Region 1 Comprehensive Center Reimagining Education Series: Approaches for Assessing Student Learning

While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted conventional assessment practices, it offers an opportunity to reconsider the purposes and types of assessment used to evaluate student learning and inform instruction. Cancellation of spring 2020 student assessments and the freezing of school accountability status gave many districts and schools an opportunity to use other measures to assess students during the 2020-21 school year through thoughtful approaches designed to fit new realities, such as remote and hybrid learning. Many teachers opted for alternative assessment options such as student capstones, reflections, or portfolios. Competency- and proficiency-inspired approaches, which prioritize the substance of student work over seat time, complemented remote learning by providing flexibility for students who faced scheduling and technological hurdles. Concerns about unfinished learning focused renewed attention to formative assessment as a strategy to help teachers tailor instruction to students' needs. Parents, educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders can build on recent experiences and use these data to inform instruction -- ultimately focused on promoting deeper learning, skill or competency attainment, flexibility in student progression, and personalization of learning. In this paper, readers can explore three broad and evidence-based approaches to assessing student learning: (1) competency-based and proficiency-based assessment; (2) authentic assessment; and (3) formative assessment. [For the first paper to the Region 1 Comprehensive Center Reimagining Education Series, "Innovative College and Career Pathways to Advance Equity and Opportunity," see ED612760.]