Part 3 - Evaluation & Assessment

I grew up in Sweet Home with backward design as the mantra for how to design units of study and lessons.  I agree with Wiggins in his explanation of why assessment is important and how it fits into the broader view of learning. His view on assessment and backward design ensures that your lessons and units are focused on the objectives students need to be able to learn and show their understanding of.  This keeps units from becoming activity-based and full of lessons that might be fun but miss the mark on what you know about what your students can do.

Why is it important that teachers consider assessment before they begin planning lessons or projects?
If you have been at SH for 15 years or more, you have certainly been exposed to Understanding by Design.  It was the backbone for many of the PD sessions I had as a new teacher and for many of the units created over the years.  Considering what you want students to be able to do at the end of a unit of study makes that path towards getting there much clearer. It helps us to consider what evidence we find acceptable to show students learning has occurred and then allows us to craft lessons and instructions that paves that way towards than end.

How can technology support and enhance assessment?
Technology has come a very long way in the past decade when it comes to assessment.  We now have access to myriad tools that can allow for quick assessments to take place consistently throughout a unit.  I think we now have little excuses to not have a good grasp on what kids can do, who has mastered, struggled with, or needs additional support on a topic or skill.  Whether it is delivering a brief exit ticket or creating a longer assessment that students can take, technology helps.  It saves us time in grading so that we can focus on the data to guide our next steps of instruction as well as creates a database to house student data that we can ferer to so see trends.

A strategy I would teach a new teacher is how to use an assessment tool like ThinkTech. It allows you to assess students' knowledge in multiple ways, is flexible, and can be used in a variety of settings or parts of a lesson.  I find that those of us who have learned to use it effectively love what it can do.  If we only use it to create word clouds, then we are missing the bigger picture of its capabilities.

I agree with Grant Wiggins’ statements. He seems to have a lot of knowledge and has done a lot of research on the topic of assessments. His answers coincide with things I have been taught and practices that I currently use.

Why it is important that teachers consider assessment before they begin planning lessons or projects: Wiggins makes some important points in this response. He states that being a teacher is to be a designer, and we often have to think about the final product before we make a plan. We have to figure out what we want them to show or produce at the end of a lesson in order to figure out what they need to know to be able to show it. This is something that I deal with in the SPED world, as students are being assessed based on their IEP goals. What goal are they expected to master? How will I get them to achieve that goal?

How technology can support and enhance assessment: Wiggins states that technology is a partner to student learning. It is a good source of management and storage, and using it to track information is beneficial. However, he says that he believes technology can be overused. I agree that there is a time and place for technology, and it should intentionally be used to enhance assessment. 

One strategy I use for assessing students within my role as a special education teacher is I develop goal tracking sheets for each goal and each student, where I can track everything I need right there. I will also use AI to help me develop questions based on the goals I am tracking. For example, if one student is supposed to add and subtract through 10, AI can provide me an endless list of addition and subtraction problems that I can then transfer right to my assessments and goal tracking forms. 

Wiggins argues that testing is just a small, necessary, part of assessment. Assessment is the broader story. This resonates with me, and I agree with his framing because it validates the value of quick checks (tests) while insisting they are not the whole pictures. Testing is necessary for clear data, but it's cumulative, varied evidence that reveals understanding. Wiggins emphasizes that starting with the end in mind before planning lessons. I wholeheartedly agree. This backward design approach ensures that teaching isn't activity-driven but goal-aligned, which will make instruction purposeful and coherent. It keeps the lesson focused on what students should understand or be able to do.

Yes, I agree. Planning backward keeps instruction meaningful and intentional. It helps to avoid aimless activities and centers every lesson on clear evidence of student growth, which aligns with purposeful teaching. 

One strategy that I use for assessing students that I would share with a new teacher is the use of backward design with clear evidence of learning. I often do this by ending all of my units with a student scored rubric, and a brief written reflection that aids in the overall assessment. I will encourage a new teacher to begin every lesson or unit by articulating what students should know or be able to do by the end, how they will know learning has happened, and to plan learning activities that build toward that evidence.

Wiggins's responses:
Considering assessment before planning....I agree with this...sort of beginning with the end in mind. If you know where you want to get to in the end, it will help you design the path to get there. Not only with the topics that should be covered, but the pacing as well. You can map/chart your course to the end game. 

He support technology with assessment...but this article is from 2002 and I'm not sure he'd have the same thoughts in 2025 with testing being done on iPads. Or maybe he would? Technology has its merits...it can streamline things, get data loaded quickly, etc. But I've seen it, I've lived it. Sometimes tech doesn't work. Or kids forget their device. Or they didn't charge it and it's dead. Handing out a paper and pencil is a lot more straight forward and cuts out all the complications of tech....but I think that ship has sailed and we have to embrace it at this point. 

