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Living assessment is an intertwined, interactive, and instructive part of every student’s learning every day. 

 

Assessment is not a unit test but a philosophical stance on how one experiences, actively engages, and manipulates his world in an effort to evolve into new spaces and ideals. Assessment is not confined to the realm of teachers but courses through every member of our classroom community. I set up an intentional structure in my 1st-grade classroom to initiate student-driven assessment. I want children to walk into our community space each morning and make decisions about their learning. These decisions are forms of assessment, and I name them as such with the children I teach. 

Yesterday, in our closing circle, I ended with this, “OK, boys, tomorrow when you come in, you will make some important decisions right off the bat. You will need to assess your mood. Are you tired? If you select a table in the middle of the room, will that help you generate the energy you need to stay focused? If a child who annoys you sits down at your table, what strategies will you use to see his good? If you know you have a strong grasp of the two-dimensional shapes we studied yesterday, who at your table will benefit from your help? Boys, tomorrow you will use assessment to make decisions that will affect your day and direct your learning.”  

As you can see, I do not have assigned seating. Students in my class — at an independent boy’s school — select where they sit and with whom they sit each day. I don’t waste time thinking they are small — my boys or the decisions they make that direct their learning. I know they can make these decisions, and I know they must make decisions. These assessments are crucial to learning. 

When teachers set up unnecessary controls in the classroom, they unknowingly impede student growth. 

When teachers set up unnecessary controls in the classroom, they unknowingly impede student growth. These roadblocks include writing to prompts, telling children what they will read, assigning grades in isolation, not partnership, teaching at students instead of learning beside them, and using grades to drive reports, not instruction. These types of assessment are stagnant and limiting. Living assessment, on the other hand, is intertwined, interactive, and instructive.  

Intertwined 

The best assessment is assessment that is not seen or announced but infused within the energy and interactions of the school day. This intertwining focuses not on grades but on value and comes through in writing workshop when a student asks, “What picture was created in your mind when I read my piece?” or in math when pairs of children illustrate the various ways they conceptualize the relationship among the numbers 3-6-9, and in science as students explore how Reynolds Wrap®, a light bulb, and a clothespin can unite in unexpected ways to create a circuit and then delineate the evolution of their thinking in their daybooks. 

Intertwined assessment happens on the spot in exploratory moments. 

Each of these experiences challenges students to evaluate, share, and rework their thoughts in a public forum that requires risk as they step outside of their inner conceptions and kick up their thinking as they collaborate with classmates. In these spaces, children, not teachers, climb into the driver’s seat. These explorations are not announced on the homework board next to that night’s grammar worksheets but are ongoing experiences that intertwine the children’s day and play. Intertwined assessment happens on the spot in exploratory moments, as learning is captured not through multiple choice tests but through the authentic reflections and recordings of students and teachers.  

I see my daily experiences with the children I teach as a narrative story of today’s discoveries. I record that intertwining and evolving narrative in two primary ways. First, I carry with me a spiral notebook that houses my daily plans, serves as a canvas for new ideas, and documents my understandings of each of my students as learners. Each student in my class has a feathering of pages dedicated to his evolution. In my earlier years of teaching, I had a page designated to each child’s struggles and innovations in writing workshop, reading workshop, math, science, and social development. However, what I found was that learning — like assessment — cannot be departmentalized. Recognizing the intertwining nature of what a child is reading, his writing craft, how he conceptualizes the working of a circuit, and his willingness to take risks and work in cooperation with his peers is imperative to understanding the whole child. To make that intertwining more evident, I now combine my anecdotal notes from all subject areas on the same page arranged only by date, allowing me to see each student’s growth across content areas and the natural integration of his thoughts and learning.   

My other essential tool is my iPad and specifically my Evernote app, on which I have created interactive notebooks for each child that house copies of parent conference notes, records of absences, work samples, pictures of student projects, and links to students’ electronic creations from sites such as Animato,  VoiceThread, and Glogster. Throughout the day, you can find me scribbling notes, posing questions, and watching in absolute amazement as students make choices about their day that are in fact assessments that drive their learning. 

Interactive 

I spend little time in the front of our room talking at my students. In fact, my classroom has no front. As a teacher of all boys, I know passive instruction breeds anarchy, and I am thankful their energy keeps me honest to the mission. In our room, we lead together, and our conversations often begin, “So walk me through your thinking,” at which point my boys often respond, “Dr. Suskind, do you want me to repeat that so you can write it down?” The boys are accustomed to me recording their thoughts, often asking me to reread my transcriptions so they can evaluate for accuracy, and are downright insulted if I am not taking notes. This evaluative recording provides me with the evolutionary story of student thinking and sends them the message that I recognize and value their thoughts and actions. The act of written narrative reflection throughout the school day makes me deeply in tune with the classroom and the children I teach. Note taking focuses my attention on each moment and lets me review those interactions in detail in the afternoons as my boys head off to their next adventure.  

