5 Assessment Questions for Better Measures of Success

In this post, I share some guiding assessment questions and provocations about the value system that education is built on.

There is also a 10-page workbook to download to support your reflection and action planning on assessment and the impact you have on students.

The Most Complicated Object in the Universe

My teaching journey started when I was studying psychology. I chose teaching because of formative experiences in 1995 when studying how we think, develop and learn. Learning elements of developmental psychology was a catalyst to my career.

[sharable-quote tweet=”The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10,000 other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe. ~ Michio Kaku “]

The brain seemed an incredible mystery we were all attempting to unravel. As you reflect on your assessment practices, keep that complexity in your mind.

The Draw-a-person Assessment

The drawing test was devised in 1926 by Florence Goodenough, a psychologist from the University of Minnesota. It was developed as “a new approach to measuring young children’s intelligence, ” as her paper is titled.

Children have ten minutes to draw a person, and the results are scored according to strict guidelines. Goodenough argued the drawings were a proxy for intellectual development.

I recall conducting the Draw-a-person test with children at a local primary school or nursery. Deciphering the mark-making and the developmental cues was fascinating.

[sharable-quote tweet=”Teaching is at the intersection between an enduring mystery and a social imperative.” template=”dark”]

Stay Curious About Assessment and Learning

My interest in developmental psychology waned after years in the teaching profession. That is strange to write, as you might expect one to multiply the other.

Perhaps the mystery was overwhelming. Or the distractions incumbent to the teaching profession got in the way. Maybe it was the shiny gloss of technology?

Looking back on my teaching, I wish I had stayed curious for longer about the mysteries of how we learn and assessment questions.

First Principles Questions

Nowadays, I am motivated by the provocation and utility of first principles thinking. A mental model I would take back to 1998 and offer to myself.

We can all find great clarity from the fundamental truths and principles of what we might be exploring. To use first principles, ask questions like these:

  • What are the enduring truths about building positive relationships?
  • What are the first principles of a community?

And the central question:

  • What are the fundamental truths about learning?


Making Sense of What Works

The Draw-a-person test is an interesting exhibit in the story of how teaching is changing. Although widely used, it was also critiqued and fell out of favour as a measure of intellectual development.

I put this down to the scale of the mystery of our brain.

It may have fallen out of favour due to what I call the solution shard effect. This effect occurs when we explain part of a grand mystery.

To begin with, we present a possible truth – a solution shard (fragment). It is not the complete answer, and questions may remain. A part of the truth is presented and explored, and challenged.

However, when this fragment is refuted, it impacts the established elements of truth around it. The second-order effect is a ripple of doubt.

How does this relate to education?

The complexity of how we learn and what teaching should look like can be overwhelming. What we thought worked is no longer valid. Practices that were in favour and widely adopted now languish on the pseudo-science scrap heap.

You might reflect on some of these assessment questions

  • How do I distinguish what works for my students?
  • How can I possibly control so many different aspects of the learning experience?
  • The experience with my students is contrary to the research I have read; what does that mean?

[sharable-quote tweet=”If we solve in silos, there is the potential of adding more fragments to decipher, more heuristics to navigate and more contradictory options of what works.” template=”quote”]

In a way, the confusion, uncertainty and part-truths are not surprising. Teaching is at the intersection between an enduring mystery and a social imperative.

draw a person test assessment questions new metrics
Photo by Jerry Wang

Better Assessment and Measures of Success

A further aspect of Florence Goodenough’s work that is relevant today is the need for broader measures of success and better assessment questions. She asked children to draw as a way of expressing their intelligence and development. It wasn’t just a number.

Jonah Lehrer explains in his article about Goodenough’s test:

there are countless ways to measure human intelligence, whatever that is. We’ve settled on a particular concept of intelligence defined by a short list of measurable mental talents. (Modern IQ tests tend to focus on abilities such as mental control, processing speed and quantitative reasoning.) But Goodenough’s tool is proof that the mystery of smarts has no single solution. The IQ test could have been a drawing test.

The Draw-A-Person Test – Jonah Lehrer

What do we value in schools?

Even in the 1920s, Goodenough attempted to develop better assessment questions and methods for understanding young children’s growth and development. Although an enduring mystery, a century later, a growing number of educators, schools and systems are asking, “is there a better way to measure success?”

The challenge of figuring this out at a student and system level is significant. Again, if we solve in silos, there is the potential of adding more fragments to decipher, more heuristics to navigate and more contradictory options of what works.

Trainee Teachers

Imagine for a moment the experience of new trainee teachers. Do we want that experience to be coherent and clear of the swirling mix of ideas? Or is better teaching practice forged from seeking a pathway through the mire?

