Being at the forefront of assessment practices and refining my pedagogy is, in fact, "a condition of my employment"*. Research shows that providing students with a number or letter grade prevents them from authentically reflecting on their learning and often diminishes their interest in learning, reduces academic risk-taking, and decreases their quality of thinking. I am trying to help students focus more on their learning by not putting a number on their work at this time. I want to support student learning and utilize assessment primarily as a tool to push their learning and thinking forward. As such, I appreciate that the District Policy 360 on Testing & Assessment is numbered 360 as it reminds me that it is my job to teach/assess the whole person.
Your student will receive feedback, self-assess, and have time to respond to that feedback/forward in order to develop critical thinking skills, show their competency in the course content, and reflect on their learning. The way that they receive feedback/forward will differ according to the students' individual needs for improvement. As such, I attempt to be responsive to the gaps that I see in their learning, as opposed to provide a unilateral approach to assessment.
I also learned that if teachers were to give feedback as either grades alone, both grades and comments or comments alone, studies showed students gained the most growth when they received comments alone! Giving a grade and comments was considered as ineffective as giving grades alone. To keep students focused on the dialogue - which is assessment - it's imperative to only give comments.
Some examples of how I will provide feedback are below. Click to make the image larger. The caption describes how I use formative assessment in each example.
*Thank you to Gurpaul Sohal, Vice Principal at Delview Secondary, for equipping me with this language when I have been challenged about implementing these practices.