I have never been much of number person in terms of assessment and educational feedback. Obviously, when working in educational institutions and systems, one must abide by the established norms. However, it has always been the more qualitative dimension of feedback which helped me as a learner and perhaps because of that, how I perceive the powerful role of feedback and assessment - not a tool to pigeon hole students into a tier that they are stuck in, but as a path to further development in whatever field a person is learning in. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I like digital badges - within all that a badge contains, it also reflects a learning process, a skill acquired, an achievement, and not merely a number on a scale within a competitive framework of assessment.
This is not to say that feedback and assessment are not important - by no means. They are an integral part to learning. It would be naive to claim that evaluation is not relevant; one is evaluated every day at every moment by a host of audiences and social groups. And, for educational systems to somehow work, there needs be an assessment system to aid the structure of education. Learners too have the right to feedback, to know how they are progressing in the content matter, how they are developing as learners and how they can better achieve both their learning goals and the overall goals set by the curriculum they are learning in.
Educational feedback though, has two main areas: assessing students and teacher evaluation. These may be complimentary (or not), but very much a feature of many educators' days. In this sense, I'd like to share the following infographic on the types of feedback which is possible to give learners and further on, a couple of suggestions on feedback and professional development for educators.
In regard to feedback for educators, how do the issues (raised in these posts below) relate to your professional context?
The Ability to Implement Feedback (George Couros)
Peer Feedback for Professional Development (Annette Lang)
How Pineapple Charts Revolutionize Professional Development (Jennifer Gonzalez)
Why Don’t We Differentiate Professional Development? (Pauline Zdonek)
Assessment as a Means for Developing a Sense of Achievement (Jackie Gerstein)
The Other 21st Century Skills: Educator Self-Assessment (Jackie Gerstein)
How Open Badges Could Change Teaching and Assessment (Maureen Kelleher)
For many teachers, the academic year is ending and the light now shines towards summer days.
If you are about to have your summer break - may it be a happy one!
Images : Pixabay