#496 – Assessment, with Katie White

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• How does thinking of assessment as a process change your approach to teaching?
• What are some misconceptions about assessment that you’ve seen in your school or classroom?
• How can you use assessment evidence to better respond to student needs?
• Why is it important to look for the root cause of student struggles?
• In what ways can you embed self-assessment into your daily instruction?
• How can you shift more ownership of learning to your students?
• What does it look like to view student work through a strength-based lens?

• Katie White, Educational Consultant (official website)
• Softening the Edges: Assessment Practices That Honor K–12 Teachers and Learners (written by Katie White; published by Solution Tree)
• Unlocked: Assessment as the Key to Everyday Creativity in the Classroom (written by Katie White; published by Solution Tree)
• Student Self-Assessment: Data Notebooks, Portfolios, and Other Tools to Advance Learning (written by Katie White; published by Solution Tree)
• The Teacher as Assessment Leader, Second Edition (edited by Thomas R. Guskey; published by Solution Tree)
• Concise Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Assessment and Grading (written by Nicole Dimich, Cassandra Erkens, Jadi Miller, Tom Schimmer, and Katie White; published by Solution Tree)

#496 Assessment, with Katie White

AVID Open Access
46 min

Transcript

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Katie White 0:00 We forget to say, “Why is there a problem? What strategy was the student missing? What do we need to add to a learner’s toolkit so that they experience greater success in their next go-round?”

Winston Benjamin 0:14 The topic for today’s podcast is assessment with Katie White. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:33 Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:44 I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:45 And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators,

Paul Beckermann 0:49 and we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music 0:53 Education is our passport to the future.

Winston Benjamin 0:57 Our quote for today is from Katie White in the preface to her book, Softening the Edges: Assessment Practice that Honors K–12 Teachers and Learners. She writes, “I believe in assessment because I know that when used correctly, it is one of the most powerful tools available for holistically supporting students on their learning journeys.” Paul, what do you think?

Paul Beckermann 1:19 There are actually two keys in here. One is “when used correctly,” because there are so many different kinds of assessments. There are different points in the instructional process where we use assessments — formative, summative, entrance exams, self-assessment. It’s important that we know when to use the options that we have in front of us and how to use them correctly. And I really like the “holistically” part, because it’s a way to support students in all different ways. That resonates with me, and I’m excited about the conversation to learn more about how we can do that in our classrooms.

Winston Benjamin 1:59 Absolutely. I love the idea that it’s a learning journey — not everyone has to find the end point at the same time, so being able to move through is a very important aspect. And we have a chance to actually talk with the author about the depth of meaning she’s trying to convey through that quote, as well as her work through the years. We are excited to welcome Katie White to the Unpacking Education podcast. Katie is an author, coach, and independent educational consultant who spends her days working to transform the educational experience for educational leaders, teachers, and students. With more than 30 years of educational experience, she has been a system leader, a school-based administrator, a learning coach, and a K–12 classroom and online teacher. Thank you for being here with us, Katie.

Katie White 2:52 Thank you. I’m excited to be here. Thanks for asking me.

Winston Benjamin 2:57 We appreciate you. One of the most important things we try to do — we give the big overview of our guests, but sometimes we like to help our guests ground themselves with our listeners. Can you tell us a little more about yourself, your personal journey, your background in education, and why you find this an important field to work in?

Katie White 3:16 Big questions with over 30 years of experience! So, I retired from public education in 2023 after 31 years. In those 31 years, I had been a classroom teacher, an administrator, a coach, and all of that. As I wandered my way from role to role and school to school across several contexts, I started to really refine my interest in the intersection between assessment and instruction, and how those two things propel learner agency — learners having a healthy relationship with learning and kids having a healthy relationship with themselves.

I’ve also been an art teacher since I was 15. I taught community art classes and have always had a real interest in the arts. I started thinking: if we take creativity, instruction, and assessment, what’s the relationship between those three things? That’s what got me into writing books. Writing is my way of making sense of complex things — I don’t always know what I’m going to say until I’ve typed the words. It’s a real creative process in itself, and it’s helped me refine my understanding of these things we’ll probably talk about today.

