This post is a summary of the main ideas from a symposium focused on educators’ assessment literacy presented at the 2021 NCME Classroom Assessment Conference. Slides from the session are available here. 

“Assessment practices do far more than provide information; they shape people’s understanding about what is important to learn, what learning is, and who learners are” (Moss, 2008, p. 254).

Most of us would agree that if the problem of improving K-12 educator assessment literacy has not been solved, it is not because of a lack of trying. A quick search of books with “assessment literacy” in the title, or a more general search for books on formative assessment or classroom assessment, returns many excellent resources written by esteemed researchers, practitioners, and scholars.

Equity is a value undergirding public educational systems. Educational equity is about beliefs, and beliefs are lived out through actions and choices made relative to pedagogy, assessment, and education policy. Culturally responsive education (CRE) is a mental model or mindset that can be applied to help close Equity gaps. There are many different frameworks for thinking about and applying CRE to design and evaluate culturally responsive classroom assessment.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and yet expecting different results. Recently, I have been thinking about how this adage applies to innovative state assessment systems—those systems states are developing that offer new ways of measuring student proficiency for use in state accountability systems. I have concluded that one of the reasons that successful innovation in state assessment systems has been so rare is that we continue to ask states to implement innovative assessment systems before the state or the system is ready.

The pandemic has surfaced disparities among students with respect to equitable educational access, opportunities, and outcomes in new ways. For example, simple differences in learning environments (e.g., remote, hybrid, in-person) likely result in considerable variation as to where students are starting and ending their learning journeys this year and into next year. This situation creates a heightened awareness of how important it is to collect meaningful information about student progress toward proficiency at the classroom level. Enter the need for classroom assessment literacy. 

In a previous post, we discussed what is the same and what is different about the formative assessment process in a remote or hybrid learning environment in comparison to in-person learning. We concluded that conceptually formative assessment remains the same. Yet, practically there are key differences in how formative assessment is applied in remote contexts because of differences in instructional, student, and environmental characteristics.

As school restarts this fall, many teachers and students are facing different learning environments than the typical back-to-school realities – including when it comes to formative classroom assessment. 

COVID has reshaped teaching and learning in ways that could make a teacher or other educational leader wonder—what’s the same and what’s different about classroom assessment in a remote or hybrid learning environment? 

This is the final post in a series of seven posts on instructing and assessing 21^st Century skills. This post focuses on best practices related to classroom assessment design, grading, and reporting the 21^st Century skills described in this series.

This is the sixth in a series of seven posts on instructing and assessing 21^st Century skills. This post focuses on measurement and assessment challenges that must be overcome in the instruction and assessment of the 21^st Century skills described in this series.