Here is my advice for a new PE teacher and the strategy I recommend. In PE, we utilize a lot of informal and visual assessment. Due to the nature of our content area, we see hundreds of student over a two day rotation. We have very large classes. We have the students up and moving the majority of the time. It is a unique content area in that many methods of traditional assessment are not made for our content area. Our positioning to be able to see and evaluate all students is vital. Circulating among the students while maintaining positioning to see all students at any given time is a skill that needs to be mastered...not only for evaluation of student performance but also in case of any accidents/emergencies etc. Taking daily shorthand notes or a quick rubric based grade is the most efficient way to assess students in PE. 

Reflection on Grant Wiggins’ Interview
I agree with Wiggins that testing is just one part of assessment and that teachers should plan how they will assess before starting a lesson. Using different methods—like rubrics, critiques, and quizzes—gives me a fuller picture of what students know and can do. His idea of “triangulating” matches how I combine technical checks with creative evaluations. I also agree that standardized tests can’t measure everything, especially creativity.

Two Responses I Connected With
I connected with his point that testing and assessment are different. In photography, my quizzes check technical skills, while critiques and rubrics look at creative growth. I also agree with his idea of backward design—planning the assessment first helps me design lessons that truly meet my goals.

Beyond the Article: My Assessment Strategy
One strategy I would share is using digital portfolios where students upload work and self-reflections. I currently use padlet to do this.  This helps me see their progress, give feedback, and use technology in assessments. What stood out most to me is that good assessments help both me and my students see how much they’re learning and what to work on next.

     I would have to agree with Wiggins’ thoughts on assessments. We are in the business of teaching meaning we want students to acquire skills or knowledge. In order to determine whether one has acquired such information, we need to have varied assessments to monitor our learning goals. If it is something valuable for one to have acquired, then we have to find meaningful ways to perform or produce such information. If we only wanted to expose individuals to ideas and concepts then there would be no need for assessment because there wasn’t a stated desire to learn or acquire information.  
     Wiggins’ response to question one, “What distinctions do you make between testing and assessment?” is a good reminder that testing is a snapshot where assessment is more tracking the growth. I have been a special educator for 25 years and my annual reviews are not based on whether or not a can pass a test; rather, it’s a reflection of how I am employing the discrete knowledge and skills I have acquired over the years. For example, if I were taking a sampling of the IEP’s I have written over my career, I would guess that looking at them would show continued growth and development. Learning is a lifelong process. I am continually adjusting and refining my knowledge and skills because of what I have learned from new situations, sharing of ideas, etc.
     Question three, “Why is it important that teachers consider assessment before they begin planning lessons or projects?” is an important idea to keep in mind when planning. I like the analogy that if I want to construct an addition onto my home I don’t simply just start putting up walls. I need to know what I want when it’s completed; therefore, I have to consider what the space will be used for before I can begin to talk about where the addition will go, its size, how to connect it with existing heating/cooling, etc. After considering what I want the final product to be, then I can focus and plan for the details or steps along the way. Assessment is much the same. If I don’t know what the assessment will be, then how do I know what pieces I have to teach and the most beneficial methods, strategies, or activities for teaching the needed information.
     In thinking beyond the article, one strategy I would share with a new teacher is to consider what type of knowledge the student will be expected to acquire by the end of the lesson. Is the knowledge declarative meaning the need to recall important facts or information? Is the knowledge procedural meaning students’ have to know the necessary steps to follow? Or is the knowledge strategic meaning what information is needed to plan or make a decision? Seeing as how I spend the majority of my day teaching Algebra, understanding what type of knowledge students should have learned from the lesson helps me to identify the type of assessment I want to use. If I am assessing the students’ procedural knowledge then I may use a sorting activity, simple multiple-choice question or matching task. This is when I tend to incorporate technology using ThinkTech. Many of these activities can be left “open” for students to participate in repeated practice beyond the lesson timeframe. If the knowledge I wanted students to acquire was procedural in nature, then I tend to use an exit ticket with one (maybe two) question where students need to “show” whether or not they have learned the necessary steps to follow. When the knowledge I want students to acquire is strategic, I often ask students to decide about what mathematical process the student would use and why.
      Again, what resonates the most with me from reading the article and thinking about what I do in the classroom, it is important to have the end in mind. What should students be able to do or know at the conclusion of the lesson. Having this information is useful in identifying the objectives or smaller components of the overall final product or performance. Helps me to chunk or break down more complex and sophisticated learning.