3.3 Assessment
On this page
- Teacher Assesses Student
1.1 SMART – core material
1.2Assessing optional assignments - Student Assesses Teacher
2.1 Questionnaire for students
2.2 App for collecting student feedback
2.3 Teacher learns too – positive learning climate - Teacher Assesses Themselves
- Student Assesses Themselves
4.1 Student assesses core material
4.2 Student assesses themselves using AI - Teacher and Student Assess Student Together
5.1 Overestimating and underestimating
5.2 Two students work on the same assignment - Pitfalls
6.1 Students differ in aptitude
6.2 Core material and optional assignments are out of balance
6.3 A note on the usual way of assessing
6.4 Not asking students for feedback - Assessment with Tick Marks – Composite Test Grade
7.1 Differences in working pace
7.2 Difference in level
7.3 Balance between core material and optional assignments
7.4 Planning and evaluation
7.5 What should I do when I have finished?
7.6 Quotes
7.7 Video recommending assessment with tick marks - Examples
8.1 Feedbackform for the teacher
8.2 Practical examples for primary and secondary education - Summary
Teacher and student assess each other and thereby accelerate each other’s development.
I regularly ask my students to assess my way of teaching and my teaching materials.
Present approach:
How do I currently assess my students?
Future approach:
How will I assess my students in the future?
Introduction video
For more information check out our other introductory videos here.
Introduction
Assessment is one of the four modules within the ‘Planning lessons’ perspective of Friendly and Fair Teaching (FFT).
figure 32: planning lessons (overview)
In this module, the emphasis is on Qualification.
Reciprocal assessment
Within FFT, assessment is not a one-way process. The teacher not only assesses the student; students also assess the teacher, assess themselves and think about their own development. This makes assessment a tool for learning rather than merely a means of recording performance. You start this process by asking students for feedback that they would not readily give you spontaneously.
Image 50: different types of assessment
Five types of assessment (and not six)
This image does not include a sixth arrow in which student and teacher jointly assess the teacher. This arrow has been omitted because a student initially comes to school to learn, not to coach the teacher.
Improvement points remain unnoticed
If you do not ask your students for feedback, areas for improvement in your lessons often remain unnoticed.
Assessment with tick marks
Later in this module you will read how assessment with tick marks encourages students to gradually develop ownership.
1. Teacher Assesses Student
Do not judge a student too quickly (labelling). First investigate whether the following causes may play a role in poor results:
missing prior knowledge,
motivation or concentration problems,
a personal limitation.
If you label a student as weak at an early stage, it will subsequently be difficult for you to accept it when that student suddenly develops rapidly. You will then have to admit that your assessment was incorrect. At the same time, be aware that you partly guide the development of students, while a student also shapes their own personal development. Not everything can be measured, and students learn all sorts of things outside the prescribed curriculum.
1.1 SMART – core material
If you want students to acquire knowledge and skills in the area of the core material and you want to be able to measure this, make sure that the assessment meets the characteristics of SMART: Specific, Measurable, Acceptable*, Realistic, Time-bound. Discuss this with your students as well, so that they understand why you have chosen this way of assessing. When these SMART specifications are discussed below, they are shown in brackets.
* There are several interpretations in use, such as: Acceptable, Accepted, Achievable.
1.2 Assessing optional assignments
An optional assignment has several aims:
- Acquiring knowledge
- Summarising knowledge
- Learning to organise
- Learning to use presentation tools
- Gaining self-confidence
Before you assess an optional assignment, ask the student to assess the assignment themselves. Include this assessment when discussing and assessing the assignment with the student.
2. Student Assesses Teacher
You ask students to assess your teaching style and teaching materials.
Suitable moments to have yourself assessed by students:
- When completing a reporting period, when students look back at what they have done during that period.
- When completing a school year, when you look back with the group at the entire year.
