As an educator:

I believe that the focus of assessment is to help students grow.

I believe that assignments/assessment should help to establish trust between the educator and the student.

  • Assessment has the ability to make or break a student’s will to learn in your classroom. It is an opportunity to tell students that you care, that you pay attention and that you are there to work with them.

I believe that feedback needs to be quick, honest, have a positive overall tone and it needs to be concise.

  • If feedback is too late and the students have moved on, it takes away from the effectiveness of the feedback.
  • The assessment should keep a positive tone that focuses on only a few areas of improvement. This is so that the student does not get overwhelmed with what needs to be done.
  • Ambiguous words like “good job” are not helpful to build up a student. I would work to give specific, constructive feedback in assignments. 
  • Feedback also needs to be honest to maintain trust between student and teacher.

I believe that students have the right to work for the grade that they want.

  • If assessment is meant for improvement, students should be allowed to revise their work including the feedback and put in the work to achieve the grade they believe they deserve. It also gives them room to fail, which can help form synapses in the brain and cause learning. Jo Boaler talks about this research in her book Mathematical Mindsets (p. 12).

I believe in the importance of written and oral feedback.

  • Numerical standard gives a common language to communicate the student’s progress, but written and oral feedback are ways to create a relationship with the student and help them begin understanding learning on their own. 

I believe assignments should be creative, guide to deeper thinking and should be adaptable to differing learning needs.

I believe a good educator is calm and responsive to difficult situations and not immediately reactive.