In our learning community, our interactions serve as the foundation for evaluations of student learning. At the beginning of the year, I teach my students the language of assessment. Since choice reverberates through our daily routine, the environment charges them to constantly assess. Each day, my students choose where to work, which books to read, what topics to write about, what centers to work in during math workshop, what materials to use, and how to share their learning in science and social studies. I try to come from a place of “yes” when the boys ask to take a new and unexpected direction or use materials outside their intended purpose. I want my students to take risks and innovate.  

Throughout the day, you will hear me say, “Boys please pause for a minute, one of our learners has done something amazing you just must see.” We never pass up an opportunity to celebrate our thoughts, yet this celebration and recognition differs wildly from incentives. There are no points or prizes for the most books read, for coloring within the lines, the highest percentage on a spelling quiz, or the ability to sit and be quiet. We are a cooperative and evolving community; we are not in competition with each other but instead in search of discovery. We take risks, we make mistakes, and we celebrate the journey as we each give thanks for the difference we bring to our classroom.  

This collaborative, risk-taking, innovative environment breeds interactive assessment. If children are told where to sit, what to read, and how to learn, then they see learning as separate and disconnected from themselves. That disconnection impedes their willingness and ability to drive their learning, create new understandings, and reflect on their growth.   

Instructive 

I do not rely on external and standardized assessments to understand a student’s level of learning development. When I simply read with, write beside, and create together, that child’s history as a learner is illuminated, and I take that story not as information for a report but as a building block for tomorrow’s lessons and opportunities.  

When I notice that John counts our slew of pumpkin seeds by touching each seed individually, instead of grouping them by fives or tens, I know that tomorrow he will benefit from an exploratory activity that will call upon him to use a more efficient strategy and a partner who will help him make that conceptual leap. I also know that after he has that opportunity it will be helpful for him to write in his daybook about this experience and revisit the pumpkin seeds as he tries his new technique. In this way, through observation and conversation, I am able to assess John’s current understanding, create instructional opportunities to grow his learning, and all the while charging John with the responsibility to make these discoveries and reflect on his process. 

A similar picture plays out as Trey works on his third installment of his original story “Magic Man.” Magic Man is not a new figure that appeared one day in my stack of papers but a character I have read, conferred about, and watched evolve over a series of months. Through our writing conferences, Magic Man has demanded Trey learn how to punctuate dialogue, zoom in on the action, open with a punch, and craft a chapter conclusion that begs the reader to turn the page. Trey has learned these craft structures on the spot, not because our district requires such skills but because Magic Man demanded them. Instead of fitting nicely into a five-point, standardized rubric, Trey’s trilogy blows it to pieces. While that rubric would give him a 1 for punctuation for his consistent lack of periods, that score does not yell congrats at his ability to punctuate dialogue. That same rubric would hand Trey a 2 for his complex sentences, for many of Trey’s sentences stand alone as one word — boom, crash, crunch. These one-word sentences do not grow out of a lack of sophistication but instead have been mentored by favorite authors and integrated for dramatic effect.  

That rubric we staple atop student work sends a limiting view of the work writers do, charges students to work to mediocrity, inhibits innovation, and penalizes young writers for their exploration of craft that the district’s scope and sequence would not think of asking a 1st grader to try. Trey is aware and proud of his progress as evident in his self e-VALUE-ations. These evaluations allow Trey to find value in his work as he charts his progress over time. To accomplish this task, every month I ask students to spread their writing over the tables and floor, select their strongest piece, justify their selection in writing, and compare it to another piece of writing that lacks the focus area of growth. Through writing and pictures, students document their goals for the coming month, share those goals publicly, and brainstorm an action plan that includes teacher and peer support. During our closing circle each afternoon, several students update us on their progress, elicit suggestions if they have stumbled upon a roadblock, and seek recognition for a recent breakthrough or success.  

Trey’s and Magic Man’s value cannot be capsulated within a grade. Trey lived his assessment as he negotiated choice in the classroom, scaffolded and supported his growth through peer and teacher conferences, engaged in learning experiences that were specifically designed to reflect his level of understanding, and charged himself to take a risk as he ventured into new territory. Living assessment empowers children and teachers, reflects students’ emotional needs and learning levels, and inspires all of us to live a reflective practice of observation that evolves and innovates as it kicks classroom learning into new dimensions.  

 

Citation: Suskind, D.C. (2015). Living assessment passes the test. Phi Delta Kappan, 97 (1), 38-41. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Dorothy C. Suskind

DOROTHY C. SUSKIND a longtime 1st-grade teacher, is now a 5th-grade teacher-researcher at St. Christopher’s School, Richmond, Va.