Lou Salza is a special educator. For years he has led schools that support students with learning differences that prevent them from being successful in mainstream schools. They are bright, capable students, but traditional approaches to learning and assessment do not work for them. He came to one of our faculty meetings years ago when he and I were both still in Hawai'i to talk about misconceptions in assessment. His big point: grades and assessment is not the same thing.
Lou used a simple example to explain the distinction. Two students are set to take a vocabulary test. The test is made up of twenty vocabulary words, and each word is worth one point. The students are given the list of words a week in advance of the test. The day of the test arrives, and the two students do their best. One student gets every vocabulary word right, and receives a perfect score. The other student has twelve correct vocabulary words out of twenty. With no more information, it's a foregone conclusion that using a traditional approach to grading, the student with the perfect score is awarded an 'A' for his 100%, and the other student is awarded a "D-" for his 60%.
Here's where it becomes tricky. The student who achieved a perfect score knew most of the vocabulary words on the list before he began to study...eighteen to be exact. For this student, he needed only to study two words in order to achieve his perfect score and get his 'A'. The other student didn't know any of the vocabulary words in advance of receiving the list. For this student, the whole list needed to be studied. While he didn't achieve a perfect score like the other student, he actually learned significantly more new vocabulary words than his peer; his net learning was greater. Nonetheless, he was left with a poor grade to show for his efforts. Suddenly, grading and assessment seem to be very different things.
Grading, as we all know it, is a mathematical short-hand that allows us to categorize student "progress", one grade relative to another, and one student relative to another. It is a kind of accounting that dates back to the industrial priorities of a bygone age, when students were measured and sorted; their grades future indicators, predictors of where they would eventually end up in the workforce. It is the age that brought us the first IQ tests: culturally biased, narrowly focused, marginally relevant. Numbers and their percentages were and are intended to legitimize an otherwise dicey, subjective approach to "assessment".
Assessment, on the other hand, is geared towards informing the learner how to be more effective as a learner. It is an organic feedback loop, the kind you experience as an adult in direct and indirect ways every time you autocorrect in the face of need or adversity, or respond and adjust to critical evaluation by others. For an assessment to be valid and useful, it has to accurately measure intended learning outcomes, with a particular focus on the acquisition of key skills and core concepts. It must also provide direction for improvement. If, by example, we return to our two students, and measure their learning only according to their vocabulary totals, these learners gain little insight into their own learning, their strengths and shortcomings. If instead we look to the individual cases of each learner, and assess their individual skills, content knowledge, approaches to learning, etc., we may determine that one student needs more challenging opportunities to extend their literacy, whereas the other student may need more direct support growing their basic vocabulary through increased exposure and application (e.g. more reading and writing). With the learner, we can develop precise improvement goals. In time, and with clear expectations and supports, the learner is capable of self-assessment for personal improvement.
The International Baccalaureate approaches assessment in the aforementioned way. It is learner-centric; assessment is intended to guide learning, not simply assign a summary mark. It is different from what we are used to, yes, and it is a far more transformational approach to supporting our students in their learning journey. We will be offering workshops that help to explain forthcoming changes in our assessment approaches, some of which your children are already experiencing.
See you around campus.