We need leadership from research organisations, schools and education systems. An example of this is the New Metrics for Success project from Melbourne University.

a collaborative research venture between The University of Melbourne and selected forward-thinking schools to work in partnership to address the meta-problems faced by Australian schools today and in the future.

I wonder what peer projects link to this work from Melbourne University that exists worldwide?

Your Assessment Questions and Talking Points

To support your thinking and dialogue, return to the question of “What are the fundamental truths about learning?”.

Five guiding assessment questions and provocations

Here are five key guiding questions and provocations to frame your next step:

  • What are the fundamental truths about learning that we know work here (in your context)?
  • For this student, what am I doing that is making the biggest difference to their learning growth?
  • What is one truth about learning that I don’t currently do frequently enough?
  • From the strategies I have tried, what are the patterns of impact and change?
  • How can I collaborate on “the truth for us”, the fundamental components of learning design?

Download my 10-page workbook to reflect on these assessment questions, plus 30 more provocations about assessment and new measures of success. Explore the provocations and consider some action planning to improve your teaching.

How Do We Change A Cultural Fascination With Grades?

Assessment graph1

Over on Google+ I have conducted a short survey to further explore the challenges that educators face when attempting to implement assessment for learning strategies in schools. By which I mean a focus on the process of learning, improving student’s metacognition, sustained opportunities for reflection and a general effort to assess “for” learning not “of” learning.

With over 100 responses this short straw poll indicates that it is not the lack of time or issues around timetabling that make this process a challenge, but a cultural focus on levels and grades. 58% of those who responded felt that it was this single factor that was influenced assessment implementation within schools.

I was surprised that this proved so conclusive (even within such a small sample) – I was expecting the other more practical factors to play a part for educators such as timetabling, a lack of training or indeed a curriculum that does not flex to accommodate changes brought about by assessment for learning.

In fact the second highest response again is a reference to summative assessment – taken together nearly 75% of responses point the finger at the ongoing fascination with summative assessment, grades and levels.

But how do we alter such an entrenched view? When we think of our own schools, is there a lack of appetite for anything other than grades and levels?

I think that one thing that would begin to change this perception of what is important in the classroom would be a concerted effort to better understand assessment in total. This is especially important for parents and pupils so that they do not skew the value they place on end of year assessments or reports. Also the message that the school puts out about what is important and how this plays out day to day.

This is not so clear cut the older children get and the further they get into education – you could argue that as a student gets older the focus on their grades and levels becomes more intense. It becomes less about how they have learned something or what the journey was like, and more about the net result – the grade.

What do you think? There is no overnight fix, but what steps could teachers and schools take to shift the focus away from simply a grade or level? If this is such a clearly perceived barrier, how do we change it?

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Survey: What is the biggest challenge to implementing assessment for learning?

Less Coverage; Deeper Learning

deep

My own research and interest into the issues swirling around assessment in schools coincides with the new purpos/ed campaign. Below is another comment left on the Google Doc from which I am highlighting and instigating some further debate around the subject.

Teachers and leaders need to see this as a change in philosophy and pedagogy and that will take good cpd and leadership to embed. It is a shift in balance of teachers’ skills; requires planning which doesn’t depend on fixed SOW as has to flex and bend to meet the needs of young people, there can be no ‘one size fits all’. Also time has to given for reflection which means less ‘coverage’ but deeper learning.

this was commented on by another contributor:

reflection is especially important to give children the time to comment on how they feel about their learning; all too often the time given for plenary/reflection is painfully short. Also, reflection needs to be modelled and focussed to be effective…

An approach being unique to each individual school, even each class and child is something that must be baked into assessment for learning. This malleability must also be reflected in the curriculum that is being used as a foundation and also validated by senior staff in school. There must be a clear message that if assessment takes a curriculum or project into an unexpected direction it is ok, there must be space for the students to feel this and for the teacher to know it is OK.

All too often we are worried about “coverage”, and our supposed accountability to that, to ever venture from the well trodden path – but it is often on the edges where we find the most powerful learning opportunities.

One size will not fit all, as the contributor rightly points out and we all will face different challenges in the classes we work with – where there is a need for consistency is in the space provided to do it well.

The second comment touches on this point. Reflection is all to often an after-thought, nor is it actively taught, demonstrated and explicitly modelled. There needs to be more discussion about learning and the process we go through and this needs to be brought to the surface by the teacher.

Teachers and pupils alike need the space (from school leaders,from local authorities, from government) to adapt what they are doing to improve the learning process: the curriculum space to explore the edges; the timetable space to reflect on the process and the professional space to make judgements about where learning is heading.

Pic: Deep under