Math.  Some people love Math and some people hate it.  Some excel at it naturally while others struggle mightily.  Some see it as a clear universal language, but for others it is is the embodiment of the Tower of Babel.  Some see its usefulness, some do not.  Some are indifferent, some are passionate.  Some are scared of it, some are excited by it, and others plod along doing their best to understand it.

While Math usually elicits a variety of responses, there is one place in most schools where the thoughts about Math are almost universally homogeneous.  When it comes to the traditional manner of grading used in our schools, everybody - parents, teachers, and students - relies on Math like a lifeboat in a shipwreck.

How are grades typically determined in most classrooms in most schools?  Basically, in most classrooms they're determined the same way they've always been.  It doesn't matter if the class is Language Arts, Fine Arts, or Culinary Arts, when it comes to deciding what a student's grade should be a CALCULATION is done to determine an AVERAGE.  People who in the rest of their lives might be scared to death of Math, suddenly become Disciples of Math and swear by a grade book average.  In fact, the word "average" becomes synonymous with the word "grade," as in "What is your average in that class?"

We all know how this works, but let's recap quickly.  Typically, assignments are graded by the teacher and entered into a grade book.  The grade is a fraction - a number of points earned (numerator) divided by a number of points possible (denominator).  The grade book adds up the numerator points earned for all assignments and divides that by the collective number of denominator points.  The resulting average is the student's grade.

There are 3 major problems with this system:

1. It's inaccurate.  
   Who came up with the idea that an average of all work or all attempts at learning depicts actual learning?  Why would a student's earlier and lower attempts at learning be averaged in with his eventual outcome?  In other words, if a student finally "gets it" doesn't that "get it" grade reflect better what he knows than an average of all previous attempts?  The only way that a mathematical average of all assignments doesn't falsify a grade is if the student scores the same on all attempts.
2. It's not realistic.  
   Perhaps someone out there can think of something I'm missing, but I can't think of any meaningful real-world applications of the "average all your attempts" method of determining outcome.  Even in the world of sports, where things like Batting Average and Yards Per Catch are routinely used, if a player with a low average hits a home run or catches a 99-yard touchdown it counts for just that - a home run or a TD.  No one says, "I'm sorry that catch only raised your average to 8.2 yards per catch so we'll only count it for 8.2 yards."  We are not held to our average in real-life.  Why are we held to it in schools?  Shouldn't we be preparing students for the real world where your most recent attempt at something is what counts the most - or at all?
3. It minimizes education.  
   This is the one I care about the most.  We - educators - have turned our classrooms and schools into one giant Quest for Numerator Points.  What do we care about most?  Learning.  What do we wish our students and parents cared about most?  Learning.  Yet by over-relying on mathematical calculations we have created a culture that wants numerator points above all else.  May I have extra credit?  What can I do to earn more points?  How many points do I need for an A?  These are all questions we hear on a regular basis that demonstrate the fact that the focus is in the wrong place.  If we ever want to get the focus back to learning instead of on earning a grade, then we must have the boldness to think beyond the Math Box.

Are there benefits to using the mathematical average process for determining a grade?  Sure.  It's definitely efficient.  It's easy to figure out and to calculate.  It somehow seems "mathy" which makes people feel like it has a basis in something real and dependable.  It works well with the typical grade books issued by schools.  It can also take the blame of the teacher by providing a math-based excuse or reason for a grade.

But do any of these benefits outweigh the fact that it's inaccurate, that it's not realistic, and that it minimizes education?  Surely not.  Reason 3 alone - turning our classrooms into quests for numerator points - should be enough to drive us to look for a better method.  How can something as powerful as the education of a young person be allowed to devolve into a quest for points?  Learning is so much more than that and so much more important.  

So what's the answer?  This post wasn't written to provide a specific answer - sorry.  The purpose of this post is to help us recognize that the Quest for Numerator Points - or the over-reliance on Math - is a problem that has to stop.  We can't change until we first recognize the problem.

