We’ve heard about Assessment for Learning and Assessment of Learning however Assessment as Learning is something I’ve been reading about. When students can focus on their learning and take an active role in managing their learning through cognitive reconstruction this is assessment as learning.  This process of metacognition for students is key in their journey of becoming life-long learners. 

I am lucky to have experienced this journey as a leaner and work with students helping them with this journey.  What is it that motivates students to become engaged in this process of assessment as learning?  I believe students need to have a personal interest in the entity; the thing which is in my experience is an authentic learning experience.  My personal experience with this  involves 7 years of working with individual students from across Canada in the area of web site development.  Web site development is the entity/thing that sparked the interest for the 4 students I personally worked with in the training for web site development with Skills Canada.  These self-motivated individuals found value in this area and devoted countless hours pursuing knowledge and skills in the area.

In my teaching experience I never had a student become engaged in mathematics the way I had students engaged in physics, electronics or website development.  I taught mathematics in the traditional way; however I was always challenging this by trying to incorporated project based learning; however the curriculum does not lend itself easily to this process.  When I started teaching computer science I decided to teach the course traditionally by using a programming language and isolate the programming skills outlined in the curriculum.  I soon found my interest in the subject wavering and my student’s lack of interest disheartening.  Why would I do this?  In 1999 I had a few students in my class who were building websites and I was amazed at what they knew and could do.  I had many questions on this and soon realized their motivation.  The next year my computer science class became a web site development class.  I was able to cover my curriculum with a purpose.  My students built websites and web based applications – activities and content which provided my students an authentic learning experience.  I was engaged in learning along with my students – a life changing experience for me.  At this point in my career I involved my students in Skills Canada.  Students competed in web design against other students.  I started an extra-curricular club to work with students after school further developing their skills in web programming and graphic design.  I had several students start businesses building websites and I had many businesses approach me which involved me working with students building websites for free and providing students a real-life learning experience. 

I’ve had students start my computer science class who have easily demonstrated every curriculum learning outcome.  How does this happen?  Why did this never happen with students in Math?  Personal motivation is a powerful learning stimulus.  These students used assessment as learning; they continually reflected on their own learning and made adjustments to gain deeper understanding.  The topic – which essentially is a project based learning activity, engaged the students to learning the programming structures.  Strip away the topic and teach the skills needed in an isolated way provided little learning motivation.

When students have the choice of project to do they pick a project which is meaningful to them providing the motivation to learning the skills required to complete the project.  Productive learning involves students seeing the results of their work as meaningful.  Critical and constructive decision making is crucial to this process which students are actively engaged in when they use assessment as learning.  This process becomes a habit of mind where students are metacognitively aware of their increasing learning independence. “Assessment as learning focuses on the explicit fostering of students’ capacity over time to be their own best assessors, but teachers need to start by presenting and modeling external, structured opportunities for students to assess themselves.”

I had to design my instruction in a way that allowed students to think about and monitor their own learning.  My role of a teacher changed to that of a facilitator or a project manager.  Students were on individual learning plans constructed by themselves which I monitored and offered assistance when they required it.  This was challenging for me to release the control to the students – I often felt like I had no control of what was going on; however the students were engaged in learning.  Some of my students required more attention than others; however overall I would not go back to the way I originally started teaching the class.

Now that I’m out of the classroom I am looking at ways to work with math teachers in the high school examining ways to engaging students in assessment as learning and to motivate students in learning math.