This has been recently in the news that exams will not be conducted for the last academic session. Most of the universities and education boards has released the guidelines of promoting students in the next class and grade them on the basis of their overall performance in the academic year. Some schools still have been conducting final tests to keep a record and evaluate student’s knowledge and grade them. This process of conducting exams is formally known as Assessment. The promotion of students without their final assessment has made everyone to think about the alternatives assessment techniques. But if ponder upon the purpose of assessment, its necessity, and its role in education then we would be able to make this process a part of teaching-learning and less burdensome activity on students and teachers. Let’s understand the fundamentals of assessment.   

According to the National Curriculum Framework, the purpose of assessment is to provide constructive feedback to the learner on their learning rather than a tool to judge students on the basis of their marks. The guidelines of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) imply that assessment should be made an integral part of teaching-learning process through formal as well as informal methods. Comprehensive means assessment of all areas of learning. Also, different tools and techniques can be employed to assess different learning areas. Flexibility, Accountability, and Economy are also the principles of CCE. But with these guidelines too, our teachers are facing challenges in completing the assessment process smoothly. In fact, it has become a more regress topic of thinking.   

The present system of assessment is largely memory-based and outcome-oriented. It tests the limited knowledge of a student that too in a very specific and traditional way with single pen paper mode of assessment. In a recent conversation organized by Gurushala with a group of teachers, it was found that taking assessments online has become more of a burden on them. Many teachers are not equipped with many technical skills to make some online tests using Google Form or other platform. They provide test questions to students on Whatsapp. Students submit their response but there is no surety that questions are only solved by the student. So, understanding the learning level of students and teacher’s teaching approach has become tough to examine. 

Also, in this one traditional way of assessment, students do not really enjoy learning but see it as a forceful activity on them. 

But then how are teachers trying to cope with the issues of Digital Skills? 

Teachers have been enrolling in self-capacity development courses provided by Gurushala and many other platforms. They are learning new tools for conducting assessment in a more flexible and transparent way. Google Forms is one of those platform, teachers prefer and using it. Teachers have also been trying new digital tools of assessment as well as teaching. 

Taking assessment is largely been dependent on teachers only. The administration gives the guidelines for conducting assessments in a specific time period then it is up to teachers in which form they will conduct it and prepare a report card of each student. From the conversation with teacher, it was found that they have the autonomy to think of alternative and flexible ways of assessing their students. They just need to keep in mind that it just should be fair in nature and equal for all.  

Since when the lockdown began, teaching-learning is shifted on digital platforms. The Assessment has also largely been done by providing questions to students on Whatsapp through pictures. Teachers have not yet started using different methods of taking assessments. Although, some ideas were shared by teachers which can help in making assessments more joyful for learners, for example, Quiz Competition, Essay Writing Competition, Games and Newspaper analysis could be some ways of assessing student’s knowledge.  

But how to make the assessment process more smooth, joyful, and comprehensive in the times of Remote Learning? 

As of now, we have shifted on digital teaching, we will also have to make reforms in the assessment procedure. We need to train our teachers to handle the paradigm shift, not only in teaching but also in assessing students. According to NCF, making examination more flexible and integrating them with classroom life should be one of the five guiding principles for curriculum development which means that assessment should not be taken as an isolated activity from learning.     

Assessment is a tool to assess your learning. We should not make it just a task which will be completed after the end of a unit or after one week, it should be done while teaching and interacting with students. Assessment done while teaching is also known as internal assessment, where the class teacher observes the overall behavioral changes of a student. The teacher also gets to know the interest, values, aptitude and other potentials of a student. Some of the ways of assessing students’ knowledge could be newspaper analysis, writings, quiz competitions and games as suggested by teachers. Apart from that Projects, Art and Painting, Basic Management Skills, Solving Real Life problems, Calculation competition, Conducting experiments, Case studies, Video Recording, and Group Discussion can be used as alternative methods of assessment. These tools will give students a chance to show their understanding by choosing from a variety of methods. Students will also enjoy the assessment process and they can perform best according to their interest. Also, not all the students will be judged on the basis of a single scheme of assessment. Instead a variety of methods and tools will be available for assessment. Students can record a video or audio or they can show their problem solving abilities and perform at their best. 

All the suggested techniques might not work in every subject but it can be aligned according to our requirement and feasibility. We need to create an atmosphere for students, which is free from fear, anxiety and burden. Let’s not judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.  We need to keep thinking of new innovative ways of teaching-learning and assessment.