Learning Model: Assessment

How: Learning Model

Getting Smart Resources

Next-Generation Durable Skills Assessment (Getting Smart) – Exploring the importance of assessing durable skills that are critical for student success.

The Next-Generation Durable Skills Assessment resource from Getting Smart examines how schools can effectively measure competencies like collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and adaptability — skills that persist and transfer across contexts throughout a student’s life. It makes the case that traditional assessments fall short in capturing these capacities and offers frameworks, examples, and strategies for designing evaluations that reflect what students actually need to thrive in work and civic life. The resource draws on emerging practices from innovative schools and districts to show what credible, meaningful durable skills assessment looks like in practice. For practitioners and school leaders, it provides both the rationale and practical direction needed to shift assessment systems beyond academic content knowledge toward a more complete picture of student readiness and capability.

Assessment as Revelation, not Destination (Getting Smart) – Reframing assessments to reveal learning progress rather than just a final judgment.

Published by Getting Smart, “Assessment as Revelation, not Destination” challenges the conventional view of assessment as a terminal verdict on student performance, arguing instead that assessment should function as an ongoing window into how learning is actually developing. The resource reframes assessment design around the idea of surfacing insight—making thinking visible, identifying where students are in their learning journey, and informing instructional decisions in real time rather than after the fact. It offers practitioners a conceptual and practical shift away from high-stakes, endpoint-focused evaluation toward formative, learner-centered approaches that treat assessment as a continuous source of information rather than a judgment. For school leaders pursuing learning innovation, this matters because it directly addresses one of the most persistent structural barriers to deeper learning: assessment systems that reward performance on a single measure rather than capturing growth, process, and understanding over time.

It’s Not About The Grade, It’s About the Growth: 5 New Mindsets for Hybrid Assessment | Getting Smart (Getting Smart)

This Getting Smart resource reframes assessment away from grades and toward growth by presenting five specific mindsets that educators can adopt to shift how learning is measured and valued in hybrid and blended learning environments. It challenges traditional grading structures by offering concrete conceptual shifts practitioners can use to redesign assessment practices that better reflect student progress, competency, and learning over time. The resource is particularly relevant for school leaders and instructional designers working to move beyond compliance-based evaluation toward more authentic, learner-centered models. For educators navigating the tension between institutional grading expectations and meaningful feedback, this piece provides both philosophical grounding and practical direction to begin transforming how assessment functions within their schools or systems.

The Future Of Learning Is Smart Measurement Rather Than Dumb Assessments (Getting Smart) – Advocating for smarter, data-driven measurement in learning assessments.

This Getting Smart article makes the case for replacing traditional, one-dimensional assessments with smarter, data-driven measurement systems that more accurately capture the full range of student learning and development. It challenges practitioners and school leaders to move beyond standardized testing as a primary metric, advocating instead for approaches that leverage richer data to inform instruction, personalize learning, and track growth over time. The resource outlines what distinguishes intelligent measurement from blunt assessment tools, offering a conceptual framework for redesigning how schools think about evidence of learning. For education leaders pursuing transformation, this piece matters because assessment design is often the lagging edge of innovation—schools can change curriculum and pedagogy while leaving outdated measurement systems intact, which ultimately undermines progress. It serves as a provocation and a starting point for teams ready to align their assessment philosophy with the deeper learning outcomes they claim to value.

Steps to Creating Authentic Assessment (Albany State University) – Practical steps for developing authentic assessments that reflect real-world learning experiences.

Albany State University
Albany State University’s “Steps to Creating Authentic Assessment” is a practitioner-focused resource that walks educators through a structured process for designing assessments grounded in real-world application rather than traditional testing formats. It provides concrete, actionable steps for developing tasks that require students to demonstrate knowledge and skills in meaningful contexts, moving beyond rote recall toward genuine performance and understanding. The resource is particularly valuable for school leaders and instructional designers looking to shift their assessment culture, as it offers a replicable framework that can be adapted across disciplines and grade levels. For educators pursuing deeper learning transformation, this resource directly addresses one of the most persistent gaps between progressive pedagogy and classroom practice—ensuring that how students are evaluated actually aligns with how they are being taught to think, create, and solve problems.

Design Authentic Performance Tasks and projects

ASCD
ASCD’s resource on designing authentic performance tasks and projects provides educators with a structured framework for creating assessments that require students to apply knowledge and skills to real-world challenges rather than simply recalling information. It offers practical guidance on constructing tasks that are meaningful, rigorous, and aligned to learning goals, helping teachers move beyond traditional tests toward evidence-rich demonstrations of understanding. The resource draws on established backward design principles, supporting educators in building coherent connections between curriculum, instruction, and assessment. For practitioners and school leaders pursuing learning innovation, this matters because authentic assessment is a cornerstone of deeper learning models—it shifts the classroom toward relevance, student agency, and transferable competencies that better prepare learners for complex, real-world demands.

Skills for the Future Assessment Framework

ETS/Carnegie Foundation
The Skills for the Future Assessment Framework, developed by ETS and the Carnegie Foundation, is a structured model designed to guide educators and institutions in building assessment systems that measure competencies beyond traditional academic knowledge, including critical thinking, collaboration, and adaptive problem-solving. The framework provides practitioners and school leaders with concrete criteria, design principles, and alignment tools to evaluate whether their assessments are capturing the skills students will need in postsecondary and career contexts. It bridges the gap between what schools currently measure and what employers and higher education institutions increasingly demand, offering a shared language for redesigning assessment practice at the classroom, school, and system level. For leaders pursuing genuine learning transformation, this resource matters because it challenges the dominance of standardized content-recall testing and offers a defensible, research-backed alternative that connects assessment design directly to future readiness outcomes.

	Beginning	Piloting	Implementing
From Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery	BeginningFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Beginning	PilotingFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Piloting	ImplementingFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Implementing
From One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning	BeginningFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Beginning	PilotingFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Piloting	ImplementingFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Implementing
From Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry	BeginningFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Beginning	PilotingFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Piloting	ImplementingFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Implementing
From Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning	BeginningFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Beginning	PilotingFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Piloting	ImplementingFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Implementing
From Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities	BeginningFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Beginning	PilotingFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Piloting	ImplementingFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Implementing
From Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment	BeginningFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Beginning	PilotingFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Piloting	ImplementingFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Implementing
From Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets	BeginningFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Beginning	PilotingFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Piloting	ImplementingFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Implementing

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Learning Model: Assessment

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