2.1 Questionnaire for students
Here are two questionnaires:
You give your students questionnaires in which they indicate the extent to which they agree with the following four statements. They score each question from 1 to 5:
1 = disagree, 5 = agree
Feedback on teaching style
- The teacher speaks quietly and clearly when she teaches.
- The teacher is friendly.
- The teacher clearly states what she expects from us.
- When the teacher asks something of us, I do it.
Feedback on teaching materials
- How do you assess the lesson material?
- Which information was most valuable to you?
- Do you have any additions or improvements to the lesson material?
- Was any information missing?
- Was there a topic missing that you would have liked to choose?
- What do you need from me to be able to work even better?
Students’ assessment is often more positive than your own assessment!
2.2 App that allows you to ask students for feedback on your lesson
2.3 Teacher learns too – positive learning climate
If you allow students to assess your teaching style and teaching materials, you receive valuable feedback. Students can indicate which topics are missing or where an explanation could be improved. This allows you to quickly discover what works well and what needs improvement. You also show that you, too, continue to learn. This contributes to a positive learning climate.
3. Teacher Assesses Themselves
Regularly assess your own way of teaching:
1 = disagree, 5 = agree
- I speak quietly and clearly when I teach.
- I consider myself a friendly teacher.
- I clearly state what I expect from my students.
- In my lessons, students do what I ask them to do.
See also ‘Checklist for Motivation Coach’.
4. Student Assesses Themselves
If you regularly ask students to assess themselves and they take this seriously, you enable them to develop themselves in all sorts of ways independently of you.
4.1 Student assesses core material
At the beginning of a reporting period, you indicate which core material students must have mastered by the end of the period (SMART/time-bound). During this period, each student decides for themselves when they will work on the core material.
During independent work, students first test their knowledge of the core material themselves using an app. The difficulty level can often be adjusted in an app, and some apps also allow you to set how long you may think about a question. With an app, you can set the bar high. If students can test the core material together in the form of a game using an app, this is particularly appealing to them.
Visit the Quest to Learn website. It was created for primary education, ages 6–12. The website includes interactive games.
As soon as a student has reached a new level with an app, they repeat the exercise in your presence. You can then immediately see whether the student has mastered the indicated level of the core material. You only approve the assignment if the student has fully mastered the core material. Because students know this, they prepare particularly well.
If a student shows you a new level achieved with the app during independent work, this feels like a valuable moment of contact for both of you.
4.2 Student Assesses themselves using AI
AI can not only take over marking, but can also help students assess their own progress. AI analyses students’ answers and can use them to suggest suitable follow-up assignments. This form of assessment can also be useful when students are working from home.
Examples:
5. Teacher and Student Assess the Student Together
Before you assess a student’s presentation, ask the student to assess themselves. When you ask a student to do this, your way of assessing becomes more like coaching. At the student’s request, they can conclude this assignment by giving a presentation to the whole group.
5.1 Overestimating and underestimating
After the presentation, discuss the grade the student gave themselves and compare it with the grade you had in mind. Both grades lead to one grade, which you determine. The advantage of this is that you see how a student assesses themselves. The student may be underestimating themselves, but they may also be overestimating themselves. In both cases, it is advisable to discuss this with the student.
If a student gives themselves a low grade and you give a high grade, tell them that they do not need to be so modest. In this way, you help a student gain self-confidence.
If a student gives themselves a high grade and you give a low grade, ask the student to study the subject again and more thoroughly, and tell them that you expect them to give the presentation again at a later date. The student then learns that insufficient effort does not pay off.
5.2 Two students work on the same assignment
If you assess two students who have worked together on an optional topic, ask both students independently to give themselves a grade. During the discussion, ask who contributed what to the assignment.
6. Pitfalls
6.1 Students differ in aptitude
To keep things fair, I am giving you all the same assignment: Climb this tree.
Image 35: assessment
In this image, different animals are given the same assignment. Some of them do not have the right abilities to climb the tree, but they do have other abilities that are not being measured.
This raises the following questions:
- How do you give students a say in (part of) their own learning process?
