Well, yes, of course we do! But the real question is how, how are we going to assess our students? Real people in real life don't always take multiple choice tests...there are other options. Are those other options good for our students? Yes! Tests should have more meaning to the students so that they can actually learn from the material that we are teaching them! What better way to do that than project based learning with a real and tangible outcome that can also be used as a test or rather an assessment.
I would like to expand on that thought through the lens of the project I have been working on with CAL and the state of Mass for writing units. We have talked about learning goals, knowledge, skills, understandings, essential questions and how to work through each of these. Now using all of that information we must make an assessment. We are working with the end in mind, therefore, what is it that you want your students to glean from this experience? How will they show what they have learned? Well first, you need to know what you are evaluating the students on-look back at your knowledge and skills, what are you really teaching these students?
Once you have that down you can design your test. I encourage you to put that multiple choice/essay test back in the drawer and brainstorm some real life situation that could impact your students in a deeper way. Get them to create something where they have to transfer their learning into ideas that will possible make the world a better place, or make them a better person because they applied their learning to something bigger than them. Social justice is a great place to start with many things. Perhaps you can have them build or design something in math, write a convincing letter to the principal or the president for some kind of change in their world, a public service announcement, or if you're not feeling that adventurous simply have them create a video, song, or even just a poster outlining something they learned (just to change things up a little).
If you're stuck because it's the end of the year, think forward to next year, embellish on the unit that you're working on and create your CEPA (Curriculum Embedded Performance Assessment) in a way that you feel comfortable (or not, be adventurous!) and that will help your students focus more on what they can so for the world and less on what the world can do for them.
In that light, this past week at CAL we talked about argumentation. Most students love to argue and it is an important part of learning. Here are some great resources for teaching argumentation in the classroom:
http://www.argumentationtoolkit.org/
https://www.scoe.org/files/Argumentation-Activities.pdf
Happy Planning!
I struggle with adopting alternatives to standard assessments, but I am encouraged to continue looking for ways to do that. I liked the "stepping back" and letting the kids present their view points and run the conversation from the argumentationtoolkit.org link.
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