Building Better Assessments for Learning

By Laura Slover

As formative assessment scholar Dylan Wiliam defines it, assessments for learning “use evidence of student learning to adapt teaching and learning, or instruction, to meet student needs.”  This is in contrast to assessments of learning, which are typically used to evaluate a student’s mastery of content but not to take specific action in the classroom as a result of it.

As a former teacher, I saw first-hand how well-crafted assessments inform teaching and learning.  I spent hours designing assessments that would provide me with information about student strengths and weaknesses and help me determine what next steps to take with individual students, groups of students, or entire classrooms.  So, I am convinced that assessments can serve as a powerful tool for learning – particularly when they are embedded in a strong curriculum and accompanied by quality instruction.

Elements of High-Quality Assessment for Learning

Assessments for learning serve as an important feedback loop for teachers throughout the school year.  If designed well, they can allow a teacher to efficiently gather information about what students know and can do.  They can provide important feedback about the effectiveness of particular instructional strategies and can signal whether certain topics need to be revisited to address misunderstandings. They can also help inform teachers when students are ready to go deeper by exploring a topic of great interest to them.

The key here is “if designed well.” Assessments for learning can take many forms, but, to provide actionable, accurate information that teachers can use to adapt their instruction, they need to be effective assessment tools.  In my experience, creating and using high quality assessments for learning requires a few key things:

1. Educators deeply understand the standards and the curriculum. They know what they’re aiming for and how their students will get there over the course of the academic year.  They understand the interplay between knowledge and skill and assess student understanding of both.  They also understand common student misunderstandings and how to help students navigate those challenges.
2. Educators are assessment literate. They understand what quality assessments look like and the purposes and uses for different kinds of assessments.  They are able, either on their own or collaboratively in professional learning communities, to craft quality tasks that are aligned to state standards and call on students to show their knowledge of both content and skills and do meaningful work.  This includes using performance tasks that ask students to apply their knowledge, think critically, solve problems, and write – not only respond to selected response or short answer questions.  They are able to gather and analyze data from assessments to make judgments about students’ strengths and needs.  And, critically, they are able to incorporate that information into their lesson plans and instructional strategies.  After all, assessments can only be “for learning” if they are used to support learning.
3. Educators know how to evaluate alignment. They can judge whether the assessment questions or tasks measure the right concepts in order for them to understand whether students are learning the content standards.  Close alignment of the standards and assessments means that the two are sync from a technical standpoint and in terms of coherence and intent.  Alignment is not a “check-the-box” exercise – it should be approached in several dimensions.  These dimensions include measuring the depth and breadth of: a) the entire set of standards being assessed, and b) the full standard, not just the superficial part.

If this sounds like a tall order, that’s because it is.  Creating strong alignment between standards, curriculum, assessment, and instruction is challenging work and requires time, support, and ongoing opportunities for professional collaboration.

Assessment for Learning in Practice

Given this is challenging work, where should educators start?  My colleagues Bonnie Hain and Jim Mirabelli recently wrote in a post for Learning Forward about one promising approach: using Evidence-Centered Design (ECD) to create assessments for learning that help chart an effective teaching path.

ECD is a process that can help educators concretely describe what student mastery of content standards looks like and create tasks that give students the opportunity to show their level of understanding and where they may need more specific support. When students respond to assessment questions or tasks designed using ECD, educators can collect concrete information on what students know and can do with greater clarity about what additional steps may be needed for students to meet expectations. With quality assessments, we have greater confidence that the judgments we are making about next steps instruction are truly in student’s best interests.

This approach helps address one of the greatest needs I hear from educators – how to make sense of information from locally-administered assessments and use it to differentiate instruction.  Using ECD helps facilitate that process by closely connecting the evidence about student learning – i.e. the assessment data – to the desired learning outcomes.  Using those desired outcomes as the starting point can help teachers make rapid improvements to their formative assessments – thereby helping them gather better data about student learning to inform their instruction.

If I had had these skills when I was a classroom teacher, I would have been able to craft stronger assessments and get better information about my students’ needs.  As CEO of CenterPoint, my mission is to help educators across the country gain those skills so they can accelerate learning for every student.

Laura Slover is the CEO of CenterPoint Education Solutions and a former English teacher.