The Benefits of Offering Students Choice in Assessment

The majority of teachers in high schools today have a set curriculum and a set type of assessment. This could be tests, papers, projects, or anything of the sort. But what if having a concrete form of assessment is not helping our students, but hurting them? What if having only one type of assessment is not accurately portraying student knowledge? How can we fix this dilemma?

One solution is to give students the option to choose which type of assessment they will take part in. This solution allows students to express creativity in projects, such as creating a music video related to an academic topic, or to stick with more traditional assessments, such as tests. This wide range of assessments also allows students to feel more empowered and more engaged with the material. Baynard Woods, author of The Right to Think: Giving Adolescents the Skills to Make Sense of the World, states that it is our responsibility as educators to “empower students to think by helping them see the role that thinking plays in the world” and to “give them time and opportunities to reflect on their own work and their own thinking” (p 16). They are not able to do these things fully if they are not given the choice of assessment.

Another benefit, and perhaps one of the most important, is that differentiation in assessment is able to grab the students’ attention and get them more involved with the material rather than the students just memorizing facts for a test. The video below is a primary example of how different forms of assessment are helping students actually learn material as well as getting the students excited to learn in New York schools.

According to Mike Anderson, author of the article titled, “Learning to Choose, Choosing to Learn”, there are even more reasons to turn to offering choice in the classroom. Anderson states that “choice helps overcome two common challenges: differentiation and apathy” (Anderson). If students are not given differentiation, they are more likely to get bored and mentally check out of class. Differentiation allows the students to feel that spark of interest again which engages them with the material. This also leads the students to becoming more self-driven in the classroom. In order to diminish apathy in the classroom, the educator must spark the interests of the students. Both of these issues can be avoided by allowing students to choose how they will be assessed. It all boils down to appealing to the students’ interests.

When it comes to assessment differentiation, the benefits aren’t all for the students. This allows the teacher to be more creative with his/her assessments, and it becomes more fun for the teacher. Instead of spending an entire weekend grading tests or papers, the teacher can spend his/her time admiring the creative work of his/her students. The teacher doesn’t get bored grading the same things over and over again, and the students become more engaged with the material. It’s a win for both parties!

Lastly, an infographic published by EducationWeek.org sums up many of the pros, as well as rebuttals from the opposing side, to allowing a student-driven environment in the classroom (which can be achieved through differentiation assessment). There are hardly any downsides to this method of assessment for a teacher that is willing to work hard and do things out of the ordinary for his/her students.

All teachers should strive to incorporate their students’ interests, and this is one of the many ways to do so. Giving students a choice allows class time and grading to become more enjoyable for both the students and the teacher.

Citations

(2013, March 27). Retrieved November 14, 2018, from https://youtu.be/0HjWIxzjcrI (IN CLASS)

Ascd. (n.d.). Chapter 1. The Key Benefits of Choice. Retrieved November 14, 2018, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/116015/chapters/The-Key-Benefits-of-Choice.aspx

DeWitt, P. (2017, June 08). Student-Driven Differentiation: Putting Student Voice Behind The Wheel. Retrieved November 14, 2018, from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2017/06/student-driven_differentiation_putting_student_voice_behind_the_wheel.html

Plaut, S., & Plaut, S. (2009). The Right to Literacy in Secondary Schools: Creating a Culture of Thinking(p. 16). New York: Teachers College Press. (IN CLASS)