SURMATION
The place to find student centered SUmative and foRMAtive assessment creaTION ideas for your classroom.
Rationale
The purpose of assessments is to test student performance and development. Teachers assess and students learn. In this process, students are engaged in answering questions, but not necessarily evaluating the material. They are passive recipients that memorize and apply. However, teaching students to assess their own knowledge and performance is a valuable skill.
Another benefit of introducing this type of assessment is that it increases student engagement through the prospect of being viewed by an authentic audience and the process of creation. In a traditional scenario, the only people that will see their work, and subsequent grade, are their teacher and parents. There is nothing to motivate them towards mastery and ownership of their learning.
When some of that power is transferred from teacher to students, they become empowered.
Part of the process of creating assessments is asking students to research their materials from class, evaluate what information is most important, and validate the information that they and their peers gathered. Students are now able to learn, not only from taking a quiz, but from creating one. When they look at the quizzes made by peers, they are also forced to think analytically as to whether the questions are good questions. They also get an authentic audience that will further engage them in the task at hand. The game becomes a hunt for mistakes, as peers don’t want their mistakes to be found, while simultaneously they don’t want to be caught in a mistake. Can the question be answered with what the class learned? Do the choices for multiple choice answers challenge the students? Thinking about the wrong answers as well as the right ones help students to solidify their knowledge of the content through nonexamples. If students know that some of their questions will appear on the next assessment, it creates a point of pride that they were good enough to be chosen. This can also save the teacher work, which is always a win.