As I look back on my journey with Cohort 21 and my Action Plan, I find that I am left with more questions than answers, which is perhaps a sign that things are heading in the right direction. I set out to explore how I can authentically assess students in a way that maintains engagement and buy-in, while ALSO removing the pressure they put on themselves to “achieve”. As I wrote in an earlier blgo post, this concern came about because of the extreme perfectionism I was seeing play out in class.
I decided to try a self-assessed summative, wherein students created their own success criteria, evaluted their product using said criteria, then offered me their own self-score, with a conversation between myself and them to offer them the chance to explain their rationale.
While I liked the idea, and think it worked fairly well, the sheer amount of time it took to complete rendered it somewhat unrealistic to implement again, which I feel a bit disappointed by, but also feel a bit helpless to overcome.
I’ve also found that the perfectionistic pressure has settled down as the year has progressed. Students feel more comfortable and at ease with the feedback they’ve been receiving, and seem more open to performing somewhat unsuccessfully on an individual task, recognizing that it is just one small piece in their overall year-long body of work.
So, as I alluded to at the start, I’m left with several questions as I reflect back on this mission:
- Is the perfectionism a typical process students go through at the start of the year that typcially wanes as the trek towards June carries on? If so, what are the ways I can make the start of the school year less overwhelming? Are there alternative assessment models I can begin the year with to help ease their worries and anxieties? (But, at the same time, would that be doing them a disservice for later in the year, when more “traditional” models occur?)
- How can I explore alternative models of assessment while still working within the difficult confines of the finite, rigid schedule and school calendar we inevitably must abide by?
- How meaningful was the students’ experience with the alternative assessment? Did it really have any kind of impact on their overall well-being? Was it worth the amount of time that it required?
These are the questions I am carrying forward into next year and look forward to further mulling over as one school year begins to wrap and another looms on the horizon!