{"id":6587,"date":"2015-05-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/moving-past-summative-vs-formative-assessments\/"},"modified":"2020-02-27T14:46:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T19:46:57","slug":"moving-past-summative-vs-formative-assessments","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/moving-past-summative-vs-formative-assessments\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving Past Summative vs. Formative Assessments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CarAs competency-based education (CBE) gains momentum in higher education, the market is becoming increasingly crowded with companies and institutions working on competency-based platforms and online approaches to CBE.<\/p>\n

One of the challenges with online CBE, however, is that there is such an intense focus on building from scratch or building in-house that most of an organization\u2019s energy and resources are channeled into the platform and the intricate backward mapping and breakdown of competencies. In addition, in having to consider a multitude of ancillary issues such as integrating adaptive learning technologies, creating e-portfolios, building repositories of content, and reimagining staffing models, many learning providers find themselves dealing with assessments as more of an afterthought.<\/p>\n

But assessments are the crux of a competency-based approach. Neglecting them misses dialing in on one of the things that is so critical to CBE being transformational, robust, and rigorous: how do we know if and when a student has achieved proficiency, fluency, and mastery of a competency?<\/p>\n

In missing this, too often providers fall back on a familiar pattern by merely focusing on the summative assessments at the end of a course of study rather than valid assessments that are deployed rapidly and frequently throughout.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t simply a matter of focusing on formative assessments instead of summative. Indeed, many in the field are missing the opportunity to blow past the familiar categorization scheme of summative vs. formative assessments and move to a world in which assessments are both for <\/i>learning\u2014to drive what a student does next\u2014as well as of <\/i>learning\u2014and thus have stakes attached to them, in the sense that students move on only upon mastery.<\/p>\n

A story that we\u2019ve told before bears repeating, as it helps illustrate why this is possible in a competency-based world where time becomes a variable and learning for all students is a constant\u2014in other words, failure is no longer an option.<\/p>\n

In his book Chasing the Rabbit<\/a>, Steven Spear, a senior lecturer at MIT, recounts an experience that demonstrates the power of advancing upon mastery rather than according to time-based metrics. While doing research in 1996 as a doctoral student studying Toyota\u2019s famed production system, Spear took temporary jobs working on an assembly line at Toyota and one of the Detroit Big Three plants at the passenger-side front seat installation point. At the Detroit Big Three factory, the worker doing the training essentially told Spear, \u201cThe cars come down this line every 58 seconds, so that\u2019s how long you have to install this seat. Now I\u2019m going to show you how to do it. First, you do this. Then do that, then click this in here just like this, then tighten this, then do that,\u201d and so on, until the seat was completely installed.<\/p>\n

Spear was quite certain he could do each of those things in the allotted time, given that he had earned a master\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. But when he tried to install the seat in the car, he couldn\u2019t do it correctly. His trainer had to stop the assembly line and show Spear how to do it again. When the next car arrived, Spear tried again but did not get it right. In an entire hour, he installed only four seats correctly.<\/p>\n

One reason why it was historically so important to test every product when it came off the end of a production line like the Detroit Big Three\u2019s was that there were typically hundreds of steps involved in making a product, and the company could not be sure that each step had been done correctly. In business, we call that end-of-the-line activity \u201cinspection.\u201d In education, we call it \u201csummative assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Spear went to work at the same station in Toyota\u2019s plant, he had a completely different experience. First, he went to a training station where he was told, \u201cThese are the seven steps required to install this seat successfully. You don\u2019t have the privilege of learning step 2 until you\u2019ve demonstrated mastery of step 1. If you master step 1 in a minute, you can begin learning step 2 a minute from now. If step 1 takes you an hour, then you can learn step 2 in an hour. And if it takes you a day, then you can learn step 2 tomorrow. It makes no sense for us to teach you subsequent steps if you can\u2019t do the prior ones correctly.\u201d Assessment, or testing, was still administered, but now it was used as an integral part of the learning process. As a result, when he eventually took his spot on Toyota\u2019s production line, Spear was able to assemble his part the first time and every time. In other words, assessment was used both for<\/i> and of <\/i>learning. Toyota doesn\u2019t have to treat formative and summative assessments as two different things\u2014just as we don\u2019t have to do so in education when we move to a truly competency-based system.<\/p>\n

Of course, this doesn\u2019t preclude also having a capstone project that serves as an assessment at the end of a module or course of learning to serve as a holistic encapsulation of all the learning that has preceded it to be sure that students have retained what they learned and can apply it in a comprehensive way. But here, too, how students perform can inform whether and where they must learn more\u2014and they should keep working on their project or performance until they have demonstrated true mastery.<\/p>\n

With a system such as this in place\u2014frequent assessments that drive and measure learning\u2014students have access to rapid feedback to inform their learning in a motivating way. And the assessments can generate important and actionable information about each student such that one tutor can serve many more students because she can efficiently gauge the students\u2019 level of understanding and intervene only when necessary. These data-driven interactions between teachers and students actually become both richer, highly tailored teaching moments and more cost-effective interventions.<\/p>\n

Mastery shouldn\u2019t be simply certified by the final test at the end of a course. It should occur at every point along a student\u2019s pathway. And that requires up-front thought and investment from CBE providers\u2014not treating assessment as an afterthought.<\/p>\n

\n

Amy is the director of ReSchool Colorado, an expansive initiative of the Donnell-Kay Foundation to design and launch an inspirational, world class education system that coordinates people and resources in new, dynamic ways around each and every learner. <\/p>\n

Michael is a co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute and serves as the executive director of its education program. He leads a team that educates policymakers and community leaders on the power of disruptive innovation in the K-12 and higher education spheres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","mapsvg_location":""},"legacy_category":[414],"issue":[368,395],"location":[],"class_list":["post-6587","cw_post","type-cw_post","status-publish","hentry","legacy_category-higher-education","issue-issues-in-practice","issue-create-balanced-systems-of-assessments"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMoving Past Summative vs. Formative Assessments - Aurora Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/moving-past-summative-vs-formative-assessments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moving Past Summative vs. Formative Assessments - Aurora Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As competency-based education (CBE) gains momentum in higher education, the market is becoming increasingly crowded with companies...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/moving-past-summative-vs-formative-assessments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Aurora Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AuroraInst\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-27T19:46:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/vehicle-193213_1280-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Aurora_Inst\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"Michelle R. 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