From Assessment of Learning to Assessment for and as Learning - András Antal

When I was a student I swear tests and quizzes were only meant to torture us. But it was okay, because they also meant that whatever unit we had been learning was over and I didn’t have to worry about them anymore. The main reason I chose to be a teacher was to do better than those who had taught me. To make it more student-centered, engaging, relevant and long-term. And with my past education, you might guess I had a lot to learn about assessments. I know now that what my teachers used were simple summative assessments of learning. Collected every now and then, they gave valuable information to the district, school and parents about averages, distributions and so on. They also told me that I got X % of the questions right, except that it didn’t matter anymore because we were already moving on to a new topic. By now, I have also learned that assessments can be used for learning and even as learning and I try to use them in my classes as much as possible. For learning, I assess my students so we both know where we are and what we need to do to get where we want to. They are shown how far they have already come, what milestones are truly important and what we both need to work more on before moving on in a given discipline. As learning, students assess themselves to reflect on the work they put in the light of their results. It makes them set goals for themselves, monitor their progress, evaluate their practices and self-assess to become independent learners. It gives them tools to use in any discipline and any time for the rest of their lives. And the best thing is that I don’t even have to create different assessments for each because it’s not what the assessment is, it’s how you use it. I hope more and more teachers decide to use their assessments for learning and as learning for a happier future.