Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1487796
S T U D E N T - D E S I G N E D A S S E S S M E N T S and personalized learning are two popular trends in education that often come across as complicated and overwhelming for many educators. ese practices are difficult to figure out how to begin, but you can incorporate them without requiring a lot of additional prep time through a focus on simple student-designed assessments. Student-designed assessments are where students have a say in how they will be assessed and/or what will be on their assess- ment. In this case, simplified student-designed assessments are those that do not require any additional technology nor in-depth planning on the part of the teacher. Instead, these assessments are created in 15-20 minute chunks in the class period and do not require the use of new platforms or technology. Here are three useful and practical methods that can be applied to all grade levels and across different content areas: 1. Pick and choose As you approach an upcoming assessment, give students a series of practice questions (or tasks). Have groups identify a few ques- tions that they feel everyone should be able to do (the "baseline questions") and others that would be a challenge – but doable (the "challenging"). en, scan what they chose and compare it to what is already on the assessment or what is planned. Do the students seem to understand what they should know? If yes, then the assessment could go well. If not, perhaps some re-teaching or extra review would be necessary. 2. Create a question/task Have students think of a topic that you have been studying. In small groups or pairs, have students generate a few questions, prompts or tasks in the same categories mentioned above: base- line and challenging. ey can submit this to you through small groups or as part of a whole-class meeting. You can use these to generate your questions for the assessment. What surprises educators with this approach is that students can identify what they all should know and recognize doable challenges as appropriate assessment questions. When they take the assessment, there is a stronger sense of accountability — since they had a part in generating it. I have found that, as a result, they will give very thoughtful and engaged answers. 3. Rubric descriptors Give groups a blank rubric for an upcoming performance-based assessment. Have students come up with bullet point items of what "meets expectations" looks like. Discuss them together and generate a descriptor for that section of the rubric together. Depending on the class' ability to focus, you then fill in the other sections of the rubric. When students actually do the task (where they will be graded), there's a stronger sense of what they should be able to do since they created the expectations. Benefits and challenges There are benefits to incorporating simple student-designed assessments into your pedagogical practice: • O w n e r sh i p . S tu d e n t s fe e l th a t th e y h av e a v o i c e i n the process. • Demonstration of knowledge. Creating an assessment allows students to show what they understand and is an assessment in and of itself. Even by identifying potential questions, they are still showing that they understand what's Assessments Designed by Students Increase student accountability and personalize learning By Lindsay Mitchell 50 cta.org Teaching & Learning