Weekly Reflection: Assess to Grow: Between Process and Product

This week’s question: What to assess/evaluate - process? Product? Both? Sparked a lot of personal reflection. As someone who has been both a student and an educator, I have seen how powerful it can be when students are seen not just for what they produce, but for how they got there.

I once had a professor who invited us to co-evaluate our final grade. We were asked to complete a self-assessment form and explain how we engaged with the course: Did we do the weekly readings? Were there obstacles? Did we try, even when the results were not perfect? That experience reminded me that when done right, assessment is a conversation, not a verdict.

Drawing from Paulo Freire’s (1996) philosophy, learning is a dialogic process. The same should be true of evaluation. And as Andrade (2010) and Wiggins (1998) suggest, assessments must not only certify knowledge but also support learning. When we look only at the final result, we might miss the perseverance, creativity, or deep thinking that happened behind the scenes. On the flip side, just focusing on the process can leave out the critical moment of application and synthesis. That is why I believe we need both.

I would say: let us design assessments that respect students as thinkers, workers, and co-creators of knowledge. Let us be evaluators who listen as well as grade. From my perspective, the process shows the journey. The product shows the destination. What do you think about? Do you agree?


See you soon!

The Great Gatsby


References

Andrade, H. (2010). Students as the definitive source of formative assessment: Academic self-assessment and the self-regulation of learning. Handbook of formative assessment, 90–105.

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogia da autonomia: Saberes necessários à prática educativa. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.

Tardif, M. (2014). Saberes docentes e formação profissional. Petrópolis: Vozes.

Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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