Toward the end of my career, I’ve been working with a not-for-profit here in Canada called the Canadian Assessment for Learning Network — a group of people committed to transforming assessment practices in classrooms. Thinking about how we increase teacher efficacy and shift toward a different view of assessment has really helped me refine my thinking. It’s only taken me 34 years to get to this point! But as you all know, becoming good at something is an evolution for sure.

Paul Beckermann 5:47 That’s great. 34 years — same as me in education. There we go.

Katie White 5:51 We’ve got all kinds of experiences in our pockets, for sure.

Paul Beckermann 5:56 Exactly. Speaking of those experiences, we’re going to talk about assessment today. But before we talk about what we should do — the proactive piece — let’s talk about some misconceptions that might be out there. As you work with teachers and administrators, what are the misconceptions about assessment that you’ve run into?

Katie White 6:18 So many. One thing you might notice — and I’ll invite you to notice — is that I don’t use the word “assessment” as a noun. I use it as a verb. It’s a process for making decisions. It’s how we take stock of where we are now in relation to where we’re going and then bridge that distance.

I also want to be clear: any misconceptions we have are reinforced by systems. It’s not something teachers are doing wrong, or students are doing wrong. There are broader educational factors that deliver a message about assessment that’s different from the helpful and hopeful one I try to convey.

Here are a few quick ones. First, assessment is a process — it’s how we make decisions. It’s not a thing. It also doesn’t come at the end. We often think of assessment as something that comes at the end because it drives reporting, but assessment lives its best life when it’s a catalyst for learning, when it helps us make decisions.

We also have a misconception that assessment is private and individual — something we do to kids on their own, sitting in desks or in front of computers completing something individually. But assessment is best done in community. We learn with others, and we need to treat assessment as a community practice — something we do with kids, with colleagues, all of that.

Another misconception is that all assessment is accurate, valid, and reliable — that we can just take those results and make massive decisions from them. Not all assessment is valid and reliable, plain and simple.

We also think assessment is permanent. Kids especially believe that once you get a score, that’s your score. What we know to be true is that assessment is a moment in time. We want to get as close to the truth as we can, but because we’re in a place where we’re trying to change the truth, our assessment results should be evolving as well.

The last misconception I’d love to address is that assessment isn’t personal. We’re always telling kids, “Just relax — it’s not a big deal,” but assessment is deeply personal and identity-shaping for both teachers and students. In our attempt to make assessment more holistically healthy, we sometimes minimize that impact — and I don’t think we want to do that. I think we want to talk openly about how assessment has historically told children and youth what they can’t do and what they shouldn’t pursue. The stakes are high for using assessment in a helpful way. It’s very personal.

Winston Benjamin 10:14 I appreciate that you spoke to the personal impact of assessment — not only on students, but on teachers, school communities, and the broader community, especially when students are labeled. I’d like to shift to this: you’ve spoken about misconceptions, and sometimes misconceptions and guiding principles can overlap but remain distinct. What are some of your guiding principles when you’re designing effective assessments to support student learning?

Katie White 10:46 This is an interesting one — it’s like teasing out the philosophy. It’s the bridge between what I believe and what I do, and those principles are what we want our actions to reflect.

Whenever I work with folks in the area of assessment, I start by reminding everyone that our assessment practices are only as good as our response to assessment evidence. Before we even talk about designing effective assessment, we have to ask: Why am I assessing? I’m assessing because I want to learn something so I can pivot or respond toward student needs. If we start there, our response will be more effective and efficient if we have good evidence.

That speaks to the notion of validity — making sure that the goals I’m trying to develop are actually what I’m capturing evidence of. Lots of times when we look at assessment experiences teachers have designed, one of the first questions we ask is: Did you get the information you needed? If not, how might we adjust the experience? If you did, let’s make sure we understand the quality of the skills and knowledge you’re trying to develop.

