Assessing core content in deep and meaningful ways is hard enough.

How in the world can you measure capability and agency in all 20 competencies of the MyWays success framework? It is early days for designing assessment for whole-student outcomes. But research and practice are starting to suggest strategies that are essential to success.

Two Shifts

Designing assessment to align with Whole Learning, the Wider Learning Ecosystem, and Levers for Capability and Agency requires two shifts in your assessment practice: greater authenticity and multiple, varied measures.
 

Greater Authenticity

Assessment should predict student performance in the outside world. Standardized assessments are inauthentic—knowledge is measured within a subject about a well-defined problem by working alone without access to outside information. In contrast, well-designed performance assessments are a tool for assessing how well students deepen and apply knowledge and skills within project-based learning.
 

Multiple and Varied Measures

Earning a driver’s license involves a written test, classroom instruction, student driving practice, a road test, and more, with provisional permits and licenses recognizing different levels of achievement. This series of assessment-embedded learning experiences is a model for the assessment of MyWays competencies, with better integration across several different ways of measuring authentic performance.

Five Strategies

Students develop multiple competencies simultaneously. Use these strategies together to align your assessment design with the three MyWays learning constructs and gauge your students’ development of the MyWays competencies.
 

Formative Assessment

To provide the essential foundations for effective learning and personal development
 

Performance Assessment

To provide the rich context for development and measurement of agency as well as capability
 

Multiple Measures

To address the whole learner and the breadth of competencies within next gen learning environments
 

Badges & Microcredentials

To integrate “anywhere, anytime learning” within personalized learning approaches
 

Quality Reviews

To ensure the quality of the learner experience when outcomes can’t be measured (and even when they can)

Schools should use care when assessing the broader, deeper MyWays competencies. These strategies are more useful, at this early stage in their development, for learning and not for accountability, especially when schools rely upon more than one strategy.

Explore the Report

Read "Part C: Redesigning the Learning Experience for the MyWays Competencies” to dive into the two shifts and five assessment strategies more deeply.