Jill Maschio, PhD
July 26, 2023
The education system has undergone numerous changes to improve the overall learning experience for students. While schools have always had tests and assessments as part of their curriculum, the traditional approach is no longer enough. Teachers need to come up with creative ways to track their students’ progress and provide feedback on their strengths and weaknesses.
Tracking assessments are an effective way of monitoring student progress and providing feedback regarding their academic achievements when used correctly. In this blog, we’ll explore ways that teachers can structure and improve tracking student achievement through assessments.
First, create learning goals that are specific, measurable, and achievable – One effective way to structure tracking assessments is to first create learning goals that align with the guidelines set out by the curriculum. The goals should be specific and measurable to track student progress effectively.
Educators can design assessments based on students’ current knowledge and appropriate learning level. There are a number of assessments to use. In this blog, I will discuss formative assessments and summative assessments.
Formative assessments
Formative assessments are assessments used to track students’ progress as they learn new material throughout the year. These assessments help teachers understand their students’ strengths and weaknesses in real-time. They can be low-stakes and therefore put less pressure on students to perform well, allowing them to learn at their own pace.
Types of formative assessments include:
- Observations
- Homework
- In-class activities
- Quiz (open-ended and closed-ended questions)
Give students a variety of assessments – Using a variety of assessment types such as the one mentioned here can provide a comprehensive view of a student’s academic ability. These types of assessments can also help identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, including understanding of material, word problem-solving, and critical thinking.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment is an form of assessment administered at the end of some period, such as at the end of a term. This type of assessment can identify what students have learned from having taken a course.
- Types of summative assessments may include:
- Final exams
- Term paper
- End of the course instructor student evaluation
- Projects
Regardless of the type of assessment used, always provide feedback – The feedback provided by educators is essential to student growth and improvement. Educators should give timely feedback that is clear and constructive to encourage student progress. Students learn from their mistakes, so by using assessment feedback, you are providing them with a valuable tool for helping them understand their errors and work on them.
The Pros and Cons of Using Assessments
There are pros and cons with student assessment, especially when an institution uses the data to measure student success. For one, teaching to assess may play unnecessary pressure on the educator and the students to perform – leading educators to feel that they have to teach-to-test. This model of teaching is broken, but many educators are still using it. Teaching focuses on the content students need to learn so that they can have the skills and knowledge for their professional and personal lives. Testing more than likely does not lead to long-term memory nor does it provide a method for students to move up the continuum of knowledge. Thus, it oftentimes defeats the purpose of learning, which is to transfer knowledge to the student.
Increasing Knowledge
When teaching focuses on both moving the student up the continuum of knowledge and teaching to how the brain learns, I believe that assessment can be more effective. This fits into number two. Two is that at secondary institutions, faculty generally agree to having their students achieve some level of proficiency. It might be that 60% of the students will pass an assessment with 3 or 4 level of achievement – 4 being mastery level. The downside to doing assessment is at least two-fold.
One, the assessments are scored and rolled into a final proficiency percentage. For example, 50% of the students in math scored a 2-proficiency level on the assessment. That process doesn’t consider the individual student and what he/she can achieve but an average instead.
Two, the assessment process may include the educator administering one assignment that assesses for one element from the course, and at one time during the course, such as the end of the term. The problem with doing that is that a student may excel well with a different concept other than the one being assessed for – thus, not giving a true representation of that student’s knowledge. And, if the assessment is administered one time only, then there is no way to identify a starting point for each student.
Some solutions that also consider diversity of learning are:
- Assess the same concept twice within a term. Once at the start of the course and then again at some other point.
- Consider each individual score to see whether each student has progressed in achieving the desired outcome rather than calculating one final score for the whole class. Calculate how many students moved up a level of proficiency rather than scoring the class as a whole on the grade they achieved with the assessment.
- Last, when applicable, allow students multiple opportunities. For example, in the social sciences, students could select a concept from the course textbook that was covered in class to write a term paper, and in the instruction include things such as provide a working definition of the concept or explain how the concept could be applied to a case study (real world scenario). That would give the student the opportunity to write to his/her knowledge or exhibit some other skill such as critical thinking or problem solving.
Conclusion
In conclusion, structuring and improving tracking assessments can be a valuable tool for students and educators. Educators should create learning goals that are specific, align to the course goals, and be measurable and achievable to the student’s learning abilities. Use a variety of assessments and give students timely feedback. Consider the pros and cons of assessment when determining how to assess. Using these strategies, educators can help their students stay on track, improve their academic abilities, and set them on a path to success. The power of a strong assessment program cannot be underestimated, and investing the time to create it will undoubtedly benefit both teachers and students alike. You can learn more about developing curriculum designed for student success in my online course.