The answer in general, though, lies in using Assessment FOR Learning strategies (click here for tons of examples).  It lies Standards-Based Learning strategies (click here for more information) or documenting student progress toward mastering specific standards.  It lies in teachers having the boldness to think outside the box and to collaborate on how to efficiently communicate accurate and meaningful feedback.  It lies in fewer numerical scores and more descriptive feedback.  It lies in more flexible grade books that measure progress instead of just average attempts.  It lies in not being satisfied with the status quo but instead being on a continuous journey of professional growth for the purpose of increased learning.  It lies in using scores and grades as feedback tools that help students make learning decisions and teachers make instructional decisions instead of looking at them as numbers to plug into a comfortable formula.

The answer isn't simple since it goes against decades of institutional inertia.  But once we boldly find it, we can quit this Quest for Numerator Points and embark on the exciting and important Quest for Learning! 

Do you remember how having children of your own changed your perspective on what goes on in the classroom? (If you don't have children of your own yet, trust me - they will have an impact on your teaching!)  So take a look at these 2 letters.  I don't think any parent would ever actually send either of these, but if they did, which parent would you most want to please?

Dear Teacher,

Thank you for being my child's teacher this year.  I wanted to write you this letter to help you better understand my child's needs and my hopes for how you will address them.

First of all, my child really doesn't do well with negative feedback.  He has self-esteem issues.  Therefore, I would prefer that you approach him with great sensitivity.  I've watched him stop working for teachers who have been somewhat critical of his work.  If he doesn't do something well in your classroom, please consider whether or not you need to tell him.  Positive feedback works great, but he doesn't deal well with feedback when it is negative.  We prefer the "no news is good news" approach.

Secondly, please make sure my child gets a good grade.  While we want him to learn content, our long-term interest is that he get into college.  Low grades on his report card could lower his GPA and hurt his chances of being accepted.  If it's not being too presumptuous, I have a few suggestions for how you can help his grade stay high.  You might try:

• Letting him earn extra credit to bolster his grade.
  I'll be more than happy to buy tissues for the classroom or canned goods for a food drive if you'll give him extra credit to mitigate low test and quiz grades.  Or if that doesn't fit your style, he'll be more than happy to wash your board or pass out papers to earn points.  We know how important it is to accumulate points, and we are more than happy to do whatever it takes for him to earn the points he needs.  We are very involved parents and will spend the money necessary to see to it that our dear child gets a good grade.
• Grading his homework and allowing that homework grade to influence his final grade.
  Unlike some parents out there, I am able to get my son to do his homework.  I'm sure he occasionally copies his friend's homework instead of doing his own, but at least he's willing to do the work required to turn something in.  He's not a great test-taker, though, so please make sure his completion grades for homework count a lot into your averaging formula.
• Allowing a participation grade to influence the final grade.
  My son really is a nice kid, and we've always found that when teachers give him a participation grade he does very well.  He's friendly, helpful, and joins in.  I realize that your class is more of a content class, unlike PE or Band which are participation classes, but I really think you should find a way to reward with a grade the nice kids who do what they're told.  This helps them stand out better from the kids who are from bad families and who don't have supportive parents.

Please realize that I'm not one of THOSE parents.  I don't come and ask for special privileges for my child.  However, I've heard from lots of other students that different teachers use different strategies.  I think it's important for me to share with you how my child learns best.  My child has a lot of stress on him.  Life is so busy these days for kids.  Please be the type of teacher who relieves stress from my child.  He has come home complaining that some teachers seem to have unrealistic expectations of their students.  They are constantly making students assess themselves, analyze feedback, and take ownership of their learning.  When I was a student, teachers made you wait until the end of the grading period and then told you your grade.  This caused much less stress for students.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to these requests.  I hope you will realize that by following them, young people like my son will get better grades, be rewarded for being nice, improve their self-esteem and have less stress in their lives.

Sincerely,

My Son's Parent

Dear Teacher

Thank you for being my child's teacher this year.  I know he's not always the easiest to deal with, but he is a good kid at heart.  I want to support you in any way possible.  I hope you don't mind me writing you this letter.  My intention is not to tell you how to do your job but instead to make sure you feel empowered to push my son to be all that he is capable of being.

