How do we know students are learning?

Competency 1 shows the ways in which educators and students alike can assess the progress that students are making in regard to their education. Through different goals, forms of assessment, feedback, and student ownership, we are able to see how students are progressing. InTASC Standard 1 explains the ways in which teachers are able to recognize how students are learning and developing. It talks about the “cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas” that students can grow in and the best ways for teachers to understand and help them in these areas of growth.

InTASC Standard 6 is also incorporated into Competency 1 in the way that teachers use different forms of assessment. Using both formative and summative assessments is an important part of teaching and determining students understanding of material, and Standard 6 places emphasis on the use and analyzation of both types of assessment.

According to an article on Edutopia titled “5 Keys to Comprehensive Assessment,” there are five main elements to assess students growth.

1. Goals and Measures- What do we want students to know? Teachers should have a clear and measurable goal for students each day so they can individually assess where they are when they leave class each day.
2. Formative assessments- Instead of a big test at the end of the unit, use small checkins with students to see growth and where they are at (essential to see what kids know and don’t know). Give formative feedback that students can immediately apply because reflecting helps students to see the bigger picture and what they are struggling with.
3. Summative assessments- An assessment to draw judgement of what a student has learned using essays, oral assignments and projects to demonstrate what students are able to do. Students can explain exhibits and projects to explain the big idea (what it means in terms of the bigger picture) better than they are able to on standardized tests.
4. Performance- Graduation portfolios are a great idea to collaborate with others, communicate in multiple forms and create problem solvers. Students work together to solve the major project (defending their work to a panel of outsiders). This prepares them for when they leave the boundaries of schools and instills a value of non-cognitive skills at the same level as academic skills. It also helps by modeling assessments after real life experiences.
5. Student ownership- Having students take more ownership of their learning means less owning it for them. Ideally, assessment is primarily for the students. Students can be continually engaged in self assessment and peer assessment using rubrics and can begin to value assessment.

Larry Rosenstock, principle and founder of High Tech High, said this about having students present their work:

It’s another way of getting at the transparency of recognizing whether they’re doing work that’s worth doing, and whether they’re learning things that are worth learning.

Having students present their work to others gives them the opportunity to explain the importance of what they’re learning and how they know that it’s important. It’s a good indicator of whether or not students are taking ownership of their own work, and is also a form of summative assessment.

These five elements can be incorporated into my curriculum to assess student growth in the following ways:

1. Goals and measures- I will change my objectives so students can assess them at their own level and judge their own progress in learning. In an article from Arizona State University titled “Writing Measurable Learning Objectives”, Bloom’s Taxonomy needs to be present when writing learning objectives. I will need to include the noun of what I want students to learn, a verb, and Bloom’s level of learning that is appropriate for what I want them to do such as the comprehension level. My objectives will change from “Understand the American Criminal Justice System” to “Describe the history of the American Criminal Justice System.”
2. Formative Assessment- There are several forms of formative assessment that I can use on a daily basis and interchangeably in my classroom. In a presentation titled “Formative Assessment in Social Studies” from D.C. Everest Area Schools, I learned of several good assessments that I can use each day. They include pair shares where each partner will take turns explaining what they learned from the lesson that day for one minute each. Next, I can use “three minute writing” where students will take the last three minutes of class to jot down what they learned that day in class. I will only do this once every other week because otherwise that will be too many for me to grade and give meaningful feedback on.
3. Summative Assessment- In my high school history classes, my professors simply lectured for fifty minutes every day and then three times a semester we would test over the material. We never had any projects, just tests. I want to incorporate projects and reports that will help prepare students for college and real-world assignments rather than always using standard bubble tests. For example, my government teacher had us all choose a different president in class before telling us what the project was. After we all chose a president, she told us that we would be creating a hat that represented them and their accomplishments. No hat looked like another and we all got to wear them while giving our presentation about our president at the end of the week. This gives students the ability to share their knowledge out loud with the class and present their understanding in a different way.
4. Performance- The idea of a final portfolio is a great way to have students summarize their understanding of a concept. In my class, I think that the final portfolio could include an essay that the students research and write on the topic of their choice, within the confines of our time period in history that we were working on, and then a presentation of their paper. Their performance would be presenting their paper in front of their peers and I. This gives them the opportunity to work on many skills that they will need for future jobs as well as the academic portion.
5. Student Ownership- My students will take ownership of their learning through a lot of peer and self assessment. For example, take this AP US History Document Based Question Essay Rubric. Practicing writing this essay several times before the AP test is crucial to success. Learning how to score it is a big part of understanding how the grading process works and how important it is for students to be able to recognize mistakes and great points alike. By having essays peer-reviewed, students will be able to learn from their peers and will have a better value of the assessment that they will receive from me or from graders on an AP exam. 

Overall, students can demonstrate knowledge and what they’re learning in many different ways. These five ways are ways that I can specifically improve methods of assessment and feedback so students can take ownership of their own work and prove to me that they are growing and progressing in their skills and knowledge of history.