DAVID WEES

Thoughts from a reflective educator.

assessment

Bias in assessment

June 11, 2013

Every form of assessment of learning has bias. This bias may be hidden, or it may be quite obvious. As Cathy O'Neil points out, assessment is a proxy for what we want to measure - learning. We cannot measure the building of connections between neurons that is happening in the brain directly (or even potentially understand what that growth even means) so we use a proxy in the form of an assessment of the externally visible signs of learning.



Assessment for learning

March 6, 2013

The director of our senior school, Brad Smith, is doing a workshop today in our staff meeting on assessment for learning. He's found the following quotes, which he wants to use in his presentation. I'm helping him edit his presentation (since I have time, and he does not), and I'm hoping to find some photos or other prompts which describe these statements to include in his presentation.

 



Imagine something different

June 8, 2012

See this piece of paper?

Piece of lined paper
(Image credit: D Sharon Pruitt)

 

Throw it away.

Imagine the limitations of the piece of paper shown above do not influence how you share the record of learning your students have done, with their parents, and the wider community.



How does your assessment fit into the big picture?

June 3, 2012

I would feel more motivated if I knew how my assignment fits into the big picture.
(Image credit: Dilbert comics)

I think this comic speaks for itself. How do your assessments fit into the big picture? Is this clear to your students? (I doubt many educators are giving students assessments that a monkey could be taught to do.)



Experiments in assessment

November 28, 2011

Here a few experiments in assessment I'm considering for next year.



Grading is a compression algorithm

October 27, 2011

The objective of traditional grading is to compress information teachers have gathered about a student down into a single score to make understanding the information easier. One of the original reasons for this compression was the limitation on how much information could be shared on a single piece of paper.



It's time to redesign the report card

October 24, 2011

The typical report card looks like this (click to embiggen):



A problem with averages

August 11, 2011

This xkcd comic demonstrates a big problem with averages.

The problem with average ratings

 

By the way, this same problem occurs when you average grades as well. 



Separate process of work from the product of work

June 24, 2011

When I started working at my current school, I realized that they do something in assessment which is very rare.



Arbitrary Deadlines

January 16, 2011

I read this article by Alan Stange on assigning penalties to students who hand in work late. He makes the point at the end of his blog post, "There is in fact relatively little significance to learning to complete on time." I agree with this statement and I'm going to expand upon it.