- How do you deal with differences in aptitude and ability between students?
- How do you assess in a way that does justice to students’ abilities?
- How do you ensure, through your way of assessing, that students at least meet the minimum requirements?
- How do you motivate students so that they work constructively of their own accord, make maximum effort and are given the opportunity to develop in a personal way?
If students surprise you with new ways of learning, you discover new aspects of your subject. You can incorporate these into assignments for a subsequent period.
6.2 Core material and optional assignments are out of balance
Too much attention to the core material
If you offer only core material, there is little choice for students. If you do not offer optional assignments alongside the core material, it seems to your students as though your subject ends with the topics covered in the core material. Your students then have no access to all aspects of your subject and do not develop curiosity about them either. They are unable to give your subject a personal interpretation.
Only optional assignments
If you only give grades for optional assignments, these grades are not based on objective criteria but more on your intuition. You then cannot be sure whether a student has acquired certain objectively measurable knowledge.
6.3 A note on the usual way of assessing
The average of several grades encourages half-hearted work
Normally, you assess a number of tests during each reporting period. The average of these tests determines the report grade. The more test grades are known, the less influence a student can have on their report grade. Some students are then satisfied with a pass on their report. They have not necessarily mastered the subject matter as a whole.
Watch this video about testing. The video discusses how students often only start studying for a test the day before. They may achieve a reasonable grade, but remember very little. The video ends with an argument in favour of giving tick marks.
6.4 Not asking students for feedback
Why is it that the only people who never matriculate from their own courses are teachers?” Schafer (1975), R. Murray
In other words: Why is it that the teachers do not mature from teaching themselves?
7. Assessment with Tick Marks – Composite Test Grade
If you provide your students with structure and can trust them, you can give them a certain amount of freedom within that structure. You record their progress and step in if you notice that a student is falling behind. See the teacher role Gardener.
With this way of assessing, a student who has finished an assignment comes to you during independent work to have the assignment ticked off. During such a contact moment, you can see how a student is applying themselves. If the work is satisfactory, you give them a tick.
During independent work, students come to you with two different types of assignments. They come:
- To show progress with the core material.
Before coming to you, the student has already successfully tested themselves using an app with which they can test the core material. During this test, the app indicated that the student had mastered a skill. If you can confirm that skill together with the student, you record a tick in your grade book and note which skill the student has mastered. This way of assessing takes little of your time and is very pleasant for both you and the student. - To present a self-chosen assignment.
The student first completes a form and gives themselves an assessment. You only record a tick when you see that sufficient attention has been given to the assignment.
With every successfully completed assignment, a student increases their test grade.
You discuss this way of assessing with your students in advance and explain that they can gradually raise their test grade to a ten.
An example of four assignments that together are worth 10:
- If you successfully complete one assignment, you receive a 6 for the test.
- If you successfully complete two assignments, you receive an 8 for the test.
- If you successfully complete three assignments, you receive a 9 for the test.
- If you successfully complete four assignments, you receive a 10 for the test.
You can also choose to base the grade for a test on three or five assignments.
This way of assessing ensures that after each assessment a student immediately moves on to the next assignment. Several successfully completed assignments can eventually lead to a 10. This makes the highest grade achievable for every student.
When a period has ended, you convert the number of ticks for each student into a test grade, which you record in your grade book.
This approach is related to:
- Progress cards in Montessori education
- Completing assignments independently in the Scouts
- Study credits at university
7.1 Differences in working pace
When you use this form of assessment and guidance, not every student immediately shows the same level of commitment. When you start using this way of assessing, the group of students falls into three categories:
- A group of fast-working students who want to complete as many assignments as possible and thereby achieve a high grade as quickly as possible. At the beginning of a planned period, you give all your attention to the (fast-working) students who come to you on their own initiative. Fast-working students serve as role models in this way of working, and their high grades do not cause jealousy because a 10 is achievable for every student. In each subsequent reporting period, more and more students start working immediately. During the second half of a planned period, ask a fast-working student to help a student who is falling behind.
