How do you use the different types of assessment in your classroom to promote student learning?
School closures and remote or hybrid learning environments have posed some challenges for educators, but motivating students to learn and grow remains a constant goal.
Some students have lost a portion of their academic progress. Assessing students in meaningful ways can help motivate and empower them to grow as they become agents of their own learning.
But testing can contribute to math anxiety for many students. Assessments can be difficult to structure properly and time-consuming to grade. And as a teacher, you know that student progress isn’t just a number on a report card.
There’s so much more to assessments than delivering an end-of-unit exam or prepping for a standardized test. Assessments help shape the learning process at all points, and give you insights into student learning. As John Hattie, a professor of education and the director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia puts it:
The major purpose of assessment in schools should be to provide interpretative information to teachers and school leaders about their impact on students, so that these educators have the best information possible about what steps to take with instruction and how they need to change and adapt. So often we use assessment in schools to inform students of their progress and attainment. Of course this is important, but it is more critical to use this information to inform teachers about their impact on students. Using assessments as feedback for teachers is powerful. And this power is truly maximized when the assessments are timely, informative, and related to what teachers are actually teaching.
Six types of assessments are:
- Diagnostic assessments
- Formative assessments
- Summative assessments
- Ipsative assessments
- Norm-referenced assessments
- Criterion-referenced assessments
Let’s find out how assessments can analyze, support and further learning.
What’s the purpose of different types of assessment?
Different types of assessments can help you understand student progress in various ways. This understanding can inform the teaching strategies you use, and may lead to different adaptations.
In your classroom, assessments generally have one of three purposes:
- Assessment of learning
- Assessment for learning
- Assessment as learning
Assessment of learning
You can use assessments to help identify if students are meeting grade-level standards.
Assessments of learning are usually grade-based, and can include:
- Exams
- Portfolios
- Final projects
- Standardized tests
They often have a concrete grade attached to them that communicates student achievement to teachers, parents, students, school-level administrators and district leaders.
Common types of assessment of learning include:
- Summative assessments
- Norm-referenced assessments
- Criterion-referenced assessments
Assessment for learning
Assessments for learning provide you with a clear snapshot of student learning and understanding as you teach — allowing you to adjust everything from your classroom management strategies to your lesson plans as you go.
Assessments for learning should always be ongoing and actionable. When you’re creating assessments, keep these key questions in mind:
- What do students still need to know?
- What did students take away from the lesson?
- Did students find this lesson too easy? Too difficult?
- Did my teaching strategies reach students effectively?
- What are students most commonly misunderstanding?
- What did I most want students to learn from this lesson? Did I succeed?
There are lots of ways you can deliver assessments for learning, even in a busy classroom. We’ll cover some of them soon!
For now, just remember these assessments aren’t only for students — they’re to provide you with actionable feedback to improve your instruction.
Common types of assessment for learning include formative assessments and diagnostic assessments.
Assessment as learning
Assessment as learning actively involves students in the learning process. It teaches critical thinking skills, problem-solving and encourages students to set achievable goals for themselves and objectively measure their progress.
They can help engage students in the learning process, too! One study “showed that in most cases the students pointed out the target knowledge as the reason for a task to be interesting and engaging, followed by the way the content was dealt with in the classroom.”
