Assessment and Grading Practices: Exchanging Innovative Ideas

With assessment season on the horizon, educators continue to discuss best practices for gauging student mastery and providing feedback. Commonly mentioned methods include: portfolios, projects, one-on-one discussions, self-assessment and allowing students to retake assessments. 

  • “#Chemtwitter – do you do standards based grading? How do you deal with retakes & the final grade? Debating with myself a point reduction for retaking mastery level assessments. Input wanted.” —High School Science Teacher in Ohio
    • “Retakes are the best way to help students show mastery. I ask my students to revise the previous assessment based on the feedback provided, complete certain tasks related to the learning target, conference with me and then reassess. Not sure why you want to go for point reduction?” —High School Science Teacher
    • “Just my opinion, but I think point reduction would make retake less enticing for students. I have a hard enough time getting the kids to go through corrections to get to the retake, I don’t think I want to make that work less rewarding.” —High School STEM Teacher in Illinois
  • “I do standards based grading! I don’t, however, give tests – only projects. Students are always allowed to do revisions, and I super-score (once they’ve shown proficiency, their grade for that skill won’t go back down).” —High School STEM Teacher in Massachusetts 
  • “What’s the best form of assessment: projects, portfolios, exams (or something else)? #DebateMathPod” —Middle School Math Teacher in Ohio
    • “Not sure it’s the best but for me I get a huge sense of where my students’ knowledge is just by talking with them. I started oral assessments during the year of distance learning. As an added benefit it helps with their stress.” —High School Math Teacher in California
    • “There is no ‘best’ assessment. Best is a balance of assessment types: quizzes/tests, lab investigations, projects, portfolios, writing, etc. and grade for progress as well as product.” —Math Teacher in Connecticut
    • “Portfolios and Observation. That’s it for me.” —High School Math Teacher in California
    • “Whatever allows learners to show their learning. It also depends on what you’re assessing and why. Generally, this is shown most effectively through projects and portfolios. Some students would say exams but that’s because they’ve figured out how to do school.” —Math Educator in Michigan 
    • “I use one-on-one conferencing to assess math. Students explain concepts, answer probing questions, and generate their own problems to solve in order to demonstrate their learning. Accountability ✅ Deep Learning ✅” —Math Teacher in Utah
  • “My absolute favorite, yet most conditionally and realistically impossible, is simply a one-on-one conversation with the student. Asking them questions and then working with their understanding. Oh but this is in ideal learning conditions, which seem to not exist.” —Math Teacher in California 
  • “Sustainable Assessment Tip: Find ways to assess while learners are there in the classroom with you. You can pull small groups, do individualized conferring, or put sticky notes on learners’ work while they’re working to provide written feedback in the moment.” —Educator in Chicago
  • “Have review/feedback happen during the draft process (have the draft process continue until work is ready) once final is ready students take the criteria list and highlight where they met each criteria. Grade is determined by their ability to find (have included) criteria in their writing.” —High School Educator
    • “I have really detailed rubrics so I can circle everything the students have included or are missing, then I focus on personal feedback for written comments. It helps keep the grading process moving, but ugh… I did not become a teacher because I love to grade papers.” —Middle School English Teacher in Minnesota 
  • “Audio feedback > written feedback, when possible. And then being able to see your students’ processing of your feedback, and to create more of a conversation between you and your students, is a paradigm shift—but super hard to do, and still very much working on it!” —High School English Teacher in Oregon