Measuring Learning

A respected lecturer at my university had an interesting take on learning assessments. I’ll share it in this post, but first:

We teachers have always sought ways to measure student learning. Ask one hundred teachers for their optimal assessment method, and you’ll get one hundred different answers.

They will agree on making the assessment reflect the teaching and learning. Authentic is the deal here. Real-world engagement with learning needs an assessment that is in equal measure real-world.

Standardised testing (a one-size-fits-all approach) is not real-world. Yet, many decision-makers use them as the sole factor to measure literacy/numeracy/writing skills.

I should probably drop the lecturer’s comment here:

‘Assessments assess what they were meant to assess.’

Shoe-horning an irrelevant assessment into a real-world learning unit will not produce meaningful results.

I once had a middle-grade student who could ace standardised literacy and numeracy tests. He scored in the top percentiles across a range of them. His performance singled him out for selection to a specialised academic class. The following term, he packed his bag and entered the class.

He was back in my class before the end of that term. I asked him what led to his desire to return.

Was the learning challenging? Were his particular learning skills catered for?

He answered yes to both, then added, ‘Their tests were boring, nothing like yours.’