Definition of Assessment

What is your definition of assessment? 

Assessment has been a key player in education for hundreds of years. Stiggins (2008) believes in and advocates for challenging traditional thinking regarding assessment where the purpose is not to rank students, but to ask purposeful questions that aim to uncover students' needs, ultimately leading to informed instructional decisions that positively impact learning. Instruction and assessment alignment is crucial to student success (Abrams et al., 2016). March (2012) outlines a process where student raw data is organized to become useful information. Ultimately, the definition of assessment should be the art of gathering information and data that inform decisions to positively impact students. Stiggins (2014) posits assessment is often thought of as something adults do to students, rarely including students in owning their own achievement data to make informed instructional decisions. If assessment is for the benefit of students, then the art of assessment should include all key stakeholders, ensuring students are involved in the process. 

How do you determine lesson objectives on which an assessment is based? 

Backward planning, often affiliated with Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (2005), posits educators begin with the end in mind by formulating essential questions aimed at what students need to know or do by the end of the unit. “With this clear end in mind, teachers then design the assessments of those understandings, followed by carefully crafted lessons to achieve this set of objectives” (Jones, 2009, p. 357). Once unpacking occurs, educators analyzed the teaching standards and curriculum to establish what to include in both instruction and assessments (Fives et al., 2016). Establishing clear learning targets comes before developing how to assess those targets. 

References 

Abrams, L., Varier, D., & Jackson, L. (2016). Unpacking instructional alignment: The influence of teachers’ use of assessment data on instruction. Perspectives in Education, 34(4), 15–28. 

Jones, K. A., Vermette, P. J., & Jones, J. L. (2009). An Integration of “Backwards Planning” Unit Design with the “Two-Step” Lesson Planning Framework. Education, 130(2), 357–360.

Fives, H., Barnes, N., Dacey, C., & Gillis, A. (2016). Assessing Assessment Texts: Where Is Planning? Teacher Educator, 51(1), 70–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/08878730.2015.1107442

Marsh, J. (2012). Interventions promoting educators’ use of data: Research insights and gaps. Teachers College Record, 114(11), 1-48. 

Stiggins, R. (2008). Assessment Manifesto: A call for the development of balanced assessment systems. Retrieved from http://downloads.pearsonassessments.com/ati/downloads/DBAS_AssessmentMa nifesto.pdf