3 Reasons for Student Self-Assessment (With 6 Templates to Get You Started)

1. Self-assessment promotes student growth. “Reflection is an essential tool that enables student to decode what they know and what challenges them — and, most important, to distinguish between the two (Sackstein, 26),” says author and leader in the “Going Gradeless” movement Starr Sackstein. She describes the importance of reflection and self-assessment for students today, who are getting information from “every corner of the world,” and who therefore need strong metacognition stills to help them interpret the great variety of resources and information they have at their fingertips.
2. Self-assessment builds a culture of feedback in your classroom. Retired 5th grade teacher and author of “Learn Like a Pirate: Empower Your Students to Collaborate, Lead, and Succeed,” Paul Solarz set up rituals for self-assessment in his learner centered classroom, giving students opportunities to identify strengths and weaknesses, set goals, and monitor their own progress.
3. Self-assessment saves YOU time! When you share the responsibility of feedback with your students, you relieve yourself of the burden of providing ALL the feedback. Instead, you can focus on giving less feedback that is more targeted and meaningful to what students need.

Get started (or continue!) with student self-assessment right away using Floop’s six self-assessment templates which include a Weekly Retrospective, Feedback Synthesis, Goal Setting Plan, Self-Paced Learning Report, Unit Pre-Reflection and Self-Assessment. Make a copy for yourself, download, edit to suit your own needs, or use the prompts as a guide for discussions or whatever platform you prefer.