My son really needs feedback - whether it's good or bad.  In fact, sometimes the feedback that says you did something wrong is the most beneficial since it let's you know how to improve.  It would be my dream if every day my son left class with specific and descriptive feedback from you.  Even if that's not possible, please don't shy away from making sure he understands what he needs to do to improve.

While we love it when our child makes good grades, we care more about learning and mastering content than we do a specific grade.  Obviously we want his grade to accurately reflect his knowledge of the content, but we understand that not every grade along the way will be an A.  At the risk of sounding a little pushy, but here are some things I wish you wouldn't do for my son when it comes to his grade:

• Please don't give him extra credit
  I don't know if other kids are like my son, but he seems to think that he can do next to nothing for a grading period and then get extra credit at the end to save himself.  I don't understand extra credit anyway.  Sometimes it feels like teachers he's had before will let us buy him a better grade.  I'd much prefer that you give him many chances to show mastery.  I even understand extra assignments that lead to extra grades if those assignments demonstrate that he's learned the content.  But the idea that he can do something extra or bring in something extra and just get points added on - I guess I'd like him to be more intrinsically motivated than that.  Giving away points the way some people do almost seems as though my child is an animal at Sea World being enticed and rewarded with fish! :)
• Please don't allow my son's homework to inflate his grade
  I really want my son to work hard to master content.  Overall, he really is a good kid.  We make him do his homework every night.  Sometimes we've noticed that this leads to him getting a grade that is significantly above his test average in a class.  I think he gets the wrong idea sometimes and thinks that he should be rewarded just because he does what he's supposed to do and isn't one of THOSE kids.  I've explained to him that a grade is not a reward.  It's an indicator of how much you've learned.
• Please do not allow my son's class participation to inflate his grade
  This is similar to the homework situation.  I want my son to learn that he needs to work hard.  Like most teenagers, a sense of entitlement comes naturally to him.  I'd hate for him to think he deserves a reward for just doing what he's supposed to do.  In fact, if he doesn't participate in class properly I'd like to know so that we can deal with it here at home.

I want him to work and work hard.  I don't know if there is a better life lesson to learn than the lesson that success requires industriousness, intentness, and cooperation.  I will add, though, that one thing that has been very helpful for him is when teachers have required him to assess his own progress.  We try to teach him that here at home, as well; however, if you are able to give him materials and/or feedback that force him to assess what he knows and what he does not know we would be very thankful.

Thanks again for all the hours you put it in for my child.  Please do not hesitate to let us know how we can support you.

Sincerely,

Your Student's Parent

So what do you think?  Which parent would you rather please?  Now take a moment to reflect on your assessment and grading practices.  How do they align with the wishes of the fictitious parent you would most hope to please?  Any thoughts?

One of exciting things I've come to realize about AFL is that so many teachers are already practicing it in their classrooms.  To become a more "AFL-ish" teacher usually doesn't require making major changes in practices.  Instead it's usually a matter of focusing one's intent and purpose.  When this happens, it seems that what we find is that the best classroom practices tend to be AFL in nature.  When one's mind is focused on AFL purposes, it becomes much more likely that these best practices will become more frequent and pervasive.

Here's a simple activity that Mrs. Kelley, my daughter's 3rd grade teacher at South Salem School, does with her students.  Everyday they review key Social Studies facts and key Science facts.  Take a look at the worksheets pictured below (you can enlarge them by clicking on them) and then read on for some AFL analysis of this activity and the lesson that secondary teachers can take from it.

At first glance, there is really nothing extraordinary about this activity.  The teacher teaches the content and then has her students review it daily.  This isn't extraordinary because it is - and should be - a very ordinary activity.  Everyday students should be reviewing content.  

This is a perfect example of the fact that our best activities are usually AFL in nature.  Rather than simply teach and then assess at the end (summative assessment), Mrs. Kelley is choosing to assess daily (formative assessment).  If she uses this activity properly, 2 important AFL objectives will be accomplished:

1. She will daily receive feedback on how well her students are mastering content, and
2. Students will daily assess their own progress.