Another guiding principle is that assessment has to lead us toward truth, which speaks to reliability — the degree to which we can depend on the inferences we’re making from the evidence. When I look at what kids produce, I’m trying to draw conclusions about where they are in their journey. The better the evidence, the better the conclusions.

Another principle: one data point does not suffice. We all know there are many factors that can impact student performance on any given day. So we want to triangulate — and I know that word scares people, but it doesn’t mean “thou shalt collect exactly three pieces of evidence.” It just means that when you say something is true for a learner, you know it down to your toes. If I say “I know this kid can do this,” I will have checked more than once, in more than one context. We also want kids to transfer their learning, and if I want that, I have to check in multiple contexts. That speaks to making sure what we’re asking is complex enough and relevant for kids, because kids do better when they can see themselves in an assessment experience.

My last principle, and where I tend to focus a lot of assessment design time, is accessibility. We often assume we’ve made our assessment accessible to students, but we often haven’t. I spend a lot of time with teachers calibrating proficiency — making sure we all have a shared understanding of what we’re trying to do, and that kids share that understanding too. Putting “I can” in front of a statement doesn’t automatically mean kids understand it. We have to explain what we’re developing. So before you design an assessment experience, make sure you deeply understand what you’re hoping to see.

Paul Beckermann 14:39 That was a big question we asked you.

Katie White 14:41 It was a big question.

Paul Beckermann 14:43 You could probably offer two or three master’s classes just on that question. You mentioned that these practices are only as good as our response to the assessment. So let’s say we have good data — what do we do with it? I know we’re asking you some big questions.

Katie White 15:19 When we ask assessment questions, we’re really asking: What is learning, and how do we get kids to learn? Assessment is the pivot between teaching and learning — it’s how we figure that out.

First of all, we have to respond. That’s the first thing. Part of my current thinking — and I’m writing a book about it, it’s a big one for me — is that in teacher training, we tell teachers that if they plan the perfect lesson within the perfect unit and deliver it with fidelity, all kids are going to learn what we want them to learn, when we want them to learn it. Then the system communicates to teachers and students that something has failed when learning doesn’t happen on that timeline — that it’s a failure of teachers or a failure of children.

In fact, mistakes are how we learn. It’s not just that it’s okay to make mistakes — what we need to say to kids is that they have to make mistakes, because growth happens from those mistakes. Part of responding to assessment data is cultural: let’s frame assessment as a process for helping us figure things out, not for judging, because the results are temporary.

The other thing I often talk about is getting more comfortable with qualitative data, not just quantitative. Not everything has to have a score attached. When I analyze assessment evidence, I want to pull out strengths and first next needs. I don’t want to group all the kids who scored a “two” on a four-point rubric together — that’s unhelpful. I want to group kids by their needs. To do that, I have to harvest qualitative, descriptive evidence from their work.

And when I’m looking at assessment evidence, I’m not just identifying that a student has a problem — I’m asking why they have the problem. What is the root cause, the underlying issue? Because our intervention or support rests in that root cause. If I can figure out why a student is struggling with a particular skill or concept, then the strategy I can supply is targeted to that root cause.

What sometimes happens is we jump from “there’s a problem” to “I’ve got to fix the problem,” and we forget to ask why. What strategy was the student missing? What do we need to add to a learner’s toolkit so they experience greater success next time? That’s part of our assessment work that I don’t think we’re spending enough time helping new teachers learn how to do — how to look at a piece of evidence, identify strengths and needs, and then determine the root cause of those needs so you can support kids appropriately.

Paul Beckermann 19:31 And once you know the root cause for some kids, that can potentially apply to other kids or future kids.

Katie White 19:39 It sure can — that’s exactly right. When I work with collaborative teams, we often create a simple document — a Google Doc or whatever — where we record the concern we saw in the evidence, what we think the contributing reasons might be, and possible ways we could address it. In future years or future semesters, I can come back to that and say, “Here’s this group of kids who can’t organize their writing — what did we do last time? Oh right, these things really helped.” So I can jump in and give that a try again.

