By The Challenge Success Team
Educators strive to create meaningful and joyful engagement in learning, promote mastery of new concepts and skills, and support healthy, balanced students.
However, at times our current system’s focus on extrinsic measures of success, such as GPAs, college acceptances, and ultimately financial status, can lead to a system that prioritizes high grades above all else, and in turn unintentionally hinders these goals.
At Challenge Success, we partner with schools across the country to use evidence-based strategies and collaborative co-design processes to improve student well-being, belonging, and engagement in learning. Our research also shows that when teachers promote learning and mastery over grades and test scores, student engagement and motivation increases.
Read on for strategies and examples from schools that have successfully shifted to more authentic and varied assessments that promote deeper engagement and well-being!
Utilizing the S.P.A.C.E. Framework in Schools
We have organized our research-based, equity-centered strategies into a framework we call S.P.A.C.E. This framework embodies our vision to create educational systems that value each student for their unique identities, assets, and individual definitions of success and effectively prepare them for the variety of opportunities and challenges they will encounter in school and beyond.
In this blog post, we will focus on the third component: (A): Alternative & Authentic Assessment.
(A): Alternative & Authentic Assessment
Rethinking assessment practices offers an opportunity to move beyond “teaching to the test” and create deeper, more meaningful learning experiences. By exploring alternative approaches, schools can foster authentic engagement, encourage academic integrity, and support student well-being.
For example, in our school survey research, students regularly report that assessments, particularly tests and quizzes, are a major source of stress at school. Traditional quizzes and tests, especially those where students select responses instead of constructing their own answers, can only show so much about what a student knows. Students can guess or copy answers without actually understanding the material in depth.
6 Assessment “Revisions” to Increase Engagement & Well-Being
From our work with K-12 schools across the country, we know that teachers need both time and ongoing support in order to change their assessment practices. And, each school setting, subject, or department can have its own obstacles and opportunities to work through. We recommend exploring our professional development to support teachers in crafting different types of assessments.
Like many schools who are considering a shift to competency-based grading, Graland Country Day School joined the Challenge Success School Partnership for support in bringing their school community along with this big change. Together, we built community-wide awareness of grading practices and policies and the impact they have on students. Teachers developed a deeper understanding of assessment practices that align with the school’s values and learned strategies to ensure they are grading for equity.
Here are six research-backed ways your school may rethink your assessment practices in order to better support student well-being and engagement:
- Use multiple forms of assessments in each unit that are aligned with the learning goals and incorporate an emphasis on student assets, including performance-based assessment approaches that support student autonomy and agency.
- Create healthy stakes for summative assessment by focusing on the collection and curation of evidence of student mastery and understanding rather than relying on single high-stakes assessments.
- Incorporate different ways of providing student feedback such as, allowing students to self- and peer-assess.
- Minimize negative effects of grading on student motivation and learning through adjustments such as narrative assessment, unweighted GPAs, the elimination of student rankings, and finding ways to grade less.
- Increase formative assessments and on-going feedback in order to support instructional decision making and student improvement.
- Ensure your classroom assessment and grading policies are fair and equitable and encourage student feedback on these policies for instance, eliminate “zero” policies.
Ready for Action?
Learn how to collaboratively improve engagement outcomes in your school using the SPACE framework!
The Challenge Success School Partnership is an inclusive, community-driven collaboration that leverages the Challenge Success Change Process to transform the student experience within your school. Our program is a research-backed way to prioritize student well-being while also deepening engagement with learning and enhancing belonging.
Together, we will center the student experience, gather and interpret community-voice data, design research-based, equitable policy and practice changes, and create community-specific outcomes for all students. Learn more about how we can collaborate with your school community this year!
This blog post was adapted from our article in ASCD, “7 Approaches to Alternative Assessments.”
Related: Bring our “Rethinking Assessment” professional development workshop to your school!
Challenge Success, a nonprofit affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education – elevates student voice and implements research-based, equity-centered strategies to increase well-being, engagement, and belonging in K-12 schools.