Assessment: From "must try harder" to something meaningful

When students know how they are doing, and when they have targets to work towards, they tend to improve.  So we need to be clear about their level and their targets, so that students know what to actually do.  It sounds rather simple!  The trouble is that obvious academic targets can be problematic; neither the vague 'move from a 6 to a 7' nor the more focused 'eliminate careless errors in algebraic accuracy' really point to specific actions.  So we have been thinking about the student perspective and what they are taking away from  assessments, and I want to outline how we have adjusted assessment system in light of that.  I'm not talking about the academic level here (see here for some thoughts on that), but about how students at any level can improve by focusing on their approaches to learning.

We are all familiar with Must try harder, Can do better and Keep up the good work and the like,  Fortunately these have passed into educational mythology as part of the bad old days.  But, as comments from teachers to students and parents, they were frequent, and used to be acceptable, not so long ago.  I used to think they were just silly (the first demands something unobservable; the second is vacuously true; the third very vague) but I have come to see that comments like this actually reflect totally different mindsets about home-school relationships (1) and about assessment (2).   Fortunately, things have moved on, and we want less to pronounce judgement on your child's static achievement or potential, and more to tell students what we are seeing, to jointly set targets about possible improvements, and to open a conversation between teachers, students and parents.

These are specific and observable indicators
 of Approaches to Learning.

So we are moving away from talking about vague notions of 'effort' or other internal mental states of students, and to talking about specific things that students can actually do to improve. We have focussed on three key UWCSEA Profile skills  - those of Self-Management, Collaboration and Communication - and specified observable indicators that we are hoping to see.  These might look slightly different from subject to subject (Drama is not the same as Maths, after all) but they provide new clarity for us all. (Interestingly, two of them are specifically mentioned in a recent Harvard report as increasingly valuable in quantifiable career terms.)

We are, therefore assessing students' actions against these lists.  The conversation is no longer so subjective, but evidence-based, and our approach is thoughtful and contextual; of course we are thinking about for the frequency of the indicators, but more importantly, we're thinking about the quality.  Few, high quality contributions to a discussion, for example, are more valuable than many, ill-thought out ones.  And we'll also be looking to see how independently students show these indicators; the less we have to scaffold, and the more students do autonomously, the better.  We'll take these three dimensions into account, and then we'll let you know what we see, on a scale of Strong - Clear - Some indicators.  Of course, if we have a Concern we'll contact you immediately. And finally, in each subject we'll suggest a target to focus on - one where we think students can make the biggest difference to their learning.

We told students about this at the start of the year, and mentioned it to you at the Meet the Mentor presentations.  Feedback has so far been overwhelmingly positive from students (who take a very pragmatic view of these things.  As High School is are approaching the first set of Approaches to Learning Reports, as we call them, all feedback is most welcome.  Especially if, like the ATL report itself, your feedback is specific, provides actionable steps, and is aligned with our values :-)


(1) More precisely, they reflect an informative rather than interpretative approach - see here for discussion of this important difference
(2) More precisely, they seem to value summative over formative assessment  - see here for discussion of this important difference