Winston Benjamin 20:07 I think you started touching on something I really want to ask about. It relates to the role of students in this process. You spoke about root cause, about triangulating information with multiple sources including students, and about identity earlier in the conversation. What role should student self-assessment play in our classrooms? How do we talk with students rather than about them or at them?

Katie White 20:18 Totally makes sense. A couple of months ago, I saw a post on LinkedIn from a woman from Hungary — an educator with a very learner-centric perspective. She said something that has stuck with me permanently: “You don’t give students agency. They have agency. We just have to not remove it.” If you head into a kindergarten classroom, those kids have agency like nobody’s business — because we’re born with it. We’re individuals living in a world, making decisions from within ourselves.

All of my writing is about student agency because I think we are in trouble if we believe it’s only the adults who are in charge of learning. The people who are learning have to be in charge of learning. We’re facilitating that process, filling their toolbox with options — but they have to pick up the tools and use them.

So the role of self-assessment is massive. It’s embedded in everything we do. Kids cannot graduate thinking they have to turn to other people to tell them whether they’re learning. They have to have a sense of where they are in relation to their goals so they can continue to strive and achieve.

The puzzle becomes: how do we embed self-assessment in our system the way it’s currently structured — with bells, timetables, and so on? Part of it is building the muscles of introspection and reflection, helping kids make that a natural part of their experience, and allowing space in the classroom for it. That’s going to require some hard conversations about how many goals we’re trying to cover. We may need to go deep rather than wide — to prioritize, and then actually spend time talking about decisions made in service of learning and decisions that moved us away from it. We allow kids to make choices, and then allow them to experience the consequences of those choices, because we don’t know how to make better choices until we feel whether our first choice was a good one.

For example: students ask, “Can I work with a partner?” Our immediate thought might be that the room will get noisy. But that’s an opportunity to say, “Sure — let’s review what we’re trying to achieve. In the next 15 minutes you’ll work with someone else, and we’re committing to a reflection afterward to decide whether that was a good choice.” They have to feel it. They have to have those small moments where they realize, “I chose my best friend, and that actually wasn’t a good idea.” Then we make a different decision next time.

I think of self-assessment as having four broad parts. First, there’s a statement of reflection — a kid who comes to your desk and says, “I don’t know how to do this problem.” That’s a statement of reflection. Second, we tie it to evidence: “How do you know? When did things go sideways? At what point did you get stuck?” Those two can be interchanged — sometimes we give kids the evidence first and then invite the reflection. Third, there’s striving: “What do you wish was different? What are you hoping for?” A student might say, “I wish I could work through this problem without looking at my multiplication table.” That tells me what they’re striving toward. Then we talk about tools to help get there. And the fourth part is circling back: “When are we going to check in to see if this worked?”

When you think of self-assessment through those four parts, it can become part of the lived experience — it doesn’t have to be “stop, drop, and self-assess.” It’s woven into the conversation.

The hardest part, maybe, is what I call decentering ourselves as teachers. Instead of saying “I’d like you to” or “make sure you hand this in to me,” we might say, “When you made this choice, it served this purpose.” Instead of “I loved your introduction,” we might say, “Your introduction really created a compelling situation for the reader.” I can take myself out of it, because the purpose wasn’t to please me — it was to serve a reader. As long as teachers remain at the center and kids believe they’re doing things for us, when we ask them to self-assess, they think that’s for us too. When I ask, “What goal do you have for this lesson?” what I often hear is kids telling me what goal they think I want them to say. It’s not their goal — so part of this is taking teachers out of the role of being the reason for everything.

Paul Beckermann 28:33 Absolutely.

Winston Benjamin 28:33 It did make sense — it really did.

Paul Beckermann 28:35 You piqued my interest earlier when you mentioned that you were a longtime art teacher. I did a lot of creative writing instruction, so I feel like that’s the literary side of art. Creativity sometimes gets lost in conversations about assessment, and I know one of your books is titled Unlocked: Assessment as the Key to Everyday Creativity in the Classroom. Can you talk about that — what’s the message, and what should we be thinking about at that intersection?

