Assessing Students’ Progress in Distance Learning

Michelle V. Serrano

Distance learning has forced many educators to take a closer look at traditional grading and contemplate better methods of assessment. Following the widespread closure of schools last school year, teachers grappled with the challenges of remote learning. Meeting students’ needs became more difficult as teachers traded the predictability of in-person schooling for the unpredictable nature of learning by distance.

Many educators embraced greater flexibility and grace in measuring student progress. Broadly, schools encouraged a focus on learning and growth instead of a steadfast devotion to letter grading. W hy has this not always been the case? The coronavirus pandemic has revealed many uncomfortable truths about the Philippines educational system, and schools now have a chance to reimagine the fundamental nature of schooling in the country.

Traditional grading practices are deeply flawed, and it’s high time to replace them with more beneficial ways of measuring student progress. Over-relying on summative assessments does little to encourage the collection and use of formative data, and even the best teacher-created assessments still confront issues of reliability and validity. While the objectivity of attaching numbers to student proficiency may seem precise, this specificity rings hollow and only serves to lower student motivation.

Provide students with multiple attempts at mastery: Whether they are in elementary, middle, or high school, students deserve more than one chance to demonstrate knowledge. Despite the popularity of promoting a growth mindset in students, too many schools continue ignoring the power of “yet.” Instead of judging a student’s performance at a discrete moment in time, we should offer students the chance to improve their skills until their proficiency matches their true ability. Few of us perform at our highest level the first time we demonstrate a skill, and our students are no different.

Similarly, teachers should protect students’ agency and promote a culture of choice within assessments: While there will always be a place for end-of-unit assessments, relying on these for a complete portrait of student proficiency is an extremely limited view. Instead, students deserve the chance to demonstrate their proficiency in multiple ways across time. Whether you call this differentiated instruction, authentic assessment, or some other concept isn’t that important. What matters is giving students choices and emboldening their self-efficacy. Not only does this style of assessment provide a rich trove of formative data for teachers; it also invites much-needed relevance into the classroom.

Much of what happens or doesn’t happen in a classroom occurs because of the lived experience of a teacher. As we seek to teach students, we unconsciously set limits on our students’ success by what we think is possible for them to achieve. Thus, the largest inhibitor of student success in a classroom is a teacher’s belief of what is possible for his or her students.

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The author is Teacher III at Benigno S. Aquino National High School,

Concepcion, Tarlac, Division of Tarlac Province