Reflecting on my experiences as a student and an educator, I view assessment as a continuous action rather than a terminal event. I believe that true evidence of learning lives within the daily process of engaging with concepts, not in a single snapshot at the end of a unit.

I believe assessment supports learning when it acts as an ongoing source of insight for both the student and myself. A traditional assessment can offer a helpful baseline measurement or mile marker of a student's performance level at any given moment. However, when an assessment is treated as a final destination, it often inhibits genuine understanding.

For example, cramming for a test primarily targets short-term recall at the bottom of Bloom’s Taxonomy. While a student might temporarily memorize definitions to pass an exam, this temporary performance does not reflect sustained learning. Information stored for a Friday test is often forgotten by Monday. I believe real learning occurs when a student reaches at least the apply level on Bloom's Taxonomy by taking a core concept and successfully using it within a new context.

This distinction is similar to the shift described by Shepard (2000), who argues that assessment "should be moved into the middle of the teaching and learning process instead of being postponed as only the end-point of instruction" (p. 10). Shepard highlights that assessment should not simply sit at the end of instruction to record a final grade. Instead, I believe assessment must be built directly into the learning experience. Evidence of understanding should be visible in everything a student does in class. When assessment is included within daily activities, it changes the fundamental purpose of evaluation. Rather than using tests as a binary system of passes and fails, ongoing assessment reveals how a student's understanding is actively developing.

Traditional assessments still serve a clear purpose in education. Two key reasons include:

1. Identifying External Variables: If an entire class performs poorly on an assessment, I do not automatically view it as a lack of student capability. Instead, I view it as evidence that external variables impacted the data, whether that involves instructional design, timing, or context. Either way, the data shows that students have not yet mastered the concept, pointing to a clear need to reteach.

2. Systemic Data Collection: Standardized and formal tests remain the most efficient way to gather macro level quantitative data across students, schools and districts. With this data, we can better understand broad trends regarding what is working and what isn't. While these metrics provide a high-level overview, they do not give a full or accurate picture of an individual student's growth.

Ultimately, I believe assessment supports learning best when we continuously gather evidence of student thinking throughout the learning process, reserving traditional assessments for baselines, mile markers and macro level data. Capturing ongoing learning takes work, but technology offers "the process by which humans modify nature to meet their needs and wants” and “as a means of improving previous arrangements" (Selwyn, 2016, pp. 6-7). By leveraging modern tools to streamline our workflows, gathering daily evidence of learning becomes not only manageable, but deeply meaningful.

References

Selwyn, N. (2016). Education and technology: Key issues and debates (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of classroom assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4–14. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X029007004

*Used ChatGPT to generate the image at the top and confirm APA 7th edition formatting.

Assessment as an Ongoing Action