Culturally Responsive Assessment

Every learner is unique. Each views the world through their personal experiences. These viewpoints are shaped by the cultural lens of customs, beliefs, practices, and symbols. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, white students are no longer the majority and these demographic changes present new challenges and opportunities. Diversity is the new norm in the classroom.

In any classroom, assessment is a complex process that becomes more so when each student brings different background to the text or topic. George Spindler’s (1988) idea of “Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange” resonates in today’s schools where learning and assessment must be respectful, non-judgmental, and adaptive. Here are three strategies to make this work.

Flexible Content and Context: I came across this math problem in a set of standardized test questions: Workmen use ½ of a pallet of pavers to build 3 steps into the school. Each step was the same size. How many pallets did they use for each step? If Veronique is unable to distinguish between a pallet, a palette, and a palate, how can she solve this problem? To unlock understanding we must deconstruct the questions into comprehensible nuggets and feasible sequences.                                            

Multiple Measures:  A selected choice test is not an effective way to measure most learning. One individual may play an exceptional piano sonata without being able to explain scales and cords and another may be able to solve proportional equations for building bridges but not be able to construct a model of a bridge. Using a range of assessments, from standardized to performance, can illuminate and unlock each child’s strengths and talents.

Growth Gauges: Learning takes place on a continuum similar to learning how to drive or play golf. At the end of the last school year Asani tearfully explained to me that her final grade in Civics was going to be based solely on her final exam. She was a dedicated student who took a little longer to tackle many ideas that were new to her. Throughout the year she stayed for extra help, worked on projects into the night, and actively participated in class. We met with her teacher who hadn’t understood her dilemma and were able to devise a blended solution to her grade.

Simply put, common standards with flexible proficiencies, a range of measures, and responsive grading practices, can benefit all learners in all classrooms.

Spindler, G.D.,  Spindler, L.,  Haraker, R., and  Schonhausen, H.  From Familiar to Strange and Back Again (1982). In Fifty Years of Anthropology and Education 1950 – 2000: A Spindler Anthology (2000). Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.