Let’s set aside for one moment the thought that formative and summative assessments must be separate entities. Consider a world where teachers can rely on one type of assessment to perform the job of determining if a student knows how to perform a task AND offering a final designation for student performance on that task. Although it sounds like there may be a conflict of principles, there doesn’t have to be. Think about a child learning to tie their shoes. There’s no separation between the guided practice, independent practice and final exam. The parent and child simply work together until the child masters the task, then they move on to another skill. Sometimes they move on to other skills BEFORE the shoe tying has reached a high proficiency level, but they are willing to come back to it as needed to make sure the child learns. No penalties are levied for needing extra time, no missed deadlines and no high pressure summative evaluation. Teaching a skill, like tying your shoes, requires patience as well as consistent and specific feedback. It can also be taught while introducing other new skills along the way.
Think of how ridiculous it would be if you assigned shoe tying “practice” outside of your immediate supervision, and you evaluated your child’s progress based on whether they came back the next day with their shoes tied. If they did get their shoes tied outside of your supervision, how would you know if they actually did it themselves? Consider the possibility they may not be able to do it when you watch them attempt to tie their shoes. No parent would say, “Your shoes were tied everytime I came into the room to check them, but you failed at tying them while you were in front of me. So I guess I’m going to give you a passing grade for tying your shoes since, based on average, you demonstrated a 67% proficiency and you completed all of the tasks I assigned. Now let’s move on to another skill.” This never happens because parents don’t differentiate between formative and summative assessments. The child is motivated by learning, and the parent continually assesses and provides feedback until the child achieves his or her goal. It’s not a reach to think this can work in a classroom setting as well.
Here’s what our dual purpose Skills Assessments (SA) look like. We use four questions and each one is split into its own quarter of a page. Each question is either a free response or a multiple choice question with options that require deeper thinking and more than one correct response. Every question has room for written teacher feedback. This feedback can be as simple as correcting an arithmetic error, or as complicated as rewriting rules that should have been applied to the problem. Since we design each Skill to coincide with traditional chapters, no singular skills assessment will cover every task within its intended skill. Four questions simply isn’t enough to determine how much a student knows about a skill (or chapter). It will take multiple assessments to attack each task, within that skill, from enough angles to determine to which degree the student understands the skill. Consequently, we require students to take a minimum of four SAs before we average them to assign a grade. With at least 16 questions being evaluated, the teacher can now start to assign a number to show a level of understanding (AKA a “grade”). The best part is that these assessments are short and can easily be attempted over and over until the student reaches their desired goal. Once they reach their goal, they can focus their independent time on another skill.
Skills Assessments in a Skills Based Classroom are designed to be independent practice, provide formative feedback, and act as a summative evaluation for any specific skill. These assessments are taken and retaken until the student shows a level of understanding that aligns with their individual goals. Some students are simply trying to pass the skill, while others are trying to master it. But every time a student takes one, unless the student has achieved mastery of the topic, there will be an opportunity for the teacher to assess it for student understanding as well as provide immediate and specific feedback to the student. There’s no need to split up the work between separate assessments when one type of assessment can do it all.
In the example below, a student would take at least 4 assessments of this type prior to receiving a summative grade for the "Exponents" skill (or chapter). Each time, the teacher will indicate the level of understanding (1-4) based on the descriptions at the bottom of the page.
After each attempt, the students would receive written AND verbal feedback from the teacher. After the 4th attempt, a grade would be assigned, but the students would be allowed (and encouraged) to continue to take additional attempts in order to raise their grade. Retakes are allowed until the end of the semester.
