Reporting on Learning – Back to Designing Great Learning Opportunities in the First Place…

“If we do what we’ve always done, we will get what we’ve always done.”
~Adam Urbanski

Assessment and reporting has undergone huge changes in the past years, and especially since I was a new teacher and “assessment” was merely doing report cards. How things have changed…

Assessment has and must continue to become part of our daily work, rather than just an “event” in November, March and June. It is not unidirectional from teacher to student to parent, but is intended to build the learning during the process rather than only provide feedback at the end when the work is already complete.

Pre-work – Assessment becomes part of our pre-work in creating innovative and excellent learning opportunities for our students. Student are creating and discussing what great work will look like before they do it, so the end goals are clear. They need to know what constitutes great work in order to create great work, helping students understanding where they are going to go…

During the Work – Students, parents, teachers, staff, community members and experts all have a role to play during the learning and in providing feedback throughout the process. Students will gain skills, knowledge, understanding through working together and helping each other, rather than a competitive process where the teacher is my only audience. Each grade community in our school is creating a Legacy Art project that will live at Keeler School. Their authentic audience will be students, teachers, parents and guests to the school for years to come, not just their teacher. Knowing that, students will work harder to create better work, but need time to discuss, share, and push each other into better places…

After the Work – There is much more to this than just report cards. This is all around improving student achievement. Schools will need to deliver descriptive, constructive feedback on the student’s learning and achievement. The assessment reporting should include student and peer reflection, tools like Student Learning Plans in IRIS and Individual Program Plans, telephone connections, Parent-Teacher Conferences, oral conversation, appointments and emerging meetings, and include textual, technological, and face-to-face communication. This work would be all working to answer that ages old question – “How is my child doing at school?” and “What is important to help my child grow and develop?” This work must be strength-focused, be inclusive of student voice, and help students to see where they are in their learning and to where they are headed to next… Essentially, no parent should ever be surprised at anything on the report card…

Changing practices around assessment provides the biggest impact we can have on personalizing student learning. We have seen it, we now know it, and our work is now developing how to continue to make assessment a more seamless endeavor around enhancing student achievement, not just reporting on it!

Work hard, learn tons!
D