Engaged Student Assessments
This post is fifth of a series based on excepts from my book on Student-Engaged Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners by Laura Greenstein and Mary Ann Burke (2020). You can purchase the book from Roman and Littlefield for charts, examples, and worksheets on how to engage students to become owners of their learning successes.
What Do Engaged Students Look Like?
Teachers have observed that engaged learners:
- Find motivation and personal meaning in learning and assessing.
- Rely on verified practices and routines for practical and participatory assessment.
- Display indicators of engagement including interest, purpose, and resolve.
Engagement is at the heart of motivation. This applies to preschoolers playing tee ball as well as to adults in the workplace and teachers in the classroom. When 3rd grader Torrance says he is not interested in playing ball but wants to ride a horse, his father says they can’t afford riding so he has to play ball. As a result, he’s disengaged and wanders around the outfield without purpose.
After reading about “boring” poets and traditional poetry forms in English class, Keenan hastily decides he loathes poetry, so he writes an original rap to describe DNA. When his teacher returns his “poem,” the note says that it doesn’t align with the school’s writing standards for supporting claims with evidence. Here’s a small segment of Keenan’s poem in which he explains deoxyribonucleic acid, it’s structure, and purpose.
Listen to a story that I’m going to tell.
How DNA is found inside all your cells.
In your hair, blood, skin, and lungs as well;
Even got some DNA to help me smell.
My DNA is not for your replication.
Use your own nucleic a’ for your mutation.
Keenan’s wants no part of your creation.
I need my DNA for life’s duration.
How Parents Can Support Student Success