Developing 21st Century Skills Between Test and Test: Teach Them to See the Path, Not the Grade

When the grade arrives—do you focus on the score, or do you also see the path your student took? Dr. Omer Choresh reminds us that the greatest scientists succeeded because they saw the small steps along the way to achievement

Dr. Omer Choresh

“The long road they chose to walk, at the end of which awaits an important discovery or breakthrough or perhaps a new insight, sometimes seems difficult and exhausting,” described Professor Ora Antin, an Israeli physicist, regarding the work of scientists. “But along the way, there are small daily successes that bring much satisfaction and joy. The journey itself is the heart of the matter.”

In this article, I propose an assessment approach that gives more weight to the learning process, the ability to learn from mistakes, and the ability to construct new knowledge based on previous ones. In this way, we reduce the weight and importance we place on one-time assessments, like a test.

Let us consider the following example -before starting to learn a new topic, the students were given a task. In this task, they were required to watch a short video as an introduction to the subject and then answer a few questions. The next lesson focused on introducing the topic while emphasizing concepts from the video, clarifying them, and expanding on them with additional examples. Towards the end of the lesson, the students were asked to answer the same questions again without seeing their previous answers.

The evaluation of the task was conducted as follows: first, the gap between the students' answers before the lesson and their answers to the same task after the lesson was examined. From this gap, it was possible to assess the students’ attentiveness, their ability to reflect on the progress they made, and their improvement, essentially indicating their learning progress.

Only afterward was a grade given for each task, both before and after the lesson. The grade given to the students for their improvement was factored into the final grade, with more weight given to the level of improvement.

At this point, we may encounter an issue—how do we assess the level of improvement? Here, we need to establish guidelines. For example, what is the appropriate score for a complete answer in percentages (0-100)? We evaluate the answer before and after the lesson and consider the difference in score, with a larger gap reflecting a greater weight in the grade according to predetermined criteria. Imagine, for instance, a student who improved their score from 40 to 70 receiving a similar final evaluation to a student who improved from 90 to 100. Does that sound odd? Not necessarily, if we choose to focus on the significance of the journey rather than on a specific moment of success that tests only certain abilities but not others.

In the spirit of future-oriented pedagogy, the teacher’s role is also to prepare students for the challenges of tomorrow—both in society, academia, and the world at large—and especially to educate a generation of thinkers who are critical, innovative, and daring enough to create change. Teachers must respect students' mistakes and know how to use them to foster understanding and correct misconceptions.

One way to do this is through active learning instead of frontal teaching. In this method, students learn the material on their own using processed materials, books, or other learning tools. Afterward, students submit a task following each learning unit. The teacher then provides formative feedback on the task, including guiding instructions to improve the answers and highlighting mistakes so that the student can learn from them. For example, the teacher might say: “You made a common conceptual mistake—this is an opportunity to think differently, so you’ll learn not to repeat this mistake.”

Such feedback can be accompanied by suggestions like: "Add more examples," "You didn’t provide reasoning" or "You only presented one argument instead of two" After this formative feedback, the student is allowed to correct the task, and once again, the gap between the first and second submissions is assessed. This gap takes on more significance in the final grade than the absolute score of the task, thereby giving more importance to the student’s progress, their learning journey, and their ability to learn from mistakes.

To avoid the paradox where a student might deliberately submit a poor task to benefit more from the improvement factor, teachers can also define progress from task to task and non-repetition of past mistakes as components of the grade. As mentioned, the teacher should define criteria for improvement, which can be tailored to each task based on its nature.

Another more advanced practice is self-assessment, where students complete a task and answer questions through independent learning without being taught the material by a teacher, only receiving guidance and learning resources from them. Afterward, the topic is taught in class. But unlike the first practice, where the student repeats the task and the teacher evaluates the progress, here the student does so on the original task they submitted.

The teacher then evaluates the student's self-reflection and gives more weight to the changes made by the student, meaning the journey they undertook, the knowledge they gained, and their ability to learn from mistakes.

It’s important to note that these assessment methods also have an emotional impact on the student, which is supposed to promote their learning. The student feels seen and that their efforts along the way are appreciated, with their effort being given more weight in the assessment. The student is not judged solely on their ability to learn and apply knowledge at one point in time, where the meaning of the assessment event is not always apparent in future learning.

To conclude, in the past, a teacher was considered good if students enjoyed learning with them and if they prepared them properly for final exams, even if the teacher only imparted the necessary knowledge to pass those exams. In the 21st century, all these aspects are still very important, as we are still evaluated based on our success rates in final exams and because a good relationship with the teacher promotes learning—but they are not enough.

By giving more weight to evaluating the learning process rather than grades from exams or other tasks, we achieve two goals: preparing the student for final exams while cultivating an independent learner with the ability for self-criticism and the application of knowledge they have understood not only for the exam but throughout their learning journey.