- A middle group that meets the minimum requirements independently.
- A group that falls behind. If a student does not start working during the first few weeks of a period but also does not disturb their classmates, you do not intervene. You observe the student but do not (yet) talk to them. In this way, you place responsibility for starting work and showing you the result with the student.
Only after a number of lessons do you ask why the student has not yet started working and whether they would like to be helped by a fast-working student. During the conversation with the student, you may discover missing prior knowledge, a language delay, a lack of concentration, a disability, not knowing how to start, not daring to ask questions, a lack of aptitude for the subject, or a lack of interest in the subject. It is also possible that the problems lie elsewhere. Students who do not immediately start working on their own initiative can learn by observing the fast-working students.
Experience shows that when you assess using ‘tick marks’, an increasingly large group of students starts working immediately in each new reporting period. If more students start working immediately in the following period, you ensure that more and more students master the core material, learn to plan and are ready on time for a final test at the end of the reporting period (SMART/time-bound/realistic).
7.2 Differences in level
When you record a tick for a student, you can add an additional note about the student’s level. This note may be important when deciding whether or not the student should move on to the next year, or when advising on the next type of school. If necessary, discuss these additional notes with the student. If a student prefers a type of school that differs from your advice, they can change your mind by showing increased commitment and thereby achieving better results.
With this approach, differences in level are not a stumbling block but rather a challenge for students to perform at their own level and with their own talents.
7.3 Balance between core material and optional assignments
FFT recommends offering a balanced mix of core material and optional assignments during independent work in a planned period. State in advance what you expect from your students at a minimum in terms of the core material.
7.4 Planning and evaluation
At the beginning of a period, a student completes a form and sets a goal and a plan for the coming period.
At the end of a period, the student receives the first form back and completes a second form:
- Do I have sufficient knowledge of the core material?
- Did I achieve the goal I formulated for the previous period?
- Which topics will I study? (If you achieved little, choose a modest, achievable goal for the next period.)
- What does my plan for this period look like?
By assessing the extent to which the stated goal has been achieved at the end of each period, a student gradually becomes able to set realistic goals (SMART/realistic).
7.5 What should I do when I have finished?
If a student has completed all the assignments, give them this advice:
See whether you can help another student.
Continue working on this subject with another student who has also completed all the assignments.
Spend your time on another subject.
In this example, an Economics teacher describes an option he offers his students to earn 20 per cent of the test grade in advance. In this way, he helps Year 13 VWO students who find it difficult to develop the discipline required for ‘lower-level study skills such as reproduction’.
Practical example – secondary education
Students could earn marks by taking short tests on the whole syllabus before the final test, allowing them to earn 20% (2 marks) of the final grade. These consisted of a number of reproduction questions (things that you have to memorise 100% in order to apply them). No mistakes were allowed in these tests. So, one mistake meant no marks. Zero mistakes meant a 10!
Easy for the teacher to mark. It was either right or wrong. As a student, you could decide for yourself whether to use this option. There was only one student who did not. He usually scored a high number of marks in the final test. For example, he might get a 9 because he had not taken part in the interim tests. There were also students who got a 9 with more mistakes because they carried over 2 marks from the voluntary tests. This student was always somewhat ambivalent about this. On the one hand, he took pleasure in showing me that his approach worked (he was clever). On the other hand, he was somewhat bothered by the feeling that his 9 was ‘worth more’ than someone else’s.
I pointed out to him that he could achieve a 10 by following the ‘Royal Route’, which I did not require him to follow. He chose not to do so. At the same time, I pointed out to him that the students who followed my route built up more knowledge in the long term. Of course, I have never been able to prove this, but if you look at Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve, this has been demonstrated for larger groups.
