Hello colleagues, Highly respected Stanford University researcher and writer Linda Darling-Hammond describes and thoughtfully comments on 5 keys to comprehensive assessment in this video. The five keys include: 1) meaningful goals and measures, 2) formative assessment, 3) summative assessment, 4) performance-based assessment, and 5) student ownership.
Darling-Hammond suggests that our assessments need to evolve to reflect tasks people are required to do in the real world. While there is a place for multiple choice tests, this should not be the main way we assess student learning.
I thought we might take up each of the keys in a separate discussion since they are all essential. Focusing on the first key "meaningful goals and measures," one teacher in the video says that she plans instruction focused on the big ideas she wants students to know and the specific skills she wants them to develop. This teacher then uses a backwards design to plan lessons to meet those goals. She strives to have a clear learning outcome for every class so students understand the goals.
In my class, we are working on reading comprehension. One goal we have is to improve students' fluency. We have been doing some timed reading, and students are tracking the accuracy of their responses to comprehension questions. Graphing their results helps students see where they are and where they want to go. In other words, the goal is both clear and measurable.
How do you communicate the learning objectives for a lesson to the learners you work with? Are the goals measurable in some way?
Cheers, Susan
Moderator, Assessment CoP
