PERTS Elevate Resource Library

Assessment Choice

Give students meaningful decision-making power in the classroom and ownership over their learning by allowing them to make choices about how they demonstrate mastery.

Grades 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 All subjects

Overview

There are often multiple ways to demonstrate mastery of a topic, but assessments don't always provide an opportunity for creativity or choice in how students show what they've learned. Allowing students to choose how they showcase their learning can give them meaningful decision-making power in the classroom and ownership over their learning.

Through this activity you will be able to:

  • Allow students to make choices about their schoolwork and demonstrate that you take their preferences seriously.
  • Make learning more interesting and meaningful for students by allowing students to choose a method that feels interesting and meaningful to them.
  • Support students' ability to gauge their own learning—an important metacognitive skill.

Conducting the Practice

  1. Decide on an upcoming assessment to use this activity for. This should be an assessment that you feel comfortable relinquishing some control of. Depending on your specific class needs and school/district requirements, you may wish to allow students to co-design an assessment for a single unit or lesson, or a larger body of work such as a quarter or semester final exam. Even giving students a voice on a small, low-stakes assessment is a great way to start incorporating student voice!

  2. Make a list of all the ways to evaluate student work throughout the semester. All of the items on this list should be things you are comfortable with using as an assessment for the body of work at hand. Ways to evaluate student work may include:

    • Journaling
    • Lab work
    • Oral reports
    • A writing cluster (drama, fiction, poetry, and essays)
    • Small group work
    • Artwork
    • Written tests
    • Presentations
    • Etc.—the specifics here will depend on your subject area.

  3. Let students know at the beginning of the unit that they'll have the opportunity to choose how they'd like to demonstrate mastery of the subject matter and that these are the choices.

  4. Create your own set of guidelines for skills and knowledge you are seeking to assess and let students know that they must demonstrate mastery of these skills and knowledge using whichever modality they choose.

  5. Decide with students on their plan, and when they will be locked into their choice for the assignment.

    • Invite students to share their preferences out loud with prompts like:
      • Which of these sounds most interesting?
      • Which of these sounds best for figuring out what you've learned and what you still need to know?
      • Which of these sounds the most challenging? The easiest? Why?
    • Note that this discussion may surface interesting things. Students may not always agree on what is challenging vs. easy, or what sounds most interesting. That's OK! It's helpful for you to know the range of preferences among your students.
    • Then, have students make a final decision by a show of hands or a written vote tally.
    • You may wish to allow each student to choose their own assessment type, or you may ask students to vote so that everyone uses the same type. While the former choice offers the most autonomy, the latter choice may be more practical from a grading and bandwidth perspective.

  6. When the student-chosen assessment is finished, reflect on how it went.

    • Were you able to assess students' learning effectively this way? Why or why not?
    • Where did the student-chosen assessment fall short, and how could this be addressed if you were to do the activity again?

  7. Optional: you may also ask students to reflect on the assessment, to build their metacognitive awareness and help them understand the purpose of assessments.

    • How interesting was this assessment, compared with other assessments?
    • Did it do a good job of telling you what you've learned and what you still need to know? Why or why not?
    • How easy or challenging was it for you?

  8. You may use this activity on as many assessments as you'd like in your class. With advanced planning at the start of a semester or unit, students may even be able to choose most or all of their assessments.

This practice was adapted from the Student Voice Guide developed by the Learning and Development Group at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research in partnership with PERTS.