How can you create a culture of assessment?

1 Define your goals and purpose

Before you start designing and implementing assessments, you need to clarify your goals and purpose for assessment. What do you want to achieve with your assessments? How do they align with your curriculum and standards? How do they reflect your vision and values as an educator? By defining your goals and purpose, you can communicate them clearly to your students, colleagues, and stakeholders, and ensure that your assessments are relevant, meaningful, and aligned with your learning objectives.

2 Involve your students

Creating a culture of assessment means involving your students in the assessment process, not just as recipients, but as active participants. You can involve your students in various ways, such as co-creating assessment criteria, self-assessing and peer-assessing their work, setting personal goals and action plans, and reflecting on their progress and feedback. By involving your students, you can increase their engagement, motivation, and ownership of their learning, as well as develop their critical thinking, metacognition, and self-regulation skills.

5 Collaborate with your colleagues

Creating a culture of assessment means collaborating with your colleagues, not just working in isolation. Collaboration can help you share best practices, resources, and ideas for assessment, as well as provide peer feedback, support, and accountability. You can collaborate with your colleagues in various ways, such as forming professional learning communities, conducting peer observations, or engaging in action research. By collaborating with your colleagues, you can enhance your professional growth, improve your assessment quality, and foster a culture of assessment across your school.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?