This is how I assess student work.

The biggest revolution in my teaching this year has been what I assess and how I deliver that information to students. I’ve been doing standards-based assessment for a few years, but inspired by the Mastery Transcript Consortium movement I decided it was time to experiment with competence-based education. Using a few free add-ons to Google apps I’m now able to provide students with real-time reports on their learning progress that I call Learning Reports (not grade reports). The Learning Report is a unified system of rubrics tied to overall competencies with specified recovery options to ensure ample opportunity for growth. Students have to self-assess and reflect on their learning progress before I give them my two cents. Because I’m using Google apps and not the old grade book I’m also able to run some analytics on student learning outcomes that I share with students so we can pinpoint where we need to re-assess or revisit concepts and skills. Students are emailed updated Learning Reports on a frequent basis, so we can dispel the mystery and anxiety that too often gets in the way of focusing on learning. HERE is a real, depersonalized Learning Report in progress and HERE is a data report on a recent assessment.

This is how I provide feedback to students.

In my own experience, the moments when a teacher or professor would sit down with me, and take me slowly through my paper were the moments when I began to learn how to write. Of course, our teaching load and schedule makes it impossible to sit down with all of our students to talk about their writing. We have had to resort to writing comments on their work, and hope they understand what we scribble. But we've all seen a student take the paper on which we spent 30 minutes writing extensive comments and just tuck it into his backpack to never see the light of day. That kills me. Screencasting rides to the rescue.

I use technology to deliver to each of my students the deep, personalized attention to his or her writing that was once impossible. Plus, I can monitor the counter on YouTube to make sure my students watch the assessment video. Now that's progress. Watch below for a sample, and if you have ideas for how to make the feedback more targeted and constructive, email me.