Transformation in K-12 Assessment Practices

Assessment as a practice has been used and misused, interpreted and misinterpreted, and succeeded and failed in education. It is a multi billion business today especially in K-12 education sector. For many Indian educators assessment is a two sided sword of sharpening intelligence vs social pressure of academic performance in % to the larger community of parents and society. In our common sense assessment is a reflection of learning a GPS (Guru Positioning System) where the educators and students reflect back his/her teaching and learning to ensure whether learner could achieve the learning outcome, pedagogy of learning impacting learning, where the teacher to change, adapt and remodel the instructional practices, whether learning happens on a right direction and also know what is not learned yet so that one can further move towards the endless possibility of learning.

The little kids those who enter to school for the first time around the age of 3 years, a fresh piece of life, has an immense appetite for learning. However we have seen this appetite slowly transformed to stress for learning and later a hatred towards learning before they enter formal schooling. Does the pressure for learning for the so called "assessment" make this transformation from immense appetite to hatred ?

K-12 schooling in India began to show the symptoms of a miserable failure as grade 11 and 12 already disappeared form schools at a larger extend towards coaching industry. When this move decently begun from grade 8 to 12, it is high time to wake to sleeping giant. Here what is inevitable is happening. A schooling sector that is highly rigid and doesn't want to change according to time is slowly and gradually giving a way to coaching sector who are awake and providing a temporary solution. This solution is at the cost of a huge damage to the teenagers who are supposed to have holistic development instead of ginny pigs of memorization. Late is better than never, thinking and wakeful schools can join the move towards transforming learning and assessment for the need of today and tomorrow.

Inviting such like minded educational professionals to join... for meaningful discussion towards shaping a path towards the future of learning and assessment for K-12 schools for tomorrow...