We’re lucky in Ontario to have a pretty progressive look at different kinds of assessment..and it’s mostly descriptive and to encourage reflection and improvement, hopefully with the learner in mind, rather than the teacher.

I’m reminded of Seymour Papert’s Constructionism and the idea of creating a public artifact that is subject to scrutiny, which = feedback. I’d have to agree with Gary and Peter…feedback that promotes learner agency and control rather than teacher assessment is the best scenario.

In Scotland, we were having the same frustrations (as were the Australians and Kiwis) at the turn of the last decade. It was, to cut a very long story short, the formulisation of Assessment for Learning, and Assessment As Learning, that provided the language through which school leaders and teachers could work this challenge, and come out the other side with both worthwhile assessments AND worthwhile learning.

I’ve banged on about it enough to you, Will, so apologies But the links to the original research basis (VERY short and accessible) might be of interest to your readers:

Inside the Black Box (original plus subject-specific versions):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=black+box+assessment&x=0&y=0&sprefix=black+box+assess

Learning and Teaching Scotland’s site:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/assess

Hope that’s of help!

How do you know the needs of your students?

Why claim and rehabilitate the term? I would ask, why let them (the evil empire) lay claim and ownership to it and make a fortune from it with all their publishing and computer-managed learning crap. The term does NOT mean the same in all parts of the world – nor in all domains for that matter.

“Collaboration, conversation, reading, writing, riding a bicycle and eating a sandwich are not forms of assessment.” But, assessment (or whatever you choose to name it – ‘feedback’) are an integral component.

Semantic nightmares.

And, honestly, within the contexts which I work, the term is used – and I will continue to fight for its appropriate definition and use – rather than trying to erase it from the lexicon.

or should bark, “Woof?”

C’mon Peter, the term, “assessment” is used 99.99999% of the time to describe what adults do to children in captive settings. We may wish that the term was more expansive, but it’s not. It’s a toxic word used to describe practices that are mostly bad for and imposed upon unwilling children.

Again, I ask why are people working so hard to claim and rehabilitate a term that in daily like if imbued with completely different meaning?

As a teacher in Ontario, I was about to do exactly that — distinguish between assessment and evaluation.
Assessment FOR learning is an engagement between the teacher and the student, ideally on an individual, differentiated, basis. As a part of their meta-cognitive development, students should be encouraged to reflect on their own learning; to self-assess their own learning journey — where they’ve been and where they want to go.
I believe many of the issues I’ve read here are more around the negative impacts of the evaluation process, particularly within a standardized model. Like everyone else in this discussion, I am incredibly disturbed by the impact of standardized testing and the resulting “teaching to the test” that I see in our schools in Ontario as well. When it’s time for the provincial literacy test, teachers and students are scrambling, and God forbid the school finds itself low in the provincial rankings that result.
Carl’s analogy with his dogs is a rather interesting one. Training versus learning … we ‘train’ students to perform in the ways expected by our culture/society, and they’re graded for it. That grade ranks them, for college & university, professional training, awards and recognition, etc…
Their performance is really the outward expression of their training, but does it reflect what they’ve learned? For many, I have a feeling they’ve simply learned what and how to perform.
A shift is needed on a societal level, not only in the school system. Evaluation is EVERYWHERE, and young people feel the constant pressure to meet the highest possible standard just to get somewhere in their chosen career. Look at what the law schools are doing as a result – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22law.html?th&emc=th (article in the NY Time yesterday)

Ben Grey makes this comparison of the terms ‘assessment’ and ‘feedback’. A necessary, and natural, process.

Gary talks about agency – ‘who is in control’. That is an issue that overrides much more than ‘assessment’ – although it brings to that necessary process a vulgar taste and brutal implementation. I hate THAT form of ‘schooly assessment’ as much as anybody.

I like the distinction made here in Ontario between ‘assessment’ and ‘evaluation’. (PDF – http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growSuccess.pdf)

I love the assessment piece – I hate the evaluation.

We can distinguish between assessment ‘for’ and assessment ‘as’ learning.

“As part of assessment ‘for’ learning, teachers provide students with descriptive feedback and coaching for improvement. Teachers engage in assessment ‘as’ learning by helping all students develop their capacity to be independent, autonomous learners who are able to set individual goals, monitor their own progress, determine next steps, and reflect on their thinking and learning.”

This is in direct disagreement with what Gary said: ‘Thinking and learning, including self-reflection and goal setting is not assessment. They may be distant cousins, but they’re not the same thing.’

Semantics play in here a great deal as others have said.

My whole blog is focused on ‘who is in charge of the learning’. I have great distaste for the school ‘system’ and many of its practices. I see the need for ‘school reform’ – or ‘education reform’. But, I am not so naive as to think we can operate in the world with no feedback. Learning is in the connections…and that includes reasonable assessments – by self and by others – as we are doing here.