainted by my upbringing through my career as a student. Having chosen to follow a career in education, identifying and implementing the myriad of assessment strategies never seems quite right, as it clashes against my experiences. To me, assessment should be a tool that tracks how much a student has learned in my class. It should measure growth instead of correct answers.

Even in a professional setting, there is a disconnect between assessments that I feel are important and ones that my school views as important. This can be seen with how my school goes about handling the NWEA tests. Each teacher has one hour of the day called a W.I.N class, where W.I.N stands for “What I Need.” The overall concept is great and allows us to focus on our students who we feel need the most assistance. Lately, however, it seems like it has transformed into an NWEA class, where our students in that class aren’t the ones who struggle the most in our class, but are instead the ones who scored the lowest on their NWEA test for our particular subject. It makes the students feel that their NWEA scores are more important than their comprehension of the material, and makes me worry that, like Shepard hinted at, “test scores are likely to go up without a corresponding improvement in student learning” (Shepard 9)

If I had unlimited time, energy, and resources at my disposal, I would love to have each and every one of my students move along independently when it came to our curriculum. They would be able to move forward by using their own instincts and curiosity to discover our mathematical strategies on their own through trial and error or making connections to past content. Once they felt confident enough to test their understanding, they would be able to do so and graduate to the next topic. This would let the more advanced students continue to grow at their quicker pace, while letting the students that need more exposure and practice the time to do so without rushing them. Ultimately, I want my students to treat learning our math in a similar fashion as they would learning about their favorite hobby or skill. I feel that there would be so much more success in a more informal education setting, similar to the concept of mentioned by Selwyn where learning is "stimulated by general interests, pursuits and hobbies outside of the workplace" (5).

If we are able to take the focus off of standardized assessment and shift it over towards truly measuring student learning, I feel that my students would not only comprehend my content more effectively, but would also enjoy the process of learning more without the added stress and anxiety that comes with standards-based assessment. They would feel more motivated to push themselves and work through challenges without feeling rushed and forgotten whenever we have to move on because of time constraints. To me, a student should be assessed based on what they know leaving my room compared to what they knew when they entered.

References:

Selwyn, N. (2011). Education and technology: Key issues and debates. Continuum International Publishing.

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14.

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Wix. Student paper writing [Photograph]. Wix. https://static.wixstatic.com/media/11062b_c3bf9d55edca43e0a7866bcf01a9416b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_1110,h_585,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/11062b_c3bf9d55edca43e0a7866bcf01a9416b~mv2.jpg