Shifting Assessment
I grew up in the small town of Laramie Wyoming and I don’t specifically remember taking a standardized assessment until I was in high school. Of course, in my classes before that many teachers had used the standard method of a high-stakes summative assessment at the end of a unit or lesson. The process was nearly always the same. The occasional pre assessment was followed by the lesson or unit with the looming test at the end. This was a model that I was able to master. Not the material mind you, but the model. The priority was put on the grade that I would get and because of this I worried less about the learning goal and more about outperforming others. This is what research confirms about giving grades in general (Ryan & Deci, 2020).
As I mentioned before, the first standardized test I remember taking was in high school. This would have been around the year 2002 or my Junior year. This makes sense with the consideration that 2002 was the year that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) effectively began in schools. NCLB mandated that states had to give statewide tests once in grades 10 through 12 (Lee, n.d.). The test I remember must have been part of this mandate. At the time I took the test I was very anxious because I had put so much importance on the outcome. However, when we got the test, it was very simplistic. I clearly remember a test question that asked me, a high school junior, to read and write down the time shown on a clock. The whole experience was unnerving and somewhat patronizing.
It wasn’t until I got to college that I came into contact with rubrics. I had chosen to go to school for theater arts and not only had summative assessments in subjects like theater history, but was also being assessed in actual performances. In order for these performance projects to be effectively assessed, several of my professors had created rubrics. It was a game-changer. I loved knowing what was expected of me up front and conversely exactly what I had done or not at the end.
Unfortunately, some of the less helpful pieces of my experience are still around. According to Ryan and Deci in their 2020 report grading is still pervasive in schools around the world and is almost synonymous with school in general, even though there is little evidence of its positive effect. However, many strides have been made by educators to make grades less important as a concept by using many different formative assessments as well as rubrics for student learning.
Standardized tests like the one I took in highschool are still very present in our system today. Some High Stakes Testing (HST) has been very ineffective (Ryan &Deci, 2020), but still is a necessity for large scale data. Although standardized testing is still hotly debated, sources like the Ohio Department of Education (ODOE) (2016) give actionable and practical guidelines for creating and choosing assessments that are better formulated for students. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) brought about many changes from NCLB in testing and school accountability that are well organized in the infographic below from Educators for Excellence (2016) as well.
Overall, in my experience, the purpose and process of assessment has become more well defined since my time in school. Even in just the last 10 years teaching in my elementary school, the landscape of assessments has leaned to the positive, hopefully leading more students to mastery and understanding.
References
Educators for Excellence. (2016, October 4). Infographic: No Child Left Behind v. The Every Student Succeeds Act [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://e4e.org/blog-news/blog/infographic-no-child-left-behind-v-every-student-succeeds-act
Lee, A. M., JD. (n.d.). No Child Left Behind (NCLB): What You Need to Know [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/your-childs-rights/basics-about-childs-rights/no-child-left-behind-nclb-what-you-need-to-know
Ohio Department of Education (ODOE). (2016). A Guide to Using SLOs as a Locally-Determined Measure of Student Growth (Rep. No. Guidebook). Retrieved from https://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Teaching/Educator-Evaluation-System/Ohio-s-Teacher-Evaluation-System/Student-Growth-Measures/Student-Learning-Objective-Examples/SLO-Guidebook-041516.pdf.aspx
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61. Retrieved from https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2020_RyanDeci_CEP_PrePrint.pdf