Best Assessment Experiences

• In Event: Examining Assessment for Learning in the Schools

Abstract

This paper explores 250 “best experiences of assessment” to deepen understanding of good classroom assessment. Participants included K-16 practicing teachers and administrators from Southern Ontario and preservice, concurrent and masters education students from one university. Emerging themes were feedback, demystifying assessment, student agency, rich assessment tasks, emotional and relational practice, and grading. The stories often aligned with the AfL strategies and extended current theories of assessment - even when the participants had limited understanding of this concept. These living examples, reaching back decades and situated in such various settings, may motivate educators to implement AfL more consciously and comfortably, in spirit as well as in practice.

Authors

• Joanne L. Reid, Brock University

• Susan Drake, Brock University

• Danielle Beckett, Brock University