Views on Assessment

    When you think of assessment, what comes to mind? Time spent poring over textbooks in the library, stressing out over grades, using flashcards for memorizing, and dreading the whole thing? That's the old school thinking! What's a better way of assessment? The balanced assessment for learning system gives students ownership of their progress and lets both teachers and students know in real time where the areas of strength are and where students might need more support. Through different types of assessment, including formative, summative, and reflective, students actively engage in improving their work (Stiggins, 2005). Students are empowered, growing in confidence as they understand how to make things work. Assessment should happen continuously throughout learning, not just that stress-filled dash at the end. 

            So how do we make sure our assessment measures the objectives? Alignment is everything! Start with the standards and figure out the objectives. What do I want students to be able to do? Design the instruction. How will they learn how to do it? Then you can figure out how they can show you what they’ve learned (Zhao et al., 2023). That’s the assessment. Assessment should be a smoothly flowing part of the unit. Remember – it’s very important to keep in mind what you are actually assessing. Sometimes an assessment will lose focus. If I want to know whether a student can comprehend a story, assessing grammar as they write a summary is confusing.

            So what kind of assessment is the best? That all depends on you, what you are assessing, how much time you devote to the assessment, and your student population. Assessments might be open-ended, selected-response, or performance. They can all be helpful at one time or another, but I’m going to explain my preferred type of assessment, the performance assessment. By definition, a performance assessment gives students the opportunity to show what they know in a real-world context (Pellerin, 2020). They might create a PowerPoint, produce a movie, record a song, or make a presentation. Students use critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity to produce something they want to show off. For students with difficulty with memorization, writing, language, or social anxiety, having the choice of how to showcase knowledge is a game-changer (Tomlinson & Allan, 2000).

Sometimes, teachers want to encourage students who may not be doing well academically, but they are trying hard. This brings us to effort grades. An effort grade is just that: giving students credit for how much they put into the work (Schinske & Tanner, 2014). This is a tough one, since, of course, we want students to know their efforts are being seen and rewarded. But if we tie effort grades to the academic grades, it can muddy the waters. This goes back to my point about being clear on what you are assessing. If the assessment is meant to show whether a student can spell 10 words, and I add an effort grade to the mix, is the spelling assessment valid? Does the child actually know ten words, and that’s why they got 100%? Or does the child know 6 words but studied a lot, so the effort grade bumped the grade up? See? Confusing! Of course, it’s entirely the teacher’s choice, but for me? I think carefully about what I need to assess, and I acknowledge effort in my comments, just as I do for behavior. But I wouldn’t tie it to the academic grade.

Moving right along, let’s think about the various ways of assessment. In addition to what we’ve mentioned before, there is also student self-assessment. Now what is that? Just what it sounds like. Students are given the chance to assess their own work, deciding what they have mastered and what they need help with. Formative assessments, in particular, lend themselves not only to students assessing themselves but also to actually helping develop the assessment criteria (Beard, 2025). Students might help develop a rubric for a project, then use the rubric to self-assess or they may keep a growth portfolio to view their progress. Giving students ownership of their work is a positive, encouraging path to learning, and that’s what self-assessments can do.

 

         

            I mentioned this when I was talking about student self-assessment, but what is a student growth portfolio, and why would we use them? Most early childhood professionals are familiar with portfolios, as they're a mainstay for showing student progress. Samples of student work are collected and kept together, and from these, we can see how the students are progressing over time. A portfolio can include anything the student has done over the course of instruction and can cover how they progressed through a unit, a semester, or a year. Contents can be teacher-chosen, but to help students understand where they are, students should be involved in choosing what goes into the portfolio. They can look back and see the progress they’ve made and get an idea of where they need more support (Doğan et al., 2024). I am a big fan of portfolios, and coming from early childhood, I have used them for years. Yes, they can take some time to develop and organize, but they are worth it.

Figures and Graphs and Tables, Oh My!

            I’ll be upfront here. I am not, in any way, a fan of math. I have struggled with mild dyscalculia my whole life, and it makes things more challenging when numbers are involved in anything. So for me, putting the information into a visual that I can easily determine progress is the way to go. An added benefit of using visuals is that it helps during parent-teacher conferences. Sometimes when the number columns come out, parents eyes glaze over. But pulling out my trusty visual? It’s easy to immediately see where things are.

 Figure 1

Frogs and Pines Unit Comprehension Quizzes

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WPM	1/13/26	1/30/26	2/9/26	2/20/26	3/1/26	3/12/26
	Baby Bear	Mr Pickles	I can see	Mama’s spaghetti	In the night sky	I don’t want to

 

            I know, it’s a lot of information, and assessment can be scary. But don’t let it be! Assessment is part of instruction, and guides the way to fill in knowledge gaps, makes students partners in their learning, and gives you something to show parents in addition to standardized test results, which can be confusing and honestly, never show the whole picture of where a student is at. When assessments for learning are incorporated into the instructional routine, teachers can easily see where the curriculum may need additional support, where review is needed, or where everyone can move forward (Stiggens, 2005). Look at assessment as a tool in the teacher's toolbox, and use it wisely!

 

 

References

Beard, E. (2025, March 11). The importance of student self-assessment. Teach. Learn. Grow; NWEA. https://www.nwea.org/blog/2025/the-importance-of-student-self-assessment/

Doğan, Y., Yıldırım, N. T., & Batdı, V. (2024). Effectiveness of portfolio assessment in primary education: A multi-complementary research approach. Evaluation and Program Planning, 106, 102461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2024.102461

Pellerin, E. (2020). Performance assessment: An engaging alternativ to traditional test-taking. Institute of Educational Sciences. https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/performance-assessment-engaging-alternative-traditional-test-taking

Schinske, J., & Tanner, K. (2014). Teaching more by grading less (or differently). CBE Life Sciences Education, 13(2), 159. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.CBE-14-03-0054

Stiggins, R. (2005). From formative assessment to assessment for learning: A path to success in standards-based schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 87(4), 324–328. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170508700414

Tomlinson, C. A., & Allan, S. D. (2000). Leadership for differentiating schools & classrooms. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Zhao, L., Zhao, B., & Li, C. (2023). Alignment analysis of teaching–learning-assessment within the classroom: how teachers implement project-based learning under the curriculum standards. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-023-00078-1