Unit Six - Assessment

I feel like I might be jaded in regards to the assessment topic.  The idea of ongoing assessment; that of checkpoints, resubmission of work, digital portfolios, etc gives me mixed feelings.  In a perfect world yes, I think those things sound great.  I believe its very important for students to learn in an environment where they, to some degree, feel safe to make mistakes and learn from them.  Students can learn to adapt and improve their work when feedback is given freely and frequently from their teacher and/or their peers.

Those leading our curriculum design teams in my district call this formative assessment - from what I can tell, very similar to Wiske's ongoing assessment.  Formative assessment strongly encourages the usage of grading rubrics with lessons and/or projects and re-testing opportunities as a way to give feedback to students and subsequently give them an opportunity to "rework."  Again, I get the benefits of this idea, but I've seen many drawbacks in actual application.  My department head is a big fan of the re-test aspect of formative assessment.  Whenever his students have a test, anyone who wants,  has an opportunity to take the re-test that week.  On paper, great; a student is not severely punished (by grade) if they have a bad test day; b/c of some fluke, but put down a bunch of wrong answers that they knew, etc, they get a chance to fix it.  

However, what I see/hear a lot of his students have a very nonchalant attitude about any assessment in his class because "it doesn't matter; we can do it over again."  Obviously, this is not the intention of any form of ongoing assessment, but I feel can commonly become an issue.  Apathy towards the completion of a task or how good that product is, can run rampant when the student isn't kept to a non-wavering form of accountability.  I think that human nature kicks in for many students, and the ongoing aspect of the assessment takes away the drive to do well, or do one's best on the first try - they'll get another one, so why kill yourself?  I have found myself falling into a similar pattern - more with procrastination.  In college, all four years the school of ed had us keep a digital portfolio.  The day before the portfolio was do, you would see the Baylor libraries jammed with education students cramming all night to finish/start their e-portfolio to have ready for presentation the next day.  Press record, play, repeat of all 8 semesters I was there.  Even this semester, I have found myself neglecting this blog - arguably a form of ongoing assessment.  I have other "assignments" in life, job, etc that aren't "ongoing assessments" but definitive tasks with definitive deadline dates that had or simply just got done first - my blog got pushed down on the "must get done" list time and time again.

II'm torn though.  I don't know what the solution is.  I think that objective multiple choice tests and huge projects with one final turn in date that result in one big final grade should be the common practice, but right now, I'm not sold on total formative assessment.  I guess I feel that assessment should be somewhere in the middle, all the while requing the student to self and peer assess; learning to keep themselves and each other accountable.