This type of activity needs to occur at all levels of education.  I would contend that not a single class period should go by in which ALL students don't assess their understanding and provide feedback to the teacher.  It's not enough for a teacher to rely solely on the feedback from the handful of students who answer questions in class.  A systematic approach is necessary to make sure that ALL students are assessing their progress.  In fact, I would strongly encourage all teachers at all levels to do exactly as Mrs. Kelley has done.  Create a daily review activity and then train your students on how to use the feedback they receive from it.

I can think of 2 possible negative reactions that a secondary teacher might have.  They are:

1. Printing out this many daily review sheets would use too much paper, and
2. This is an elementary-style activity.  At the secondary level students should take more ownership of their own studying/reviewing.

Let me try to address both of those.  The first is easy: Don't print out a daily review sheet.  Project the daily review from a computer/LCD projector/overhead on your screen at the last part of class each day and have students use their own paper.  Write it on the board.  Review orally.  There are many alternatives that will work great.

So is this activity too "elementary-ish"?  I would respond to that with the following question: Would students learn content better if at the end of each class period/lecture/activity the teacher made them stop and review what they had just covered?  I think it's pretty easy to say the answer to my question is "yes".  Our first of order business is to NOT to make sure that students review on their own.  Our first order of business is to make sure that our students learn.  Therefore, if there is something we're not doing DURING our class time that would increase learning, then we're not doing all that we should.

Think about your own classroom.  Are there ever days when your students leave without you being able to quantify how well they have mastered the content?  Are there ever days when your students leave your class without you having provided them with a way to quantify their own level of mastery?  Thinking back to my own classroom, I think the answer for many if not most teachers is probably "yes" to both questions.  

The next obvious question is, "What should we do about this?"  Some would say that the answer is to tell students to go home and review.  I agree with that answer, but that answer isn't complete unless I don't feel a sense of ownership of my students' success.  If I feel a sense of responsibility for how well my students do, then I will make sure that each and everyday I provide students with a time to check their understanding.  

So go ahead and figure out a way to daily let your students assess themselves.  It works great in 3rd grade and it will work in your classroom as well.

Salem High School Math teacher, Pawel Nazarewicz, has been using the JumpRope grade book this year as part of a pilot in our school division.  (The division, as a whole, uses PowerTeacher from Pearson's PowerSchool.)

Our division and school are also exploring how the principles of Standards-Based Learning - as part of our ongoing Assessment FOR Learning journey - can increase student learning.  Pawel, who never shies away from thinking outside the box, has found JumpRope to be a beneficial tool for putting philosophy into practice.  

He wrote the following blog post for JumpRope to highlight his experience so far:

https://www.jumpro.pe/blog/grading-in-3d/

https://www.jumpro.pe/blog/grading-in-3d/?utm_content=buffer0a26c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Members of this AFL Network will appreciate this article (link at end of blog post) written by Laurie Amundson and published in the November 2011 edition of Ed Leadership.  

Laurie Amundson is an elementary teacher.  A majority of our members are high school educators which could mean that some tweaking of her practices would be in order.  For example, some of the assessment she does of student work could be by the students themselves in a high school setting.  That being said, I really believe the idea of using standards based grading to assess student needs and to guide instruction is a natural outgrowth of AFL.  

I'll be interested to see if anyone out there has any thoughts after reading the article.

Here's the link.

This past year I was asked to lead a workshop on the topic of Assessment FOR Learning for a school division's teachers.   

Teachers, tired from a long and full day of teaching/wrestling with children, filed into an auditorium for the "wonderful opportunity" of hearing me speak for about an hour and a half on the topic of formative assessment.  

The topic of grading came up - as it always does when talking about assessment - and a teacher asked a question about how she could get students to do work if grades weren't used as compensation.  It's hard to answer that question very completely in a short workshop, and frankly that really wasn't the point of the workshop.  The workshop's focus was on using assessment as a learning tool.  Grading is a related topic, though.

