Summary of Podcast: School’s In, Beyond tests and quizzes: Getting creative with assessment during COVID-19

This brief summarizes the Stanford University podcast, School’s In, Beyond tests and quizzes: Getting creative with assessment during COVID-19. The podcast guest, Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo, is GSE Associate Professor and Director of Stanford’s Laboratory of Educational Assessment, Research and Innovation (LEARN). The podcast focuses on teachers’ ability to assess students’ learning at a time when school closures have affected the administration of certain types of assessments.

Ruiz-Primo promotes the value of formative assessment which gathers information to help students move forward in learning with feedback being the most important mechanism of formative assessment. During a two-way process, teachers learn about how they are doing based on what students are learning just as students get feedback from teachers.