Article Response: Learning to Love Assessment (Carol Ann Tomlinson)!

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Joe C Kim!
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Yes, yes, and YES!. Reading Learning to Love Assessment was like talking to an

experienced teacher who was able to walk through all my questions and on assessment,
precisely and so thoughtfully. Tomlinsons proposes assessments that are student centered,
goal-oriented, positive, differentiated, informative, and progressive. And most importantly, he
shows the power of assessments when teachers utilize them intentionally and meaningfully. !
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As Tomlinson stated about his early teaching years, I, too, am often so focus with

classroom management that I give less attention on informative assessment. When I watch
videos of my lessons, I often see I get overwhelmed by not only classroom management but
dealing with unexpected circumstances that I stop noticing things. When I stop noticing each
students, my lesson quickly becomes self-centered and inefficient. To enable students growth, I
consistently need to monitor if my instructions and feedbacks are student centered.!
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I cannot agree more with informative assessment really isnt about the grade book.

Instead of constantly checking students if they are up to my expectations, I need to constantly

provide insightful feedbacks, understand how students fit with different assessments, guide and
set students for success. Yes, summative assessments are necessary and even beneficial in
many ways, but I need to differentiate my assessments and study how students progress
through formative assessment. !
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I felt guilty when I read, As is the case with many teachers, I planned what I would

teach, taught it and then created assessments. Although my co-op and I have created the unit
plans in the beginning, I see myself often getting caught up with my daily lessons, I loose sight
of the whole curriculum. Though Backward design (Wiggins and McTighe), my assessments
becomes aligned with the knowledge, understanding, and skill I design in my unit plans as
learning outcomes. Informative assessments isnt separate from the curriculum.!

Tomlinson says, Informative assessment is not an end in itself, but the beginning of

better instruction. I need to pre-assess, understand where each students are at, be able to
provide multiple assessments, and re-asses. This is not only to test students, but to test myself
as a teacher to understand what I need to reinforce or adjust my instructions. !
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Through formative assessment, students can clearly understand learning objectives,

how each assignment contributed to their success, could articulate the role of assessment in
ensuring their success, and understand that their work correlated with their needs. This
perfectly aligns with my educational philosophy, self-educating through intrinsic motivation.