I invited the questioner to email me so that we could have a more detailed discussion.  She did just that.  Here was her email:

I don't feel like you really answered my friend's question about what to do with students who habitually turn in work late or not at all, if grades can't be used for enforcement.  You said you had lots of solutions for that, and I'd love to hear them. I follow you that grades should reflect learning, UNTIL you say that we can't deduct points for work not submitted. I don't have any idea how I'd get them to ever complete work at all if that were the case.  You mentioned using a day to make the slackers catch up while the rest of the class did something else.  If I started that, I will guarantee you that the kids would very quickly learn that there would be such a day, and NO ONE would complete work until the "catch-up day."  That's also not to mention the mountain of work that would create for the teacher, who would have to constantly grade make-up work.  Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

This - or something like it - is a commonly asked question by teachers as they begin to explore the ramifications of formative assessment practices.  Below, in bold, is my response.  It's rather lengthy, but it's hard to answer a question like this in a few words.  

I'd love any feedback.  Got any ideas for things I should have added?

Dear ___________________,

My daughter, Kelsey, is an eighth grader at Andrew Lewis Middle School where she, as her sister before her, is blessed to have Beth Swain as her Geometry teacher.  

Geometry is proving to be a challenging class for Kelsey.  She is very intelligent and a hard-worker, and while Math is and always has been her favorite subject, she's starting off slower than normal in Geometry.  Thankfully, Mrs. Swain uses the kind of AFL strategies that help young people master content.  

So far, Kelsey's Geometry class has had 3 large tests.  Kelsey scored a D when she took the first test.  In many classrooms a large test like this would be used as a summative assessment; however, Mrs. Swain uses tests in a formative/AFL manner.  This means that the D was not the end of the story.  The grade could still improve since the purpose of the assessment was to promote learning as opposed to the purpose being to provide a grade.  Mrs. Swain chooses to use even large chapter tests formatively - like check-ups - rather than summatively - like autopsies.  After taking the first test, Kelsey's class was allowed to perform a "test analysis" that led to her mastering the content and earning a 95 A on the test.

Then came the second test.  Again, the content was not easy for her, but she worked hard.  Kelsey scored a C on that test.  Again, Mrs. Swain used the test in AFL manner, and Kelsey again was able to perform a test analysis which resulted in her understanding the content better and earning a B+.

So this brings us to the third test and the power of asking "Can You?"   On Monday, October 31, Beth Swain communicated the following message to parents via email:

As a parent, I was so encouraged to receive this email.  I don't know if your kids are like mine, but there seem to be a few standard answers to the questions my wife and I ask.  Those answers seem to be "Nothing" and "I Don't Know."  It's always nice to hear from a teacher information that allows me to ask more effective questions.  In this case, I was able to ask Kelsey, "How are you doing on your 'Can You' sheet?"  All week I was able to encourage Kelsey to make sure she was using the "Can You" sheet as it was intended.

More importantly, though, was the fact that this "Can You" sheet and the way Mrs. Swain used it enabled Kelsey to take better control of her own learning and studying.  She was given a tool that assisted her in assessing herself on a daily basis and then making decisions based on the feedback she received.  

So on the first test Kelsey scored a D the first go around.  On the second test, Kelsey scored a C the first go around.  On the third test - the one with the "Can You" sheet - Kelsey scored a B+ the first go around.  She told me that she felt much better heading into that test than she had on the previous two.

AFL strategies are rarely "revolutionary".  Rather, they are often as simple as asking students "Can You".  It's very encouraging to see teachers using strategies like this that empower parents to assist their children and that train students to assess themselves and to take ownership of their own progress.   

(For some other similar examples check out Using a Review Sheet in an AFL Manner and A Self-Assessment Rubric for Math.)

If you've read much on this Assessment FOR Learning site you're aware of the 4 components of The Heart of AFL.  One of those key components is that students will use feedback to guide their own learning on both a short- and long-term basis.  

This concept often causes educators to roll their eyes as they think to themselves, "No student of mine ever asked for feedback to guide his learning!"  It often seems like students either don't care about their learning or only care about it to the extent that they collect enough points to receive a high grade.  

If we're not satisfied with this - if we want students to take ownership of their learning instead of being disengaged or only care about point accumulation - then we need to provide them the tools they need to reach a higher level.  One of the reasons this entire site exists is to provide teachers with the assessment tools they AND their students need to learn - and learning is what WE care about much more than points and grades.

