Featured Blog Posts (15)

Why do you assess your students? A teacher's answer to this question reveals much about what that teacher values.  

For example, if a teacher's answers to the question center around determining a student's grade for a report card or transcript or around figuring out how much a student learned at the end of instruction, then it's obvious the teacher places a great emphasis on grading.

On the other hand, if a teacher's answers center around providing the teacher and the student…

As the Standards Based movement has grown, allowing students to Redo assignments and Retake tests has become a rather common practice.  Blogs, articles, books, and workshops have focused on the importance of Redos and Retakes (R/R) and how to practically implement R/R at the classroom and school level.  Divisions, schools, and teachers have created policies that detail, rather specifically, the conditions through which students might R/R assignments.

The progression from Standards…

This network has tons of practical examples of Assessment FOR Learning, great insights into Standards Based Learning concepts, and even a bunch of Sports Analogies to help educators apply sound assessment…

A recent post on The Assessment Network titled Redos and Retakes? Sure. But don't forget to Loop! received a lot of attention via social media and led to quite a few productive discussions.  Without repeating all that was already shared in that post, the basic premise was…

Followers of this site know by now that Assessment FOR Learning is way more important than Assessment OF Learning.  In order to make sure our assessment and our feedback increase student learning, we need to communicate and assess in a standards based manner.

Many schools and school systems have begun their Assessment Journeys by focusing on Standards Based Grading Policies.…

If you've spent much time on this Network you are well aware that we promote the use of formative assessment - or Assessment FOR Learning.  Formative assessments are often compared/contrasted with summative assessments.  Typically, educators use the term "formative assessment" to refer to smaller checks for understanding and use the term "summative assessment" to refer to more larger assessments…

As educators we definitely care more about Learning than we care about Grading.  So it tends to frustrate us when our students seem to only care about getting a Grade. 

Do you ever wish you could redirect your students' focus to learning?  While it's not easy to do so, it's also not impossible.  Since most students will not unilaterally change their focus, we have to make sure that:

1. Everything we do reinforces the fact that we value…

Which do you care about more - Learning or Grading?

Educators always answer that question with Learning.  And if you've spent much time on The Assessment Network, you know that our focus is to help educators use assessment FOR the purpose of learning - rather than to help ecucators figure out new grading systems.  

So while our goal is to explore best practices related to assessment so we can increase learning, the reality is that in order to do so we must spend some amount of…

This Assessment Network is dedicated to the concepts of AFL: Assessment FOR Learning.  In other words, the PURPOSE of assessment is for learning to occur.  It's impossible to maximize your AFL efforts if you don't assess based on content standards.  That's where SBL: Standards Based Learning comes into play.  

There's philosophy, and then there's Philosophy in Action.  When it comes to Assessment Philosophy in Action, it doesn't get any better than LOOPING.  This blog post will…

As this site has grown, so has the number of sports and coaching analogies.  It seems that one way to communicate excellence in the classroom is to compare it to excellence on the field or court.  As sports-related posts/discussions/resources are added to The Assessment Network, links to them will be added to this blog, making it a one stop shop for all AFL-related sports references.

 Videos:…

Grading and assessment are two distinct yet overlapped topics.  This site is dedicated primarily to assessment - the getting and giving of feedback that helps teachers adjust their teaching and students adjust their learning.  However, it is impossible to talk about assessment without occasionally discussing grading.  Therefore, grading posts and resources pop up on this site from time to time.  As a way to help members find these resources, this blog post has been created as to serve as a…

For the past several years at Salem High School we have focused on assessment for the staff development portion of our faculty meetings.  The Assessment Network has played an integral role in those faculty meetings.  The Forum feature has enabled us to make our discussions more interactive and collaborative as well enable us to archive our activities for future use.

This blog post is…

The Assessment Network has grown to the point where that it now contains many different examples of how the power of assessment can be maximized in the classroom. These ideas are scattered throughout the site. To make this site easier to navigate, this one blog will include links to all of the other classroom AFL examples. It's sort of like an AFL Wal-Mart - everything you need in one blog!

This AFL site has grown to the point where that it now contains many different blogs and discussion that get to the heart of the philosophy of AFL.  In order to most effectively implement AFL strategies into the classroom, it is helpful to have a strong understanding of the overall philosophy and goals behind AFL.  These ideas are scattered throughout the site. To make this site easier to navigate, this one blog will include links to all of the blogs and posts that deal with the philosophy…

Many of the posts on this Ning have dealt with how to communicate with students and parents about AFL practices.  Let's face it, just like AFL concepts are new to many educators, they are definitely new to many students and parents.  It's important to properly communicate with students and parents so that they understand what we we're doing and why we're doing it.  This increases the likelihood that they will benefit from your AFL methods.

As additional resources for…