Katie White 29:12 The overarching message is that creativity belongs in every classroom. The second part is what we’ve already said: assessment is a process for making decisions, and creativity involves minute-by-minute decision making. When I’m engaged in creating a product, a performance, or a creative act, I’m always assessing where I am and what I’m hoping to achieve. Whether it’s visual art, the writing arts, dramatic arts, a prototype in science, or a creative solution to a math problem — creativity involves trying things, failing, succeeding, figuring out what’s working and what isn’t, and continually shifting goals. “I thought I wanted this, but now I see possibility here.” All of that is stock-taking.

So if you go back to what I said about self-assessment — reflection combined with evidence, then striving, then circling back — those four things live naturally in the creative process. You won’t find an artist, big-A or little-a, who isn’t constantly taking stock.

In the book, I talk about how the creative process — and it has different names in different literature — typically includes an exploration stage, where you’re generating ideas, messing around with materials, playing with context. Then there’s an elaboration stage, where you take that initial attempt and build on it, adapt it, refine it. Then there’s an expressive stage — sharing with another person, connecting with an audience, because artists seek connection. And then there’s reflection on that experience and deciding what comes next.

I like to think of assessment as living between each of those stages. I experiment, then I reflect on where that’s gotten me. I elaborate, then I reflect again. I express, then I reflect. Assessment is the constant process that drives decision making within creativity.

Paul Beckermann 32:25 By putting the assessment between the steps, it’s like the glue that keeps everything focused.

Katie White 32:31 Yes — and I’ll give a real example. I was teaching a community art class, and I had a student who was very skilled at painting flowers beautifully. She had developed a strong subset skill. My job as an art teacher is to push kids out of their comfort zone, so I’d asked the students to choose three materials to attach to their paper before they started — a catalyst for new thinking. After 20 minutes, she came up with a product where she’d glued some things onto the page, then just painted the same thing she always did.

Without involving her in a conversation about this, she would have continued producing the same comfortable work. My question was, “What would happen if we cut this into pieces and reassembled it differently?” I had to jostle her out of her original vision into a new problem — through self-assessment, through feedback, through a collaborative conversation. I can remember her bringing the piece to me and me thinking, “She’s taken something I designed to push her out of her comfort zone and pulled herself right back into it.” So how can I use this self-assessment process to jostle her out again? That’s part of the power of it.

Winston Benjamin 34:38 It’s like a growth mindset of assessment — the process of learning is based in growth, not just completion. All kids want to be done, right? They want to get it right and move forward. I appreciate that you’re not just validating “I’m done” — you’re staying in the process with students.

One more question: we’ve given you a lot of room to share your beliefs. What is one thing you would change in assessment practice that you feel would most improve education?

Katie White 35:35 One thing — okay, I’m going to cheat and put more than one thing into a single sentence.

Lower the stakes. Improve assessment literacy — that includes thoughtful design, intentional analysis, and a guaranteed response for kids. Bring teams of teachers together to talk about their practice in relation to evidence, building collective teacher efficacy. And then interrogate how to bring kids into the conversation.

So: lower the stakes, improve literacy, bring people together, and bring kids into the conversation. That’s my one sentence.

Paul Beckermann 36:48 One paragraph.

Winston Benjamin 36:49 I like your cheat code.

Paul Beckermann 37:01 By lowering the stakes, you lower the obstacles. It’s like removing a physical stake from the ground — you clear the way.

Katie White 37:09 Exactly.

Paul Beckermann 37:13 All right — let’s jump into our next section of the podcast, called our Toolkit.

Transition Music 37:17 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 37:28 Toolkit time! What is something you’d like to drop into our assessment toolkit today? Winston, what do you got?

Winston Benjamin 37:41 The tool I would put in is slowing down and picking the right assessment. We have a lot to get through, but how do we recognize which content areas work together so that we can slow down and provide a better picture of how students are understanding? For me, the tool is: slow down. It’s okay to slow down. Seeing what students are learning when you’re moving at a thoughtful pace — that’s an important part of the process.