Recently, David Wallace, an art teacher at Salem High School, shared with me this tool he has created to help his students take ownership of their learning.  He calls this specific tool a Project Report.  (A copy of the Project Report can be found by clicking on the words "Project Report" or by scrolling to the bottom of this post.)  He has slightly different yet similar tools for different purposes, but the goal is always the same.  Students in his class are trained to assess how much they know before doing something and then trained compare that to how much they know after completion of the project.  Furthermore, they are trained to assess the results of their work.  With a tool like this, students can better determine what they need to do in order to improve.

Notice how I keep using the word "train"?  This is exactly what a great teacher does.  Students rarely enter the room with all the tools they need for success.  It is our job as educators to train them.  Training must be specific and include how to use the tools they need.  Simply telling students they ought to keep up with their progress is not enough.  We must give them the tools to do so, train them to use the tools, and then require that they do so.

Mr. Wallace's Project Report was obviously designed for an Art classroom, but I bet you can figure out how to apply a tool like this to whatever content area or grade level you teach.  Got any ideas?

Because Assessment FOR Learning principles are the basic principles of how people learn anything - from learning to walk to doing Algebra or from driving a car to writing an essay - I often find examples of AFL in everyday life.  Here's an example I came across when reading the November 17, 2014, issue of Sports Illustrated.

Grant Wahl wrote an article entitled, The Toast of Munich, about Bayern Munich, one of Europe's great soccer clubs.  In writing about their relatively new manager, Pep Guardiola, Wahl says the manager demands players perfect their skills.  Specifically, he states that Guardiola "has been known to dedicate large portions of practice teaching world champions the basic technique of passing."

I love the image of the world's best soccer players focusing on the same basic techniques that my 7th grade daughter works on with her soccer team.  You never get too good to practice the basics and receive feedback from a coach.

Doesn't the same principle apply to the classroom?  All students need classroom coaches who constantly drill them on the basics.  Algebra 2 students still need to work on numeracy skills.  English 11 students still need to work on grammar and structure.  Senior Government students still need to work on basic vocabulary.  AP Chemistry students still need to work on the applying the scientific method.

Practice. Receive feedback. Practice. Receive feedback. Practice. Receive feedback.

This is the recipe for a great athletic team AND the recipe for a great learning environment.  This is Assessment FOR Learning. 

Educators exploring ways to practice AFL in their classrooms will often find some parents and students a little confused as to exactly why teachers are doing what they're doing.  Unfortunately, over the years schools have conditioned people to view grades as summative in nature.  Many parents and students do not understand how to use feedback from a score or grade in part because they have not been given the opportunity to do so.  The feedback they received wasn't formative - it wasn't provided as a way to guide learning but as a way to determine a final grade.  The AFL practitioner, though, understands that students need to use feedback to guide and improve their learning.  Therefore, the AFL practitioner must be very explicit and intentional in how he or she trains students to use feedback and in how he or she communicates with parents about classroom expectations.

Recently, Jenn Shannon, a math teacher at Salem High School, shared with me an email she sent home to parents about one of her AFL practices.  I think it's a great example of intentional communication intended to educate parents about how AFL practices can help their children learn.  With her permission, here is a copy of that email:

I believe that we all have something to learn from a simple email like this.  Let's not underestimate the potential benefits of involving parents by communicating with them very directly.

On top of being a great example of AFL communication, Mrs. Shannon's rubric is also a great example of how to get students to assess themselves.  It's very similar to Anika Armistead's use of a science review sheet as it lets students know up front what they will be required to know and then gives them a means to assess their progress.  Here is a copy of Jenn's rubric in case you would like to use it in your classroom as well:

PDF version of Rubric

As we at Salem High School have been exploring AFL, we have begun to realize the power of testing students for the purpose of learning. So often we think of assessment as simply giving a traditional test at the end a unit of study for the purpose of determining mastery and calculating a grade. The principles of Assessment FOR Learning would instead lead teachers to assess along the way - to use tests, quizzes, and other assessments as a means to help students learn. Assessment is much more powerful than teachers often realize. It is a learning tool.

