Insights into development
Assessment and reporting represent learning as a continuous process – as it is in life – rather than being task or subject specific.
In order for assessment to be effective in helping our students to progress as learners, assessments are made at the time the learning is taking place. Formative assessment is powerful as it is timely, allows us to find out what the children know and work out what they need next. Specific feedback is given to the children and they then take part in working out their next steps towards their next goal. Summative assessment will also be provided, teachers will provide specific feedback as opposed to a grade or mark.
Importantly, when students receive feedback on their learning progress as they grow, it helps to cultivate a growth mindset, as articulated in research by Dr. Carol Dweck. When we are in a growth mindset, we are productive and motivated which allows us to develop our most basic abilities through dedication and hard work.
The key benefits of empowering students with a growth mindset is that it:
- Fosters learning based around intrinsic motivation
- Encourages risk taking
- Defines failure in terms of learning opportunities1
Assessment
Assessment is made by teachers, as well as by the children themselves through self-reflection and peer review. We measure and track progress through a combination of tasks that uses multiple intelligences to capture the true measurement of a student’s learning.
Parents are involved in the feedback loop through:
- Contributing perspectives towards formulation of the Individual Learning Plan (ILP) (with the teacher and student)
- Emails and in person updates from teachers, on achievement of the ILP’s learning steps as they arise
- Sharing in the learning conversation with their child throughout the year
- Regular learning progress updates from class and specialist teachers
- Parent/student/teacher conversation twice yearly to give context to points covered in the formal report and to celebrate the growth of their child
Reporting
We choose not to focus on comparisons or grades, but rather on imbuing children with self-confidence and a feeling of pride in a personal best or persistent effort. After all, school should be “an adventure in ideas rather than a test.”2
Writer and lecturer Alfie Kohn notes that educational psychologists have concluded the following from students who focused on grades:
- Grades tend to take away the joy of learning and so their interest wanes. It diminishes intrinsic motivation
- Grades cause students to take the easiest possible option so that they don’t risk getting bad mark. In other words, they’ll choose something less challenging because it’s a safe option: they’ll choose a shorter book for example, or a familiar topic
- Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking. They forego critical thinking in favour of regurgitating a text to do well on a test. Studies3 show that students who were graded, remembered fewer facts a week after the lesson, as did students were told there would be no grades
So what do we do instead? We present formal reports at the conclusion of the semester. They show parents and students the progression of a child’s personal growth (via the learning steps they have taken to get there). Our assessment and reporting celebrates a child’s growth and creates a growth mindset is essential in order to develop students to be the kind of learners that will set them up for the world that awaits them.
References
1. Carol S. Dweck, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.
2. John G. Nicholls and Susan Hazzard, “Education as Adventure: Lessons from the Second Grade,” p. 77. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1993.
3. Wendy S. Grolnick and Richard M. Ryan, “Autonomy in Children’s Learning: An Experimental and Individual Difference Investigation” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52(5), (1987). 890-898.
