Assessment and the Whole Child

Education today is data driven.  Teacher evaluations are based on how students perform on testing so anything other than “teaching to the test” can be scary.  However, when we teach to the test we do not teach to the “whole child”.  We should be looking at the child’s college, career and citizenship skills not just their score on standardized tests. If we are to assess the “whole child”, we should use assessments that facilitate high levels of student achievement by providing ongoing information about a student’s grasp of key concepts. Multiple assessments such as portfolios, criterion referenced tests, norm reference tests, comprehensive adaptive tests, diagnostic tests, along with formative, interim and summative assessments should be used because they provide a wide range of information and give a broader picture of the child’s strengths and weaknesses.  Children should also be allowed to evaluate their own progress and set their own learning goals.  When children are allowed to create their own learning goals they are more apt to work toward those goals.  Assessment, when used, should also place a great deal of emphasis on the progress and achievements of the learner, not just what they don’t know.  

In England, education is driven by AFL, or Assessment for Learning.  School aged children are assessed using formative assessment, which emphasizes progress and achievement.  This is based on research, because research shows that students achieve much more and obtain better results when they take an active role, become self-regulated learners and leave school able and confident to learn throughout the rest of their life.  In AFL, assessment occurs at all stages of the learning process.  The three principles of AFL are:  Communicate confidence that every learner can improve, empower learners to take an active role in their own learning and develop learners’ confidence in peer and self-assessment.  Teachers are guided by these principles:  Collect information about individual learners to better understand their needs, adjust our teaching in response to our observations or assessment results, share learning objectives with learners, share success criteria with learners, use questioning, give specific and useful feedback, introduce peer feedback and introduce self-assessment. 

I think England has a great system for evaluating their children.  It allows for children to focus on their strengths not just their weaknesses and also allows for less comparison between students.  Students compete against themselves and not each other, which allows students’ drive to learn and confidence to grow. I wish the United States would adopt their principles.  

Retrieved from:  https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/assessment-learning

Retrieved from:  http://www.wholechildeducation.org/what-works/featured-topics/assessment





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