EMPOWERING LEARNERS
To harness the power of assessment to improve learning, you must examine and possibly reconsider your role and how you see your relationship with your students.
“…we need to transform our assessment and instructional practices, and that means that we need to be open to considering our role in the classroom differently.”
“…the most empowering and loving thing we can do is help students learn how to learn for themselves.” (Jackson, 2009)
Who decides what is being assessed, when assessment happens, what criteria are being used to determine progress, and what the format of the assessment will be?
Sometimes significant professional insights come from snippets of lived classroom moments. One moment can change you! It did for me.
It’s late August and a charged silence of anticipation hangs in classrooms across Ontario – but not for long! As students flick the switch and energy floods into the learning spaces, how will students, from the very young to those approaching adulthood, perceive their place within this learning environment?
Has this scenario ever happened to you? “I know this student understands the concepts. We talked about it; the student showed me how the model works but on the test this student did poorly! Why is that? That doesn’t make sense! What do I do now?”
You’re probably thinking about the school year ahead – perhaps making plans, or reflecting on how you did things last year, and what you can do this year to improve.
HARNESSING THE POWER OF ASSESSMENT 