"I gotcha!" Assessments. What's the point?

As educators, we all try to work a twist or two into our assessments.  We cover material in class.  We formatively assess that material and give feedback on the progress made toward understanding those learning targets being assessed.  Then we summatively assess these targets.  I understand we cannot simply change a word here or there, or change the numbers, or ask the same questions to write another essay about for these summatives.  This is where the twists come into play.  I get it.  I really do.  In my math classes, I may change the given or sought after information or ask them to work the process backward.  Maybe in literature, the assessment item refers to one of the secondary characters and not the main character or main plot.  Or instead of writing about the book they finished reading, ask them to write their own ending.  These are twists.  They are not "I gotcha!" moments.

These subtle adjustments are not meant to stump the students.  They are not about things they have not been exposed to yet.  They are not trick questions.  They are intended to extend the students' learning and understanding of a topic/concept.  In many cases, they are a vital part of the assessment.  They allow the teacher to determine which students can just regurgitate information and which students truly understand what they were taught.  They also are a time for the teacher to reflect on their teaching to see if they are making clear to their students all of the connections they are intending them to make leading up to said assessment.

So, what is the difference between a twist and an "I gotcha!" assessment item?  The difference is drastic.  First, no student should ever go into an assessment not knowing what they are going to be assessed on within the assessment.  That is just plain wrong.  However, many of my friends and colleagues argue with me that they cannot tell their students what is going to be on the assessment because then it will not be a...this is their words, not mine...a "surprise."  WHAT THE WHAT??!!!  Why are we trying to surprise students?  I thought the entire purpose of an assessment was to gauge what has been learned and what is still in progress.  Where do surprises fit into that line of thinking?  Nowhere that I can find.  Second, why do some teachers feel they need to put items on an assessment that they have not taught their students?  How is that even fair?  Maybe at our next faculty meeting, when contracts are coming up, we should tell everyone that they will be assessed on their teaching pedagogy but then give them a Calculus assessment instead.  How many teachers would be completely outraged that their contract was being measured by something for which they were not prepared?  I would wager more than half.  This is exactly what we are doing by assessing students, and reporting out as part of their grade, on information that they have not been exposed to at the time of the assessment.  Third, and maybe the biggest diffference of all, is that the only ones excited about the "I gotcha!" assessment items are the teachers that are trying to trick their students.  I honestly have heard teachers get excited about none of their students being able to do their "I gotcha!" problem/question/task on their assessment.  If you know, or even have a hunch, that none of your students are going to be able to reach the level of proficiency you are looking for in an assessment item, why put it on the assessment unless you are ultimately trying to trick your students?  Again, unfair in every way.

Another "I gotcha!" moment that I don't understand is multiple assessments for classes that meet on opposite days.  On this one, I sort of get the rationale.  Sometimes.  What I don't get is the rationale that Student A is going to tell Student B what was on the assessment.  My retort to this is that if Student A can memorize your entire assessment, tell this verbatim to Student B, Student B is able to memorize what Student A has said and then produce it again verbatim for your assessment on the next day...isn't that learning?  Either learning is going on there or your assessment is not a very quality assessment.

In closing, my thoughts are simple.  Why are we trying to catch students and show them how much they don't know when we are trying to assess what they do know?  Stop trying to back students into an "I gotcha!" moment.  Focus on learning and making good humans even better.  Period.

What's in a grade?

This question comes up countless times in a school year.  It comes up in faculty meetings, in classrooms, at PTA meetings, on the school bus, in the faculty room, at parent conferences, and so on.  Almost every conversation that concerns school, concerns grades or grading.  Why?  What is in a grade that makes it so important?

Let's start with the latter, grading.  What is grading?  It is the practice of placing a value on the ability of a student to relay to their teacher how much they know at a given point in time.  In short, grading is the practice of assigning a grade.  So, what is a grade?  In it's most basic sense, a grade is a symbol that a teacher uses to represent a students' understanding of what has been taught.  A grade is a teacher's way of showing the student how much the student has shown what they know to the teacher.

So why do students, parents, and some educators put such a high value on a grade?  Great question.  In my opinion, it comes down to competition.  Grades are a way for students to rank themselves against each other and for parents to determine how their child(ren) rank against other children.  Having two boys myself, I can see where parents could try to measure their children against others...not that I would ever do such a thing.  It's how we were raised and what we know of our own experiences in school.  However, teachers measuring students against other students is just not right.  Herein lies the problem.

Education is not a race or a competition, yet we treat it like one.  Many schools still select a valedictorian based on GPA, rigor of courses taken and/or class rank placing an even higher emphasis on grades and breeding deep competition among students (and parents for that matter) to "out-do" each other.  Within schools, students are encouraged, pressured in many cases, to take AP or Higher Level IBDP courses even if they are not ready or are not interested in the subject being offered simply "because it looks good" on their transcript.  WHAT??!!  We constantly tell students learning is what is important, but then in the next breath, we compare student work to student work to determine where the benchmark lies.  In his post Beware Normative Tendencies In The Classroom, Tom Schimmer talked about how Olympic judges leave room for higher scores when judging the first competitions because they want to see how the latter athletes perform.  As crazy as this sounds, there are teachers that do this with student work.  Again, deepening the competitive idea associated with grades, and flawing the grading practice.  Instead of using this inaccurate way to measure student learning, we should measure student work against learning targets and standards.  When the symbol on the report card is more representative of how many boxes a student has checked off or how many hoops the student has jumped through during that marking period, the symbol is meaningless.  When a student knows where they are in their learning of the presented Learning Targets and/or Standards, the learning is the focus and the final symbol is not only meaningful but more often than not more accurate as well.