Multiple Methods of Assessment
Overview
Using multiple methods of assessment can help educators gain a comprehensive understanding of learner progress across a wide range of skills and content. Allowing learners to demonstrate their learning in multiple formats can be beneficial, particularly when learners are given autonomy in their assessment opportunities. Written, visual, and oral assessments can help educators understand learning from a variety of angles, informing instruction and shaping future assessments. Additionally, it is important to remember that not all assessment activities need to be graded, as many can be used to spark larger conversations about meeting learning goals and in turn inform instruction. Including students in brainstorming and selecting assessment methods is an empowering tool to increase student engagement and autonomy while letting them demonstrate their knowledge through their strengths. This can be especially beneficial for those with learning disabilities. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework specifically highlights the need for multiple methods of assessment as a strengths-based method of differentiating instruction and assessment and addressing learner variability in the classroom.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch as these educators in K-12 classrooms discuss the multiple methods of assessment they use with their students to ensure learner progress and understanding. These methods of assessment are embedded within the process of project-based learning and highlight a variety of different assessment methods.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Watch as this educator uses the Google Suite to help curate online portfolios for learner assessments throughout the year. Learners include a variety of assignments and assessments and are documented through Google Sites, allowing learners to navigate website creation.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Instructional Approaches Strategies
Providing math tasks with high cognitive demand conveys high expectations for all students by challenging them to engage in higher-order thinking.
CRA is a sequential instructional approach during which students move from working with concrete materials to creating representational drawings to using abstract symbols.
Thinking of and about patterns encourages learners to look for and understand the rules and relationships that are critical components of mathematical reasoning.
Teaching students to recognize the structures of algebraic representations helps them transfer solution methods from familiar to unfamiliar problems.
Discussing strategies for solving mathematics problems after initially letting students attempt to problem solve on their own helps them understand how to organize their Algebraic Thinking and intentionally tackle problems.
The flipped classroom has two parts: cooperative group activities in class and digitally-based individual instruction out of class.
In guided inquiry, teachers help students use their own language for constructing knowledge by active listening and questioning.
Math centers with math games, manipulatives, and activities support learner interests and promote the development of more complex math skills and social interactions.
Through short but regular mindfulness activities, students develop their awareness and ability to focus.
Instruction in multiple formats allows students to activate different cognitive skills to understand and remember the steps they are to take in their math work.
When teachers connect math to the students' world, students see how math is relevant and applicable to their daily lives.
A strengths-based approach is one where educators intentionally identify, communicate, and harness students' assets, across many aspects of the whole child, in order to empower them to flourish.
Untimed tests provide students the opportunity to flexibly and productively work with numbers, further developing their problem-solving abilities.
Writing that encourages students to articulate their understanding of math concepts or explain math ideas helps deepen students' mathematical understanding.
