Shifting the ‘Who, What, When, Where, How and Why’ of Assessment
‘What does learning look like?’ is one of the key questions Project Zero (PZ) has explored for much of its 50-year history. In recent years, our work has been equal parts grappling with the thorny reality of schools and bureaucratic systems on the one hand, and trying to imagine ‘What if… What other possibilities might there be?’ on the other.One form this work takes is developing alternatives to traditional notions of assessment and accountability and expanding what ‘counts’ as learning in classrooms and schools. Because the way learning is assessed directly influences what gets taught, assessment is an especially powerful lever for transforming teaching and learning.
PZ researchers have investigated questions of assessment in a variety of research projects and, from these investigations, produced many resources that offer alternative ways of conceptualising and enacting assessment, including the Arts Propel handbooks, The Teaching for Understanding Guide, Making Learning Visible, Making Thinking Visible, and many more. (For related resources, see Additional Reading at the end of this article and http://www.pz.harvard.edu/50th/assessment-reimagined.)
Of course, PZ is only one of many centres and organisations that have worked on these issues over the years, and we have collaborated with a number of them, including EL Education (formerly Expeditionary Learning), educators from the preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, the Educational Testing Service, state departments of education and numerous schools and school districts.
Taken as a whole, this collective work on assessment invites a reimagining of the ‘who, what, when, where, how and why’ of assessment. This reimagining involves four fundamental shifts.
| Assessment Reimagined: Four Fundamental Shifts | |
| FROM | TO |
| Assessment driven by what can be easily quantified | Assessment driven by the most important goals for student growth and learning, whether those goals can be quantified or not (the ‘why’) |
| Assessment done to teachers and students |
Teachers and students as protagonists in the assessment process (the ‘who’)
|
| Assessment of a final product at the end of a learning experience |
Assessment of process as well as product, integral to the learning experience (the ‘what’ and ‘when’)
|
| Assessment as a one-on-one activity (teacher assesses student; principal assesses teacher) | Assessment as a collective and relationship-building process that happens in context (in classrooms, faculty meetings, etc.) (the ‘how’ and ‘where’) |