Here is how assessment is applied in what I'll call a traditional classroom:

1. Teach Content
2. Practice Content
3. Teach Content
4. Practice Content
5. Assess Mastery of Content
6. Move on to New Content

Here is one example of how assessment could be applied in the AFL classroom:

1. Teach Content
2. Assess Understanding
3. Practice Content
4. Assess Understanding
5. Teach Content
6. Assess Understanding
7. Practice Content
8. Assess Understanding
9. Assess Mastery of Content

A recent NY Times article seems to back up this AFL approach. The article (Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits, Benedict Carey, September 6, 2010) discusses studying content multiple times over a period of days v. cramming. Not surprisingly, several major studies have found that cramming does not work as well, in general, as studying material in multiple chunks over time. But what research is also showing is that the act of taking a test on material actually helps people remember the material for a longer period of time.

I have copied and pasted below an excerpt from the article. Follow this link to read it in its entirety.

Begin Excerpt

Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn — it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out.

“With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”

When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far, far longer. An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.

No one knows for sure why. It may be that the brain, when it revisits material at a later time, has to relearn some of what it has absorbed before adding new stuff — and that that process is itself self-reinforcing.

“The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,” said Dr. Kornell. “When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”

That’s one reason cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.

Dr. Roediger uses the analogy of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which holds that the act of measuring one property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example): “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.

In one of his own experiments, Dr. Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, also of Washington University, had college students study science passages from a reading comprehension test, in short study periods. When students studied the same material twice, in back-to-back sessions, they did very well on a test given immediately afterward, then began to forget the material.

But if they studied the passage just once and did a practice test in the second session, they did very well on one test two days later, and another given a week later.

“Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,” Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”

Of course, one reason the thought of testing tightens people’s stomachs is that tests are so often hard. Paradoxically, it is just this difficulty that makes them such effective study tools, research suggests. The harder it is to remember something, the harder it is to later forget. This effect, which researchers call “desirable difficulty,” is evident in daily life. The name of the actor who played Linc in “The Mod Squad”? Francie’s brother in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”? The name of the co-discoverer, with Newton, of calculus?

The more mental sweat it takes to dig it out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored.

End Excerpt

If you are looking for some Assessment FOR Learning principles for discussion and reflection, check out this following blog post from Ken O'Connor.  

As educators, we must be in a continuous state of professional growth through personal reflection.  No matter how long you've been in education, this process is greatly aided by contemplating the ideas of others.  

Ken O'Connor's ideas have been well thought out and well-researched. My guess is that for many of you they will be somewhat "mind-blowing" as they are definitely outside the norm of schools as we know it.  So much of what we do is the result of institutional inertia - but is it best practice?  Maybe or maybe not.

Follow the link below; read the short post; be challenged; reflect on your practices, and never stop growing professionally.

Thanks, Ken, for a thought-provoking post.

http://pearsonati.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/this-i-believe/

I find it interesting that I am described as being "particularly scathing" about the the use of A-F grades because what I have said many times is that the symbols are less important than what they mean. Scott, I agree that what you describe is a lot better than traditional grading because you have a profile of your daughter's achievement in French. My difficulty with what you describe is twofold; one, for three standards the grade is based on one score and because of luck, chance and measurement error no grade should ever be determined based on one score. At this point in the year all that should be reported is the score. Two, I have real difficulty with 85% being a C; where I have lived all my life in two different countries it would be an A so the issue is what does 85% mean? Is her writing proficient, better than proficient or not quite proficient? That is what your daughter and you need to know and 85% doesn't tell you that. 85% is highly proficient in free throws, unheard of in hitting in baseball and unacceptable for landing planes.

I like the idea of exit slips not only to check for understanding but to have another opportunity to make contact with each individual student....

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 include all other posts from this network that are dedicated to the practice of LOOPING in the classroom.  

• Redos and Retakes? Sure. But don't forget to Loop!
• Practical Examples of Looping: AFL/SBL Philosophy in Action
• It's Time to Take an Assessment Journey