Paul Beckermann 38:19 That’s great. Mine would be: provide feedback and assessment opportunities before it’s too late, so students can continue to grow. We talk about formative assessments all the time, but let’s get kids into that cycle — get them self-assessing, as Katie talked about at length — in the formative stages, so they can improve the final output while there’s still time. All right, Katie, what would you like to add to the toolkit?

Katie White 38:50 I’ll add leveraging strength. When you look at assessment evidence, try to look at it through a strength lens first — and I don’t mean “this kid is good at math.” Think of a strength as a strategic approach to learning that advanced the work.

Here’s a specific way to use this: after an assessment experience, start the next class with, “I had a look at your evidence yesterday, and I want to talk about what you’re doing right.” To begin by changing the narrative.

Then, here’s a practical tool: group kids by their strength. Put together a group of kids who share the same strength, place a recipe card in the center of the table, and ask them to write the recipe for how they got there. “Not everyone in this room has your strength yet — what steps did you take to get this product or performance to this level?” Then put that in a recipe box of strategies that can help others get to strong products and performances too. It’s a way to leverage strengths — not as praise, but as, “I want you to keep doing this because this was a good decision. It’s serving your learning.”

Winston Benjamin 40:17 I love that idea. Students like feeling responsible and knowing they’re helpful. That validates and uplifts all students, and the sense of who is knowledgeable can shift — students who aren’t always seen as “the experts” get to be seen as valuable contributors too.

I kind of cheated earlier by asking you to name your one thing, because we also have this segment — the One Thing.

Transition Music 40:49 It’s time for that one thing — it’s that one thing!

Winston Benjamin 40:59 This is our close-out. What’s the one thing you’re taking away from our conversation? Paul, what’s yours?

Paul Beckermann 41:17 When Katie talked about student agency, that really got me fired up. She said, “You don’t give students agency — they have it. Just don’t remove it.” That could be on a t-shirt. It’s a valuable insight, because we sometimes think it’s up to us to bestow agency — but sometimes we just need to get out of the way. Let kids own their learning, let them own their self-assessment. Kids can amaze us when we let them.

Winston Benjamin 41:51 My takeaway is allowing students to actually feel the consequence of failure. Sometimes it’s hard — we don’t want kids to feel like they’re not good enough. But knowing “I failed, and then, with support and guidance, I got from there to here” — that’s one of the greatest ways to prepare a student not just for today, but for life. Productive struggle is where growth lives. Without it, there’s no growth. I’m sitting with that through this whole conversation about the value of assessment.

Katie, what’s your one thing?

Katie White 42:51 The only way we’re going to re-story assessment — create a new narrative around it — is through thoughtful, intentional language and the actions we take in response to it. So I’m encouraging everyone to embrace assessment as part of learning. It has the potential to help kids develop a healthy relationship with themselves and with learning. Let’s do it — let’s do it together.

Winston Benjamin 43:26 Katie, where can our listeners find your books and access what you’re sharing with the world?

Katie White 43:34 I’ve written five books, and I have a sixth in the works coming out in December. Solution Tree Press publishes my books.

My first is Softening the Edges, which you mentioned. Then Unlocked, the creativity book. Then Student Self-Assessment, which we talked about a lot today. I was also a co-author on Concise Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Assessment and Grading — ironic title, I know. And I wrote a chapter in Teacher as Assessment Leader, edited by Thomas Guskey, specifically on harvesting student work for strength and need and how to use that differently.

The new book — I’m hoping to have something with “pivot” in the title — was written with my colleague Dr. Chris DeLuca. It’s about centering students as partners in agentic decision making in service of learning. Really about that pivot toward student needs with students as partners.

Paul Beckermann 44:47 All right — solutiontree.com?

Katie White 44:49 Yes, or .ca if you’re in Canada. We have both.

Paul Beckermann 44:53 There you go. Thanks for being with us, Katie. We really appreciate it.

Katie White 44:58 Thank you so much. I really appreciate the chance to talk about this.

Rena Clark 45:05 Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 45:09 We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Rena Clark 45:21 And remember — go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 45:25 Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 45:27 You make a difference.