Playful Assessment

“Look at the process it took for [the student] to get there as a learner, and how he or she reflected on that experience."

This timely post from Eduotopia looks at assessing project-based learning and the dangers of relying on final projects alone. I've written about this topic previously and identified some strategies specific to assessing digital multimodal compositions. Emphasizing the process of design by looking closely at student thinking through embedded activities is at the core of this work, and really, important to writing instruction more broadly.

But I had never thought about characterizing assessment as play. 

One of the most powerful ideas from the article is repositioning the assessment process as participatory to enable student agency. Our recent work in assessing our Digital Salon projects in ELA Methods resonates well with this approach. However, I thought of the process as reflection-based rather than play-based. How does taking a play-based stance open up new opportunities?

Using "play" evokes.... creativity; multiple pathways to sense-making; collaborative innovations; unintended consequences; whole-child engagement; moments of 'flow'; an array of interpretations. Most importantly, it better captures the experience of learning through doing, in all of its iterations and patterns as opposed to the unidirectional nature of most lesson designs and assessments. This rings true to the experiences of teachers' play we're currently exploring in our upcoming LRA paper. A much-needed counterpoint to the over-reliance on assessment data that limits process and outcome in many K-12 classrooms.