Rethinking the Roles of Assessment in [Computer Science] Education
In this episode I unpack Scott’s (2012) publication titled “Rethinking the roles of assessment in music education,” which summarizes three roles of assessment (assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning) that I discuss in relation to computer science education.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary
each week of this podcast is either an
interview with a guest or multiple
guests or a solo episode where I unpack
some scholarship in relation to Computer
Science Education although I haven't
done an interview in a while it's simply
because I've got contractors coming over
during the day so I'm having to record
these episodes really early in the
morning or late at night but in today's
episode we are going to unpack a paper
titled rethinking the roles of
assessment in music education and before
you tune away real quick don't worry I
am going to relate this to Computer
Science Education this paper is written
by Sheila J Scott here's the abstract
for this paper quote in music education
current attention to student-centered
approaches for learning affects our
understanding of student assessment this
view to curriculum reform requires New
Perspectives for assessment there's a
need to move beyond the summative use of
assessment to assign grades to examining
the roles of assessment and supporting
and enhancing learning to this end
multiple roles of assessment are
examined under three headings one
assessment of learning two assessment
four learning and three assessment as
learning and quote now if I were to
summarize this paper into a single
sentence I'd say that it summarizes
three roles of assessment which are the
assessment of learning assessment for
Learning and assessment as learning as
always you can find a link to this paper
and other helpful resources and podcasts
and the show notes at geraldleary.com or
by simply clicking the link in the app
that you're listening to this on just go
to the description of this episode while
you're there you'll notice that this
podcast is powered by boot up
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non-profit that I work for and where I
create 100 free Elementary coding
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yet alright so here's a few sentences
from page 31 in the introduction that
kind of summarizes well what are those
three different assessment types I'm
going to change out the word like
musical and music or computer science
just so it's not so jarring so a slight
rephrasing of a couple words quote
computer science educators are
responsible for providing valid and
reliable information of their students's
performance in relation to a wide
variety of learning outcomes when this
information serves a summative role such
as the assessment of grades it is the
note it as assessment of learning
teachers are also responsible for
providing feedback to help students
extend their understanding of computer
science Concepts and to assist all
students in enhancing their computer
science proficiencies when assessments
assumes this formative role it is
denoted as assessment for learning
students are encouraged to reflect on
assessment information as a way to gain
personal insights into how they are
performing and to enhance their
perceptions of what they need to do in
order to comprehend computer science
with greater understanding and to
improve their technical expertise in
coding when assessment takes on a roll
of self-reflection it becomes assessment
as learning end quote so summative
assessments are assessment of learning
formative assessments are assessment for
Learning and in these self-reflective
assessments which I've often referred to
as ipsidive assessments our assessments
as learning so you learn by going
through the process I've mentioned these
in other episodes but I realized okay I
need to actually do like a deeper dive
and talk about what influenced that
understanding of the three different
assessment types so the author under the
section that's titled multiple roles
talks about how students are engaging in
constructivist practices when they are
learning in communities of practice and
doing so collaboratively and how if we
are going to facilitate these kinds of
experiences we need to approach
assessment in different ways then we may
have been taught when we were students
because I don't know about for you at
least with my experience it was not
student-centered it was very group based
and we're all doing the same thing and
that thing was generally very boring and
unrelated to anything that I actually
wanted to learn or my peers wanted to
learn and really didn't have much real
world context we were memorizing facts
and figures multiplication tables and
things like that and then immediately
forgetting much of it after the test was
over so the author's saying if we're
going to focus on the student-centered
approaches to learning then we need to
approach assessment differently all
right so on page 32 the author has a
table that's titled the roles for
assessment this is table one so it talks
about the three different types in three
different columns to make it easy to
kind of compare the three so it has
assessment of learning for Learning and
as learning now for boot up I have an
assessment resource that's linked to in
every one of the lesson plans that I
created and in this assessment resources
document it has a table that is like a
rephrasing of this table by Scott so I'm
going to read that off just because it
makes more sense in relation to Computer
Science Education I'm also going to go
ahead and just refer to as summative
formative and ipsatives so I'm not
saying assessment of learning assessment
for learning assessment as learning like
I'd rather say one word rather than
three because I think that's easier for
a podcast by the way this is a biased
table like it's clear which one the
authors prefer so just to be completely
candid there's a place for all three of
these so summative assessments are done
to the coder formative assessments are
done for the coder and ipset of
assessments are done by the coder
summative is traditional formative is
more constructivist constructionist and
ipsidiv is more self-reflective
summative is centered on a facilitator
or teacher formative is centered on the
coding and ipsidif is centered on the
coder summative positions coders as
passive Learners formative positions
coders as active Learners an ipsative
positions coders as active Learners
summative occurs after instruction
formative integrated with instruction
and ipsidiv is also integrated with
instruction typically at the end
summative is competitive formative is
collaborative and ipsative is personal
summative helps facilitators assess
perceived understanding of coding
formative helps coders learn through
feedback from others and ipsatives helps
coders learn through self-reflection
summative limits communication between
facilitators coders and peers formative
increases communication between
facilitators coders and peers an
ipsative increases communication between
facilitator coders and peers summative
May create extrinsic rewards and does
not accurately represent a coder's
understanding formative May interrupt a
coder's active experience with coding
like if you go in the middle of a
project and you start asking what are
you learning what are you working on
disrupt that flow and ipsidif can lack
focus without guidance and feedback from
a facilitator or peers for example if
you don't have prompts for your ipset of
Assessments then students might be like
I I don't know how to do this thing this
is probably foreign to them so they're
in the United States and an example of
summative assessment might include a
test or synthesis project that is graded
by correctness or a specific rubric with
criteria an example of formative
assessment might include questions asked
by a facilitator during a process or a
synthesis project with reflection and
this could possibly include a minimum
criteria and then an example of an ipset
of assessment might include a reflection
journal or reflective questions
regarding understanding of coding
Concepts and practices in relation to
Prior projects which may also be
discussed with a peer or a facilitator
the sum it up is usually done at the end
it's usually right and wrong answers to
that formative is usually done in the
middle of the process or through some
kind of a synthesis and then ipsative is
typically a reflection that can be done
like at the end of the day or end of a
lesson or at the completion of like a
full project so let's say you have a
project that takes like two weeks to
complete you could do an ipsitive
assessment at the end of each day as
well as an inputive assessment at the
end of each week or the end of the
entire project all of these have
different values and can be very useful
for kind of guiding your own learning
because what you'll do is you'll go
through it and be like okay how does my
understanding compared to my prior
understanding like at the start of this
lesson or this project and then how does
that compare to a couple of projects ago
and then thinking through well where do
I want to go next so you start by
centering around what your current
understanding is in comparison to Prior
understandings and then you think
forward to where you head next so for me
in my classes even though kids could
like choose how long they wanted to work
on something sometimes it'd be for just
a day or two other times they'd work on
it for literally multiple years in a row
the same project continuing to expand on
it and dive deeper into it and so what I
would do at the start of each week is
have them reflect on their understanding
and set goals for themselves or what
they're going to do over the next week
and then we come back to that the
following week they'll reflect on how
their understandings have changed since
the prior week or prior projects Etc
when a student finishes one of those
projects and then ask them to I mean you
start working on another one or thinking
through what they're going to do for the
next one there's never like all right
you earned a game day you know you don't
do anything more like cool you learn
something now what do you want to learn
or cool you created something now what
do you want to create not to concretize
things a little bit more in that
assessment resources document that I
created for boot up I have some example
questions that you can ask so for
summative assessment an example question
might be can coders debug the debugging
exercises found in the lesson did coders
create a project similar to the project
on boot.pd.org now for formative you
might be able to ask questions like what
are three different ways you could
change the Sprites algorithm or what
happens if you change the order of these
blocks or what could you add or change
to this code and what do you think would
happen I might use code like this in
everyday life Etc and then for ipsid if
you might ask questions like how is this
project similar or different from
previous projects what new code or tools
were you able to add to this project
that you haven't used before how can you
use what you learned today in future
projects what questions do you have
about coding that you could explore next
time Etc alright so let's get back into
the actual paper itself for the next
subsection in here is title assessment
of learning so Dives a little bit deeper
into this first one which is summative
the author talks about how this is a
traditional approach to assessment
typically collected collated by the
teacher you might actually compare
students with each other if you're
grading based off of a curve or with
some kind of an intended outcome like a
rubric and this is much more passive for
students so it's an evaluation done on
the students in their work and you kind
of have to accept the Judgment imposed
by somebody else especially if there's
some kind of subjectivity involved to it
and it's not just like uh right or wrong
did you fix the bug kind of scenario all
right so on page 32 the author talks
about some advantages and challenges of
this particular assessment type quote
assessment of learning provides a
profile of students achievement in terms
of long-term outcomes many students
excel in testing situations such as this
because they happen to be good test
takers some students may be motivated to
work toward an endpoint in the learning
process when provided opportunities to
present the products of their best work
this motivation may not lead to Lasting
engagement in computer science for
computer science's sake as it is built
in part on extrinsic rewards wherein
students who do well on assessments
receive high scores assessment of
learning does not always provide an
accurate representation of students
achievements because individuals who
become anxious in testing situations may
be unable to produce their best work end
quote and obviously I changed music to
computer science yeah I'd also add to
the end of that that students also might
just get a happy accident especially if
they have like a Scantron you got a one
in four chance of getting a correct
answer so just because a student happens
to get a correct answer it doesn't
necessarily mean that they understand
what's going on I had so many students
that would like create something really
interesting in their like scratch
project or whatever and I'd be like oh
how did you know how to do that and like
honestly I just kind of like drag blocks
in a random order and I thought it
looked cool it was like oh okay in
moments like that I try and unpack the
algorithm for them by like using some
guiding questions like what do you think
this block does okay and then there's a
block right after that how do those two
work together Etc trying to help them
understand okay this is what's going on
that way it's not just a happy accident
but a happy accident that they learn
from and can hopefully replicate or
transfer into other settings alright the
next one next subsection that is is
assessment for learning this is the
formative assessment and the author
really emphasized that this is not a
competitive process you are not
comparing peers in relation to each
other but it's a discussion in relation
to what are the expected outcomes like
creating a project and it's usually done
in process rubrics can be really helpful
for this but you got to be really
careful about how you construct those
rubrics like far too often I'll see like
for a scratch project or something but
like make sure you have a project that
has at least like three Sprites and at
least two if else conditionals and one
variable and then make sure that those
Sprites change between like five
different costumes like a lot of that
stuff can be arbitrary unless you're
doing like a costume party that requires
you to keep score with a variable and
it's up to the user to determine whether
or not like you can I don't know thumbs
up or thumbs down a Sprites random
costume or something like that okay well
then that might include a variable if
else conditionals costumes multiple
Sprites Etc but if students wanted to
create the games snake that kind of
criteria probably isn't super useful
like the costume change or maybe they
just want to create a story without user
interaction well then if else
conditionals and the variables might not
be useful whenever you're creating any
kind of Criterion on some kind of a
rubric I can't say that word apparently
this morning rubric there we go good job
Jared I highly encourage you to think is
this making it easy for me to assess or
is this in some way enhancing their
learning if it's making it easier to
assess odds are it's constraining the
ways that students can create which may
or may not be good depending on what
you're trying to do or what they're
trying to do because again sometimes
creativity within constraints is great
or it might just be holding them back
now one way you can actually do this to
kind of like double check yourself is to
check with a colleague or you could do
what the author recommends on page 33
where you actually jointly construct the
rubric with students now when
constructing this rubric the author
recommends like creating something like
here's a beginning developing competent
and outstanding rating for each one of
these and what's interesting is for each
one of these ratings except for the
outstanding one it has a a practice and
then blank right afterwards again this
is related to music so it's saying like
the tone quality is focused and clear
through some of the range practice blank
so it provides a recommendation on how
to improve that so if you're going to do
this with some kind of a coding project
or Criterion if it's not the maximum
score then there should always be some
kind of feedback to help students figure
out oh here's one way that I can improve
this like if you're working on
modularity you could have a beginning
developing competent and outstanding
category for modularity and then for
each one of those you could talk about
how you could continue to improve
modularity and I'd argue you could even
do it without standing there's always
more to learn and it could just be think
through how you might use this in
another project like this is great right
here but what might you change in a
different project now the author points
out that this rubric makes it so that
students are able to compare their own
projects in relation to the rubric
criteria which can help them to figure
out areas that they can improve so
that's great so what are the advantages
and challenges as listed by the author
on page 33 quote through assessment for
learning students are provided with
opportunity communities to extend their
knowledge and understanding of music and
their proficiencies in music performance
as such assessment contributes to
Student Success this may lead to
enhanced self-esteem and increased
positive attitudes toward learning
teachers are challenged to use
assessment information to enhance
learning without allowing this attention
to assessment to interrupt their
students's active involvement in the
process of making end quote Yeah that's
a really good point I would constantly
circle around the room asking questions
or looking at code and thinking through
okay is the student stuck does the
student needs some space I might do a
little bit of a check-in ask a question
or two but every single time I did one
of those check-ins it interrupted their
flow a little bit but I tried to make it
as minimum as possible so that way
students had time to really think
through and process things if they were
stuck on something I'd usually walk up
to them ask some questions to help guide
them through it and when I felt like
they were at a point where they are just
on the cusp of figuring it out and
solving their problem I usually say all
right I'm gonna check in a little bit
later and so I'd like continue to cycle
around the room and then help another
student one-on-one one and then as I'm
cycling around the room I'd keep
checking in visually to see has the
student made progress do they look like
they're frustrated Etc and then I walk
over to them after I don't know five or
ten minutes sometimes a little bit
longer depending on whether or not I
feel like they've made progress based on
what I'm seeing on their screens and I
just kind of check in with him how's it
going so it's just constantly walking
around the room and having to not only
navigate looking at a few different
programming languages on like 30 some
odd different screens but also be able
to keep track of where students are at
in relation to their goals for the week
and then how that relates to what
they're currently working on right now
are they stuck are they making progress
Etc so it was a lot of question asking
one-on-one and then a whole lot of
keeping track of where students were and
if I wasn't sure what their goals were I
had to like them fill it on on a Google
form and I could just look at the
spreadsheet and go oh this person's
working on this that may or may not
relate to what I actually see on the
screen and if it does not then I just go
up to them and go how does this relate
to your goals for the week and sometimes
they'll be like oh it relates to because
as a blah blah and then other times
they'd be like oh yeah I forgot my goal
I learned the hard way that asking that
as a question is the way to go because
if you make an assumption and go hey
you're not working on your goal they'll
might get upset and go well I am
actually even though it looks like I'm
not this relates to this because of ABC
and I realized I had my foot in my mouth
so learn from my mistake or don't it's
up to you like I think I share this on
the podcast before one of the ones where
I was teaching University this was a an
undergrad class at the time it's
actually like an undergrad Master's
combo but most of the students were
undergrads and I they were working on
like this music technology project where
they're in this case going to perform a
storybook live and enhance it with audio
so they'd be able to trigger different
sound effects and whatnot and manipulate
their voice to make it sound like a
robot or a witch or whatever using some
like live processing so while they were
working on this like storyboard project
I noticed that one of the students was
on Facebook I'm like kind of standing in
the middle of the room it's kind of like
looking at the screen and just going
okay maybe he's just checking it for a
second maybe he's got like a sick family
member or something a couple minutes
later he's still on Facebook and I'm
just like okay like I'm trying to be
patient here finally I just like walk up
to him and I'm like hey uh what you
working on and then he's like oh I'm
looking at this group on Facebook that
talks about music technology and they
have this like file section where you
can find like resources created by the
like Educators in this group I realized
yes we had taught them how to do that
like a month prior they were on Facebook
and doing exactly what we recommended in
terms of distributed cognition
collective intelligence Etc all that fun
stuff so moral of that story is ask
before assuming because maybe they are
actually working on something and you
just hadn't thought of it how it relates
to their project but that's just from my
experience anyways assessment as
learning so this is ipsative this is