7.6 Quotes
We respond better to positive incentives than to negative ones. If you tell a colleague, friend or family member that they have made a mistake or are not good enough, this has a negative effect. If you attack people, they respond defensively and rebelliously. But if you look for something to praise or admire, you encourage the behaviour you value and hope to promote.” Ghandi (2017), Arun
Victor Lamme explains how reward should work:
Translate a reward in the future into a reward in the present. That is the recipe for a better world… Reward works when it is individual, immediate, fair and when you have control over your own fate.” Lame (2016), Victor
7.7 Video recommending assessment with tick marks
Watch this video from onzeles.nl
8. Examples
8.1 Feedback form for the teacher
1. My teacher is friendly.
Always – Almost always – Sometimes – Very rarely – Never
(circle the answer that fits best)
I do/do not like this because:
2. My teacher is clear.
Always – Almost always – Sometimes – Very rarely – Never
(circle the answer that fits best)
I do/do not like this because:
3. I do/do not like my teacher keeping order because:
4. This tip would I give my teacher:
8.2 Practical examples for primary and secondary education
Primary education
Example 1 – compliments and reward
The teacher of Year 6 draws five flowers on the board. Each flower represents one of the five tables at which students sit in five groups. Each time the students at a table quickly clear up their table when changing activities, the teacher colours in one petal of the flower belonging to their table. Encouraged by this, the students try to be ready quickly each time so that the teacher can colour in another petal. This approach makes the different groups see it as a game to get the teacher to colour in all the petals of their flower. For these students, simply colouring in the petal is already the complete reward.
You can refine this approach further. When a group’s entire flower has been coloured in, that group receives a reward. For example, they may choose an ‘energiser’ (a game that students enjoy). It is advisable to let the group with a fully coloured-in flower choose from three options that you have determined in advance. Once the reward has been given, you erase the fully coloured-in flower and draw a new one. The group then starts again from the beginning. This also gives the other groups a chance to earn a reward. An additional benefit of this approach is that the table group receives the immediate reward while the whole class can take part in the energiser.
Example 2 – Golden time
Fast-working students are rewarded with free time (golden time). The better a student works, the more time they have to choose something for themselves. During this earned time, they may start doing something for themselves slightly earlier than the others.
Secondary education
Example 1
In this example, an Economics teacher describes an option he offers his students to earn 20 per cent of the test grade in advance. In this way, he helps Year 13 students who find it difficult to develop the discipline required for ‘lower-level study skills such as reproduction’.
Students could earn marks by taking short tests on the whole syllabus before the final test, allowing them to earn 20% (2 marks) of the final grade. These consisted of a number of reproduction questions (things that you have to memorise 100% in order to apply them). No mistakes were allowed in these tests. So, one mistake meant no marks. Zero mistakes meant two marks.
Easy for the teacher to mark. It was either right or wrong. As a student, you could decide for yourself whether to use this option. There was only one student who did not. He usually scored a high number of marks in the final test. For example, he might get a 9 because he had not taken part in the interim tests. There were also students who got a 9 with more mistakes because they carried over 2 marks from the voluntary tests. This student was always somewhat ambivalent about this. He took pleasure in showing that his approach worked (he was clever). On the other hand, he was somewhat bothered by the feeling that his 9 was ‘worth more’ than someone else’s.
I pointed out to him that he could achieve a 10 by following the ‘Royal Route’, which I did not require him to follow. He chose not to do so. At the same time, I pointed out to him that the students who followed my route built up more knowledge in the long term. Of course, I have never been able to prove this, but if you look at Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve, this has been demonstrated for larger groups.
Example 2
Dutch teacher Stephanie saves time: instead of giving a test, she assesses her students by having them work on an app at the same time. She stands at the back at a table and observes whether everyone is working with the app and continues to work. She agrees with the group that if, during the test, she sees even one student doing something other than working with the app, unfortunately they will still have to arrange a test with them….
9. Summary
Good assessment makes development visible. When teacher and student regularly give each other feedback, and students also learn to assess themselves, a learning climate emerges in which trust, ownership and growth are central. Assessment with tick marks supports this process by enabling students to gradually take responsibility for their own development.
