Assessing for life

Here's my reflections on different assessing methods based on the resources listed in the end of the post.

a) digital assessment / e-assessment (assessing by technology)

Educational tecnology is at its best when it betters learning compared to other ways of acting. Digital assessment can assist teacher a lot maintaining assessment sustainable (1). E-assessment can be seen as all the assessing mediated by technology (2). Digital solutions can also benefit students a lot by demonstrating their learning progress visually and giving immediate feedback (3).

b) formative assessment (assessing for learning)

Formative assessment is in an essence assessing for learning. In other words it could be described as constant supportive assessment which aims to motivate and guide the learner towards learning (1). In practise formative assessing means giving feedback on learning, working and behaving to the student and adjusting the teaching according to results (2). Also self- and peer evaluation are sometimes seen as vital parts of formative assessing (personalizing learning) (3).

c) summative assessment (assessing of learning)

Summative assessing is in an essence assessing of learning. In summative assessing learners’ skills are evaluated with regard to the goals set for the learning (1). For example in the end of the semester student is given a summative assessment of his or hers success in studies (2). Though this is a vast simplification. In real life different kind of assessing strategies are used as a combo. The focus should still be more in assessing than evaluating latter being more associated with summative assessment (3).

d) sustainable assessment (assessing as learning?)

Sustainable assessment could be described as the whole process of assessment and ensemble of different assessing strategies (1). According to a team lead by dr. Ouakrim-Soivio sustainable assessment consists of assessing starting level, learning and skills (2). Here’s a translated diagram from publisher Sanoma’s webpage:

The view of lifelong learning and future learning needs is also an important part of sustainable assessment (3). Assessing for life, not for the school. Sustainable assessment happening constantly, it could also be described assessing as learning.


Sources:

Articles and power-point/pdf:

 

Videos: