Mindsets for Modern Assessment

Module 1: Mindsets--Source A

  1. Watch the following video, taking notes if required.

  2. Write 3-5 questions you would have liked to ask the speakers if you were present during the screencast.

  3. Synthesis:

    1. Find a peer and use your questions to have a conversation about "The New Normal."

    2. Tweet your questions to the appropriate speakers (they are all very active on Twitter) and see how they respond.

Module 1: Mindsets--Source B

  1. Read the following passage from Quintlian's Institutio Oratoria.

  2. Summarize Quintilian's advice to teachers into 3-5 rules or guidelines.

  3. Synthesis:

    1. Find a peer and use your rules to have a conversation about how teachers should enculturate the pupils left to their care.

    2. With your conversation partner, discuss the relevance of Quintilian's advice today. Is is it relevant? Is it not? Why or why not?

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

Roman philsopher and educator, ca. 35-100CE

Let him therefore adopt a parental attitude to his pupils, and regard himself as the representative of those who have committed their children to his charge. Let him be free from vice himself and refuse to tolerate it in others. Let him be strict but not austere, genial but not too familiar: for austerity will make him unpopular, while familiarity breeds contempt. Let his discourse continually turn on what is good and honourable; the more he admonishes, the less he will have to punish. He must control his temper without however shutting his eyes to faults requiring correction: his instruction must be free from affectation, his industry great, his demands on his class continuous, but not extravagant. He must be ready to answer questions and to put them unasked to those who sit silent. In praising the recitations of his pupils he must be neither grudging nor over-generous: the former quality will give them a distaste for work, while the latter will produce a complacent self-satisfaction. In correcting faults he must avoid sarcasm and above all abuse: for teachers whose rebukes seem to imply positive dislike discourage industry. He should declaim daily himself and, what is more, without stint, that his class may take his utterances home with them. For however many models for imitation he may give them from the authors they are reading, it will still be found that fuller nourishment is provided by the living voice, as we call it, more especially when it proceeds from the teacher himself, who, if his pupils are rightly instructed, should be the object of their affection and respect. And it is scarcely possible to say how much more readily we imitate those whom we like.

Big Questions

Use the opinions of the speakers in "The New Normal" talk and Quintilian's advice to teachers, as well as any related study or reading you have done and your best holisitic judgment from past experience, to answer the following questions by journaling, speakiing with a co-worker or bringing together a small study group.


  1. What are you testing? Standards, competencies or content? What forms of assessment work best for each?

  2. Think of your current situation, and the situation your students are in. In this context, what purpose do assessments serve?

  3. What is the difference between assessment and grades/grading?

  4. "A rose by any other name..." --What is the practical difference between formative and summative assessments?

  5. What is the relative importance of formative and summative assessments?

  6. How can we enculturate students to thrive in a formative-only environment?