Assessing creativity and the ideas that students bring to their work can be a delicate process. Or at least I thought so. The articles that were presented to me this week made me wonder if a bit more honesty would actually help my students grow more as thinkers and creators.
As I read through the Wiggin’s blog post on assessing creativity, I was pretty entertained, honestly. I enjoyed his direct approach to presenting ideas. His thought that we may be doing a disservice to our students if we are sugar-coating our feedback resonated with me. In the article, he discusses his experience with a group of ELA teachers and their reluctance to assess student writing with an engaging-boring scale. (I definitely can relate to their initial struggle with this idea.) He brings up that, as teachers, we assess so many things and to not be honest with our students when we talk about how engaging, or not engaging, their writing is will actually hold them back from becoming stronger writers. The creativity they bring to their writing and their other work is important and we should communicate that to our students.
In the video, Grading with Games, James Paul Gee stated that the type of education that we encourage currently, one that “privileges people who know a lot of facts, but can’t solve problems”, is a thing of the past, and if our students are to be successful later on they need to be innovators and problem-solvers. (Gee, 2010) So how do we get them there?
Gee also discusses how video games are constantly assessing the player, and that the constant feedback helps to guide the player and they are learning and growing more as a result. This constant feedback throughout a learning experience is so critical to student learning. Whether it be from a teacher or from other students, it should be a part of the learning experiences we are designing for our students.
As we give feedback and observe our students’ successes and failures throughout an experience, we can change the experience to fit their needs. This information also helps us to make changes for the next time we teach that concept or try that type of activity again.
A very important part of the assessment process is to allow students the space to do their own self-assessments. This would allow the students to think about their performance and take the necessary time to learn from the process.
Some possible questions on a self-assessment might be:
- Did I persevere? In what ways?
- What challenged me? What was easy for me?
- How does my creation connect to our learning in class?
- Who did I collaborate with?
- Did I accept or reject their ideas? Did I do so respectfully?
- Did I show integrity through the process?
- Could I improve or change my creation?
- How did this experience help me understand the concepts?
- How was I creative?
- What am I most proud of?
These types of self-assessment questions could be a great way to start conversations about their ability to work as a collaborator and also to start talking about their creative thinking. I would want to present this assessment to my students before a learning experience begins so that they are reminded of the expectations I have for them and they can consciously make an effort to fulfill those expectations. They will then be prepared to fill out that self-assessment at the end of the experience. These self-assessments will also be a great way to encourage honest individual or small-group meetings.
References:
Wiggins, G. (2012, February 3). On assessing for creativity: yes you can, and yes you should. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/on-assessing-for-creativity-yes-you-can-and-yes-you-should/
Edutopia. (2010, July 20). James Paul Gee on Grading with Games [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU3pwCD-ey0
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