self-reflective so the main point of
this is to help students learn it also
helps them to see progress that they
have made because they're comparing what
their current understanding is with
their prior understanding and then again
always thinking through where you want
to go next that's not something that's
just by authors who do ipsitive
assessment but that is something that I
highly recommend is thinking through
okay well what's the next step where do
you want to go next whether it's big
picture or just like literally what is
the next action you're going to take now
the way many musicians do this is though
like video or audio tape performances
and whatnot in order to kind of reflect
on how did it go after the fact so
they're not having to do an assessment
while performing live but with coding
it's a little bit easier to just like
look at the end result the end project
but again some prompts might be helpful
to figure out okay what did you learn
specifically all right so what are the
advantages and challenges this is from
page 34. quote students need guidance as
they learn to assess their work
accurately and to use this assessment
information to influence future progress
assessment as learning may occur on a
Continuum with students gaining facility
with a process through experience it may
be expected that younger students in
Elementary grades will need assistance
from their computer science teachers in
gaining a foundation of computer science
understanding and proficiency from music
from which to base their own judgments
in terms of what they know and what they
need to find out as students enter high
school they may be better able to
self-assess of course this
generalization may not hold for all
students teachers must be vigilant in
providing all students with sufficient
feedback to help them on the road toward
independent creating as they learn to
teach themselves throughout this process
students are empowered to take ownership
of their education as they develop
skills as independent computer
scientists ideally students will sustain
their emphasis on self-regulated
learning Beyond School leading to
lifelong engagement with computer
science end quote again changing music
and stuff to computer science that last
sentence right there that for me is the
main Crux of this do you just want
students to learn a concept or do you
want them to be able to teach themselves
how to continue learning computer
science in particular and just like
anything in stem is constantly evolving
constantly changing there's new
languages new platforms new technologies
Etc and if we can start teaching kids in
K-12 in higher education so adults most
likely how to think for themselves by
reflecting on how they are doing in
relation to what they've learned in the
past and where they want to go next this
to me is the most valuable thing we can
possibly teach kids not whether or not
you understand Boolean not whether or
not you understand binary not whether
you understand other B related Concepts
but that's my own opinion my own bias
Etc you might disagree and that's fine
you're wrong I'm just kidding all right
so the section called gathering
information and in this they recommend
here are some different ways that you
might actually do these types of
Assessments you could do performance
assessments which are like rating scales
rubrics checklists Etc you could do
portfolios which is what I'd recommend
for like Project based learning and
whatnot you could do narrative reports
you could do like goal settings and
Reflections through some kind of
journaling over the course of a project
or a unit Etc now the author dives into
each one of these and it talks about in
relation to music but clearly there are
a lot of connections that can be made
with computer science so I'd recommend
checking out page 34 if you're
interested in that so here's a quote
from the closing section this is on page
modifying music to computer science
quote assessment of learning is
ingrained in Traditions of Education
student assessment has long been equated
with the summative function of
assessment new roles for assessment
require change educational change of
this magnitude requires time it also
depends on understandings and support
from teachers administrators parents and
most important students computer science
educators are already implementing many
of these strategies associated with
assessment four and assessment as
learning as teachers and students expand
their experiences with assessment as a
learning tool students will increasingly
be empowered to take ownership of their
own learning thus assessment has the
potential to facilitate our students
journey toward lifelong computer science
engagement end quote even though this is
a short article I really enjoyed it but
at the end of these unpacking
scholarship episodes I'd like to ask
some lingering questions or share some
thoughts so one question that I have is
what types of assessment do you tend to
prefer for yourself and what types do
you tend to use with students are they
the same or are they different how does
the size of your class or no number of
students impact the kinds of Assessments
you use and what is gained and what is
lost with such an approach so if you are
like a university professor and you're
working with I don't know a class with
like 300 students you got like a dozen
Tas or whatever what kind of assessment
are you going to use are you going to be
able to individually go up to each of
them and do an ipset of assessment maybe
maybe not how about if you did it as a
Google doc or like a Google form or
something and students can submit there
