Know learning

Updated April 2026 for clarity.

In my last post, Obsession with Assessment, I confessed that I once blurted out in a conference presentation, “I don’t give a shit about assessment. I’m a teacher, I KNOW what learning looks like".

To be clear, the entire post was focused solely on standardized testing which is summative assessment.

After a friend read that post, he pointed out that my piece was deeply flawed because I was obsessed with assessment… formative assessment that is.

That gave me pause for thought, followed by a good laugh. He was right! “I’m a teacher, I KNOW what learning looks like”. I'm constantly engaged in formative assessment. I constantly observe students to detect engagement and processing. I adjust my teaching accordingly. This kind of assessment and recalibration is like breathing to a teacher.

Companies like Pearson cannot make money on formative assessments. Politicians, who drive policy, rely on summative assessments in the form of standardized test results to demonstrate the success or failure of one-size-fits-all school systems.

How do you standardize measuring the development of human beings?

Formative assessment is not about measuring retention, it's about measuring learning in real time. It's about all the micro observations teachers are constantly taking in. It's the pivots we make when we see that learning is not landing.  It's recalibration,  in real time, to find new pathways when our lesson plans fail. It's the process that pushes us beyond status quo to find creative solutions to help our students engage in learning. Sometimes, it even inspires completely new and unique curricula.

Doesn’t this tweet via @catcookgreim say it all?-“Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that’s measured matters [Elliott Eisner] ” #DML2014

If one is paying attention, everyone knows what learning looks like. It can be read in the face of the students and seen in their body language. It can be heard in the quality of a single voice or the buzz of an entire room. It’s intuitive… but always recognizable.

I often use virtual worlds or multi-player online games to create dynamic spaces for learning. When I have people visiting my classroom, they are usually perplexed when they see students “playing games". However, any skepticism quickly turns into awe once they listen to the depth and complexity of the conversations taking place in the room. It’s a powerful thing to observe students highly engaged in learning and demonstrating their understanding through their interactions with peers, teachers and even visitors.

Summative assessment has its place, but we cannot let that be the only benchmark we use. We need to follow Lily Eskelsen Garcia’s call to “Stop Doing Stupid”, as quoted in The Washington Post, August 2014. We cannot move forward in addressing our broken system of education as long as summative assessment is our only focus and the only assessment we value. Training students to mark bubbles on a piece of paper does not prepare them to function in the real world. We need to step back and return our focus to the learning. We need to trust that teachers are constantly engaged in formative assessment and recalculating when necessary. We don’t need Pearson or politicians dictating how to best serve students. We are the professionals. We KNOW what learning looks like!