Taking A Look At Student Assessments

Taking A Look At Student Assessments

It’s that time of year and teachers are feeling the crunch as they’ve recently returned to school after the holiday break. I’m talking about student assessment. It is common practice to report at least twice a year on the academic progress of students. These assessments are usually placed in January and May or June of each school year.

Standardized summative testing has long been debated as to its effectiveness. Compound this with the fact that a growing number of students have learning accommodations in the classroom and, as a consequence, receive an exemption from taking these tests.

This creates a strong argument for the merits of formative assessment, assess as you learn and keep learning and assessment using informal methods. 

Formative assessment provides students with an outlet to respond and perform without necessarily being fully aware that their learning is being assessed. That is a significant psychological barrier removed from the equation for the student and the results can be quite astonishing when compared to summative assessment results.

When students are afforded the time and space to inquire, develop a personal comprehension, problem solve, reformat/redirect, apply new learning and reflect, that is when true learning occurs and becomes authentic assessment.

This kind of learning happens formatively in the classroom each day, not at an isolated desk with a paper or digital packet of questions requiring responses.

My Advice On Approaching Student Assessments

So teachers, as you prepare to spend countless instructional hours this January assessing your students’ learning according to the mandates of your school division, standardized tests, entering assignments/grades into PowerSchool, and providing hard copies of learning evidence all for the deadline of January 30, 2026, I encourage you to utilize a blend of the two in your classroom.

You will be pleasantly surprised at how your students will respond and perform when they do not know that they are being assessed. You will also have more evidence that reflects their authentic learning as well.

How We’re Here To Help

The unit and lesson plans in our K-6 Learning Library can help your K-6 students develop confidence and proficiency in both English Language Arts & Literature and Mathematics in a straightforward and engaging way.

They are designed to foster self-efficacy as one option is to utilize them in a self-instructed fashion. The best part is that you can edit these resources so that your students can focus on what they can do right now and build on it, rather than internalize that they are not performing at grade level.

All of our resources include engaging instructional videos, audio functions, and high-definition images. These resources can be used both digitally and non-digitally.

If you want to fully preview all unit and lesson plans, you can do so on our Teachers Pay Teachers page!

If you have any questions about any of our products, then you can email me at hello@educationrocks.ca.

Thank you for reading this blog post on student assessments. I wish you and your child(ren) or students all the best during this new year!