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Evaluation without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

Selma Wassermann

Teachers evaluate students’ work constantly. It is a built-in part of the job of teaching. Yet, what is hardly acknowledged is the subjectivity and unfairness of evaluation. Although grades and marks have long been discounted as having any reliability or validity, they endure as real and exact measures of ability and performance. Not only are they specious, they have little or nothing to do with the important goal of evaluation – that is to provide feedback to learners that enables their subsequent growth. Evaluation Without Tears provides teachers with specific examples of how they might provide evaluative feedback to students that is enabling and affirming, rather than punishing, respectful of the learner and protective of the learner’s dignity, recognizing that one person’s judgment is not truth. Teaching students to self-assess, an important dimension of growth and maturity, is a significant feature of the book.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 152 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4758-5349-0 • Hardback • January 2020 • $65.00 • (£50.00)

978-1-4758-5350-6 • Paperback • January 2020 • $34.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-4758-5351-3 • eBook • January 2020 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Education / Evaluation & Assessment, Education / Professional Development, Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / General

Evaluation without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Teachers evaluate students’ work constantly. It is a built-in part of the job of teaching. Yet, what is hardly acknowledged is the subjectivity and unfairness of evaluation. Although grades and marks have long been discounted as having any reliability or validity, they endure as real and exact measures of ability and performance. Not only are they specious, they have little or nothing to do with the important goal of evaluation – that is to provide feedback to learners that enables their subsequent growth. Evaluation Without Tears provides teachers with specific examples of how they might provide evaluative feedback to students that is enabling and affirming, rather than punishing, respectful of the learner and protective of the learner’s dignity, recognizing that one person’s judgment is not truth. Teaching students to self-assess, an important dimension of growth and maturity, is a significant feature of the book.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 152 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4758-5349-0 • Hardback • January 2020 • $65.00 • (£50.00)

978-1-4758-5350-6 • Paperback • January 2020 • $34.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-4758-5351-3 • eBook • January 2020 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Education / Evaluation & Assessment, Education / Professional Development, Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / General

Author

Selma Wassermann is Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Her books include What’s the Right Thing to Do? (2019), The Art of Interactive Teaching (2017), This Teaching Life (2004), Teaching for Thinking Today (2009) and An Introduction to Case Method Teaching: A Guide to the Galaxy (1994).

Table of Contents

Introduction

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: What’s Evaluation For?

Force of Habit

What’s Evaluation For?

Chapter 2: Marking and Grading: The Tail that Wags the Dog

A House of Cards

Chapter 3: A Case for Using Evaluative Feedback

Evaluation as Feedback

Obstacles to Using Evaluative Feedback In Lieu of Grades

Chapter 4: Evaluative Feedback that Enables and Promotes Growth

Identifying the Criteria: What are we looking for?

What is Being Measured?

Learning Goals and Evaluation Practices

Chapter 5: Written Diagnostic Evaluative Feedback Across the Curriculum

Examples from the Primary Grades

Examples from the Intermediate Grades

Examples from Secondary School

Conclusion

Chapter 6: It’s All About How You Say It

Reflecting in Action

Examining a Classroom Discussion

Hooked on Praise

Chapter 7: Impediments to Good Diagnostic Judgment

Taming the Impulse to Punish by Evaluative Judgment

Two Cents Worth of Advice to Teachers

Chapter 8: Reporting to Parents

Some examples of teachers’ written reports

Parent-teacher-student conferences

Chapter 9: Students as Self Evaluators

Children Evaluating Themselves in the Primary Grades – The Child in the Process

Written Self-Evaluation Reports in the Primary Grades

Students Evaluating Themselves in a One-on-One Tutorial

Students Evaluating Themselves in the Secondary School

Teachers’ Assessments on the Profiles

Conclusion

Chapter 10: Institutional Changes Toward Using Evaluative Feedback in Reporting to Parents

Examples of Schools that “Dare to Be Different”

Chapter 11: Evaluation as a Subversive Activity: What Can a Teacher Do?

Chapter 12: Postscript: A Personal Odyssey

A Professional Journey

References

Index

About the Author

Reviews

In equal parts a fascinating history of assessment and a concrete call for action. Professor Wassermann empowers readers to reflect on their own approach to evaluation and confront biases, preconceptions and challenges, taking the reader beyond already well-trodden themes of basic weaknesses in the methods and our “love affair” with numbers. Key distinctions are made between enabling or disabling feedback, complemented by a wealth of examples and specific feedback. Wassermann suggests approaches that can be adopted even when teachers are faced with pressure to conform to traditional measures from administration, parents and even students themselves.
— Kate McAllister, Professor, Minerva University

With Evaluation Without Tears, Selma Wassermann continues her tradition of important books in teacher education. This work presents a valuable guide to evaluation techniques that are clear and comprehensive, yet concise. Real-life examples serve to amplify the concepts and contribute to more complete understanding. Evaluation is not limited to students’ mastery of material but gives teachers the means to evaluate their own work. I was especially struck by the statement that a teacher should also evaluate if the concepts being taught are worthy of being learned. Altogether this is a book every teacher should own and cherish.
— Bill Cliett, Former Superintendent of Schools, Gainesville, Florida

It is a superb, challenging and timely book, destined to change students’ learning and students’ lives for the better. It is an invaluable gift for educators who choose to enable students to learn in a way that offers each student opportunities for personal growth, choice and success. Wassermann provides the history and educational theory that supports the necessity for radical changes in the way learners are evaluated. The sample transcripts of learning conversations and teacher evaluative feedback are absolutely invaluable, providing a wonderful guide for teachers wanting to embark on the process of evaluative feedback.
— Annie O’Donaghue, Principal, Vancouver School Board

This is a fine piece of work on the touchy subject of evaluation, one that is too often ignored. It is a thoughtful, conceptually strong and practice-focused work. Teachers and administrators and policymakers will read this book not only for the importance of evaluation in school and classrooms, but also because the writing is crisp, clear and marked by elegant brevity. Many specific examples and a wealth of metaphors and phrases stud the work. The author’s gift of writing is unusual among academics and K-12 educators. The book is a pleasure to read.
— Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education, Stanford University

If you have read any of Dr. Selma Wassermann’s books, you can anticipate that Evaluation Without Tears will be beautifully written, well-constructed and designed to reach a significant audience. And this book is. Selma takes on any teacher who still uses measurement to rank or punish students for their work. She speaks of evaluation as feedback as well as to students as self-evaluators in all grades. Rich in examples, Selma’s book is delightfully lucid, and filled with passion. It is a great educational ride.
— Maurice Gibbons, Emeritus Professor, Simon Fraser University

Evaluation without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

Selma Wassermann

Evaluation without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

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