although you might not actually read
every single one of them students are
still engaging in that reflective
process which is the important part one
way that you could also do it is okay
share your absolute reflection with a
neighbor get some feedback from them so
try and think of ways that it does not
rely on yourself providing the
assessment like I would have it so that
at the end of my classes one half of the
room would go to the other half and
they'd ask some questions about the
projects that were in process and then
the next day it flipped to the other
side this made it so that peers were
reflecting with each other and learning
how to ask questions of their peers
learn from each other Etc that was the
goal at least sometimes it was not
successful but we kept iterating on it
kept trying to improve it Etc another
question I have is what's missing from
your assessments so are you assessing
whether they actually enjoyed learning
or simply what they learned and then a
final question that I have is what are
the goals for your assessments and do
they align with your rationale for
becoming a CS educator so for me I went
into education because I was suicidal
during my high school and undergrad
tenure and the one thing that kept me
going was making music so I wanted to
help others in the same way I wanted to
show them the wonderful things that you
could do by exploring music making Etc
that's why I went into education that
eventually shifted over into Computer
Science Education where I wanted to help
kids be able to express themselves and
be able to create with code if I had
assessments that were really only
focusing on do students understand what
NFL's conditional is is that really
going to get at why I went into becoming
a CS educator I doubt it instead I'd
focus on did this student that I was
working with did they had fun creating
that project did it tap into their
interests were they able to explore it
in a way that they didn't know they
could do that to me was when a project
was a good project for that particular
student all right that was my hopefully
relatively short introduction into the
three different assessment types
summative formative ipsative assessment
of assessment four and assessment as
learning if you enjoyed this episode
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week for another episode till then hope
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wonderful week
Article
Scott, S. J. (2012). Rethinking the Roles of Assessment in Music Education. Music Educators Journal, 98(3), 31–35.
Abstract
“In music education, current attention to student-centered approaches for learning affects our understanding of student assessment. This view to curriculum reform requires new perspectives for assessment. There is a need to move beyond the summative use of assessment to assign grades to examining the roles of assessment in supporting and enhancing learning. To this end, multiple roles of assessment are examined under three headings: (1) assessment of learning, (2) assessment for learning, and (3) assessment as learning.”
Author Keywords
Assessment, curriculum development, evaluation, student-centered, teacher-centered
My One Sentence Summary
This article summarizes three roles of assessment (assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning).
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
What types of assessment do you tend to prefer for yourself?
What types do you tend to use with students?
How does the size of your class or number of students impact the kinds of assessment you use?
What is gained and what is lost with such an approach?
What’s missing from your assessments?
What are the goals for your assessments and do they align with your rationale for becoming a CS educator?
Modified Assessment Roles from Scott’s (2012) article
| Summative Assessment of Learning |
Formative Assessment for Learning |
Ipsative Assessment as Learning |
|---|---|---|
| “Done to” the coder | “Done for” the coder | “Done by” the coder |
| Traditional | Constructivist/constructionist | Self-reflective |
| Centered on a facilitator | Centered on the coding | Centered on the coder |
| Coders are passive learners | Coders are active learners | Coders are active learners |
| Occurs after instruction | Integrated with instruction | Integrated with instruction |
| Competitive | Collaborative | Personal |
| Helps facilitators assess perceived understanding of coding | Helps coders learn through feedback from others | Helps coders learn through self reflection |
| Limits communication between facilitator, coders, and peers | Increases communication between facilitator, coders, and peers | Increases communication between facilitator, coders, and peers |
| May create extrinsic rewards and does not accurately represent a coder’s understanding | May interrupt a coder’s active experiences with coding | Can lack focus without guidance (e.g., prompts) and feedback from a facilitator or peers |
| An example summative assessment might include a test or synthesis project that is graded by “correctness” or criteria | An example formative assessment might include questions asked by a facilitator during process or a synthesis project with reflection; possibly includes minimum criteria | An example ipsative assessment might include a reflection journal or reflective questions regarding understanding of coding concepts and practices in relation to prior projects, which may also be discussed with a peer or facilitator |
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
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