Assessing Assessment

This week's topic of formative versus summative assessment has me thinking once again how great it is to talk with people in other disciplines across the university. In my own field of composition, assessment is a topic near and dear to our hearts. Traditionally, we've tended to accept the essay as the form of our assessments (though that is changing as we move towards more multi-modal projects that still demonstrate the critical thinking and rhetorical decision making that we are looking for in terms of learning outcomes beyond correct grammar and thesis statements). There has been a great deal of discussion about how we should respond to those essays, however, and much of it is relevant to the discussion of formative and summative assessment.

Should we mark grammar mistakes and make comments in the margins or should we provide a paragraph of commentary at the end of an otherwise unmarked essay?

Should we put a grade on rough drafts or only suggestions for improvement?

Should we comment on everything that needs work or focus on three items at a time?

Do our comments on one essay lead to improvements on the next assignment or are they only effective towards a revision of the same essay?

As I mentioned in a previous post, my answer to these questions has been that spending 20-30 minutes talking face-to-face with students about their work is far more effective than any written feed-back that I can give. I do give letter grades on their essays in these conferences, but I always describe them as a jumping off point. (Alfie Kohn's work on the topic of eliminating grades is certainly relevant to this discussion. I wait to give a letter until the very end of a conference and have often been disappointed by the way students' excitement about how to improve their project turns to relief that they don't have to do any of that work when they realize they already have the letter they were hoping for.)

Another cross-over concept for me is the idea of recursiveness. As Rick Wormeli notes, the line between formative and summative assessment can be fluid as teachers use assessment to determine what students have mastered and what they still need to work on. What was intended as summative may become formative if half the students don't pass or all struggle with the same area, indicating that more learning events need to occur. In writing, the assumption is that a once and done approach will not produce good results. Grown-up writers go through a process of prewriting, writing, and revision that frequently circles back on itself until the desired result is achieved (or the latest deadline hits).  I want my students to learn this process approach, so I use formative assessments along the way to force them into it. I link attendance/participation points to bringing drafts, outlines, research, annotations, etc. to class before a project is due and we look at them together in small group and whole class workshops. I make them turn projects in in stages so that they get feedback along the way, guiding them toward a more successful end product. And once they have turned in a draft, I allow students to keep revising (so long as they turn in a revision within two weeks of meeting with me) until they are happy with their grade or the semester ends.

In this case, the essays are formative as long as students keep revising them but become summative as soon as they lose ambition or decide that the grade they have is good enough. On the one hand, this is a very student-centered approach to assessment. If they are willing and able to put in the time and effort, there is no reason why they cannot improve their writing and their grade. But there are those who are so conditioned by the grading system that they will not do a revision unless it is "required" and won't do a bit of work beyond what it takes for them to get the letter they have decided is right for them.

One method I attempted to get around this difficulty was grade contracts. Students helped to negotiate what one would have to do to earn an A, B, or C in the class, signed a contract for one of the three, and then in grade conferences we would talk about revision plans and whether or not the assignment met the terms of their contract without assigning any letters to them. I eventually gave it up, however, because it was a lot of extra work for essentially the same outcome.

Until Kohn's no-grade revolution takes off, however, I will just continue trying to make assessment in my classes about learning where my students are, figuring out how to get them where they need to be, and learning how I can change/improve my instruction to make their path there as smooth and direct as possible. I don't see much need for the use of instant quiz technology in my classroom right now since my classes are small and discussion-based (though it might be nice for keeping students engaged on the few days a semester when I have to lecture in order to introduce essential vocabulary or the details of major projects), but I do appreciate the commitment to being aware of student progress long before the mid-term or end-of-semester assessments hit that the use of such technology encourages. At the end of the day, after all, formative assessments are going to enable us to be much better facilitators of our students' learning, and that should be our goal as educators, regardless of our discipline.