Reimagining Assessment

How Can Assessment Best Support Student-Centered Learning?

Educators are rethinking the purposes, forms, and nature of assessment. Beyond testing mastery of traditional content knowledge—an essential task, but not nearly sufficient—educators are designing assessment for learning as an integral part of the learning process.

It’s been said that we value what we measure. That’s why student-centered learning—which values a broader, richer set of cognitive, social, and emotional skills and dispositions—requires new strategies for measurement. Educators taking on the challenge of Reimagining Assessment are creating assessment approaches that support more equitable, personalized, and competency-based learning environments.

In contrast to backward-looking assessments of learning, innovative student-centered assessments empower students and teachers to move learning forward—in other words, they are assessments for learning.

Educators who are Reimagining Assessment are utilizing performance-based assessments to gather richer evidence of learning, and allowing students to move on when ready once they’ve demonstrated mastery. They’re engaging in formative assessment to provide personalized feedback and guide instructional decisions. Adaptive assessments are reducing time spent on testing, and portable competencies like badges are helping students show their learning beyond school. By engaging their communities and deepening opportunities for reflection, innovative educators are helping their systems begin to embrace more balanced, culturally responsive approaches to assessment that put students at the center.

The Assessment for Learning Project initiative aims directly at rethinking the core role(s) that assessment can play to support student attainment of deeper learning.

Our Full Spectrum of Evidence Toolkit is a free resource to help schools and districts navigate complex student-centered innovation decisions and evaluate program success by centering student voices.