This seems like a totally incongruent title. How in the world can you use assessment to forge strong relationships with students? And yet in this episode. My guest and I will attempt to answer this question. The key is student revision based on teacher feedback. Two tech tools that are instrumental in this process are the Google extension Mote and an app called Voxer. Both will be featured in this episode.

Educators need to stop conducting assessment as an event and transform it into more of a process. Students learn so much when they go back and fix and improve. Successful revisions typically take a healthy collaboration between students and teachers. That, dear friends, is fertile ground for relationships to evolve. 

To help in this interesting exploration, I conscripted one of my students. Layne Neuhart is a wonderful person. She has a bottomless intellectual curiosity and is a blast to interact with. She’s going to be a champion at forging positive relationships with the lucky students that will one day be in her language art class. 

 Layne Neuhart lneuhart1@muskingum.edu

Before we get to the episode, I want to give a shout out to the text we utilize in my assessment class. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning by numerous authors is a wonderful resource. It’s in this text that I found a template that I apply to all of my lessons. This template is called The Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning. Below are the seven. I would strongly urge listeners to start applying this template to all of their lesson creations:

1. Make certain that students understand the learning target.
2. Provide examples of strong and weak work.
3. Provide regular descriptive feedback.
4. Teach and then encourage self-assessment.
5. Focus on just 1 learning target per prompt.
6. Teach and encourage students to revise their work.
7. Encourage students to collaborate.

Episode Template

The Problem:

Teachers need to form stronger bonds with students. 

The Solution:

Teachers need to leverage assessment to bond with kids.

What you can do Tomorrow: 

• Apply the The Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning to tomorrow’s lesson plan.
• Explore possibilities with Voxer. 
• Explore possibilities with Mote.
• Insert revision and collaboration opportunities into your next assessment. 

Stop thinking about assessment as an event and think of it as more a process. The resulting collaborations you have with students could be magical. 

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