Leigh Fryling

Assessment Philosophy

I believe strongly that one of the greatest problems we face as educators we also face
as human beings; we are combating, on a daily basis, the human fear of judgement. And not
only are we doing our best to allay the fears of our students, we are working within a system
which requires us to systematically judge our students in a comparative construct. So here is
the challenge of assessment. Students dont engage unless they feel safe and invested. Human
beings as a whole dont feel safe when they are being judged, and do what they can to avoid
negative judgement. Teenagers feel this more-so, and more keenly than many adults (this is
why ridiculous fashion fads crop up among teens so often; that desire to be unique but stay
with the crowd is a powerful motivator for wearing pants that are too low). A grade, a mark, a
piece of summative assessment is a form of judgement, and therefore creates a fear response.
Fear =disengagement = no learning occurs. My philosophy of assessment? Get rid of
judgement.
Well that makes no sense, I imagine you thinking. If assessment is judgement and you
are saying get rid of judgement, are you saying get rid of assessment? No. That makes no
sense. What I am saying is that we need to get rid of summative assessment as the be all and
end all of a students grade. That summative assessment should be comprised only of the
trending indications of formative assessment. No tests, no exams, no final paper. Only the proof
of student improvement and learning through formative marking moments. Let me show you
what I mean.
In a drama class (my area of expertise, and the rule is always write what you know)
students perform a series of scenes over the course of the class. As the class progresses, they
learn new aspects, tools and techniques of acting out a scene. Each time the student performs,

a formative assessment rubric is utilized, and the student engages in some self assessment. At
the end of the class, the formative rubrics are compared. If there is progress across the rubrics,
then the student is learning and improving. The comparison of the rubrics results in the
summative assessment. This removes the judgement fear of grades, students are free to play
and enjoy and engage in that deeper learning without worry for their GPA.
We have to get out of this system. The system doesnt work. We know the system
doesnt work but we like it because its easy. Its easy to organize. But learning isnt organized.
Learning is elbows deep in mess and muck and confusion and discovery. But because we cant
quantify or prove that discovery process, we dismiss it in favour of our columns and letters and
numbers.