In school in general, but particularly in mathematics, kids see assessment as something that is done to them as opposed to what it can be: a powerful resource, and one that they have control over. Assessment generally feels like a punishment rather than a flashlight that can help identify a learner’s needs. As a soccer player, tuba player, or video gamer, kids are constantly performing self-assessments in order to get better. In these spaces, kids are constantly thinking about ways to improve comfortably, however taking that same practice into math class puts students on edge. How can we change the environment so that when we ask a high school student about their math learning, they can say “here’s what targets I’ve mastered, here’s where I’m still working.” Students could own their own responsibility to get there.

Student-Engaged Assessment is defined by EL Education in depth in the 2014 book Leaders of Their Own Learning by Ron Berger, Leah Rugan, and Libby Woodfin. The graphic within the introduction (shown here to the upper right) best explains the term: “Student-engaged assessment is a system of interrelated practices that positions students as leaders of their own learning.” These 8 practices are:

• Standards Based Grading

• Learning Targets

• Checking for Understanding during Daily Lessons

• Using data with students

• Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback

• Student-led conferences

• Celebrations of learning

• Passage presentations with portfolios

These practices, when implemented across a school community, transform the structures of a school to be truly student centered. Read Why Student-Engaged Assessment Matters from the introduction of Leaders of their Own Learning to unpack the impact these practices can have across content areas. The high level results include:

• Motivating students to care

• Changing mindsets (of all members of a community especially students)

• Engaging students as leaders of their own learning

• Teaching reflection

• Building a culture of collaboration, trust, and evidence

• Strengthening home-school connections

As explored in Recommendation 2, shifting the culture of mathematics is particularly crucial in our current national climate. Ensuring that student-engaged assessment practices are embedded within a school community, and particularly a math department, greatly supports a school’s efforts in changing students’ mindsets from fixed to growth: to a sense that I can improve with effort.

In John Hattie’s book Visible Learning for Mathematics, he researches the impact of different practices on student outcome goals. Above all others (including discourse, response to intervention cycles, and feedback), self-reported grades/student expectations have the greatest impact on overall student outcomes. “It may seem obvious that teachers should know whether or not their students are learning what they are supposed to. But students need to know whether they’re on the right track, too. Self-reported grades reflect the extent to which students have accurate understandings of and abilities to predict their achievement. (Visible Learning for Mathematics, 57). Hattie goes on to unpack why this practice has had the greatest impact on student knowledge outcomes.

Student-Engaged Assessment in mathematics resembles that in all other areas of instruction. However, due to the complexity of the components of math instruction as mentioned in Recommendation #6, there are plenty of nuanced difficulties that can occur when attempting to create a Student-Engaged Assessment mathematics curriculum.

Some of these struggles include:

1. A large number of standards

   • With all three equally important areas of instruction mentioned in recommendation 6 (Conceptual topics, foundational math facts, and problem solving skills), teachers can be hard pressed to adequately map standards for their own instruction, let alone create plans that can engage students with targets and data

2. A lack of Student-Engaged Assessment friendly curriculum resources

   • Although not only an issue with mathematics instruction, this struggle causes teachers to have to constantly recreate assessments, exit tickets, unit scope and sequences, etc. in order to support students in being able to clearly see their learning targets, reflect on their learning and set goals for future assessments.

3. Integration into Expeditions and Celebrations of Learning

   • With a large number of standards and plenty of content to cover, it is not surprising that mathematics teachers struggle to integrate successfully and meaningfully into expeditions and celebrations of learning. EL Education has moved away from recommending this practice, as it is incredibly difficult to achieve while maintaining the integrity of the mathematics content. in the mathematics. More common is a simplified version of some application of math (some data, statistics, or graphs applied). These are often not aligned to appropriate grade level standards (in fact, they are often grade levels below) and do not delve into the complexity of the mathematics. Rather, they attempt to showcase the content of the expedition (science/social studies) by highlighting numerical evidence and data analysis. The mathematics component that students are asked to do is not the focus, nor assessable to grade level goals. This is not to say it should not be attempted, however there are few examples of successful mathematics integration into expeditions which can be showcased in celebrations of learning. (See Recommendation #10 for more on ways to successfully begin to integrate)

4. History and Current Practices of Mathematics Assessments

   • Jo Boaler has written extensively in in her 2016 book Mathematical Mindsets on this topic in Chapter 8: Assessment for a Growth Mindset. Find key points below, but a more in depth summary in the link.

• In the United States, students are overtested, particularly in mathematics.

• Students are most frequently judged by narrow procedural mathematics questions presented with multiple-choice answers on both standardized and, as a result of these tests, in class assessments.

• For many decades in the United States, tests have assessed what is easy to test instead of important and valuable mathematics.

• Mathematics teachers have had to focus their teaching on narrow procedural mathematics, not the broad creative, and growth mathematics that is so important.

• The damage does not end with standardized testing, for math teachers are led to believe they should use classroom tests that mimic low-quality standardized tests, even when they know the tests assess narrow mathematics. They do this to help prepare students for later success

These struggles beg the question - how are Student Engaged Assessment practices possible when so many factors are impeding implementation in schools?

In order to implement Student Engaged Assessment practices within a school building teachers must be supported with the following (or be supported to create/edit the following):

1. A clear scope and sequence of standards across a school year of all areas of mathematics instruction, including learning targets and assessments

2. A deep understanding of prioritized standards for their grade level and for the development of important, valuable mathematics.

3. Support in developing assessments and student friendly rubrics that allow for student reflection and the use of data with students.

   • Whenever possible, engaging with student’s creation of criteria for mastery as a part of unpacking prioritized learning targets. See John Hattie’s work (Professor from the University of Melborne, Australia mentioned above) through videos and other resources here.

4. Support in choosing powerful tasks to implement within units of study where they otherwise do not exist in curricular tools

5. Support in developing clear models and methods for critique and feedback around mathematical modeling and solution generation of meaningful tasks

6. Time to collaborate intentionally with colleagues around innovative ideas for celebrations of mathematics learning and integration into other content areas expeditions.

7. Models of exemplar mathematics centered celebrations of learning and integrated expeditions

8. Strategic yearly reflection (through looking at student work protocols, high quality work protocols, and looking at data protocols that focus on mathematics) on current school wide practices to set small goals to continue to implement more ideal practices.