Student Self Assessment
Let Them Help You Evaluate Them!!

Why is Student Self Assessment Important?

There are several reasons why students should not only be allowed, but also encouraged to participate in their evaluation and assist you with your student assessments.

The bottom line is that it enhances the learning process by having each student identify his/her strengths and weaknesses, define their goals and motivate them to achieve these goals.

I have mentioned before that students are accountable to themselves.

You need to give your students situations where they have to use critical thinking and problem solving (and I'm not talking about math)skills.

Conference with your students, individually, with partners or in small groups, as time permits or depending upon the situation.

Have them place themselves in your shoes to assess a situation and their own performance.

Or when studying a novel for example, have them take on the role of one of the characters to think about how they would handle a particular situation.

Writing Self Assessment

In the school board where I taught, students, on their report cards could complete, on a volunteer basis, a one page self assessment. Since the purpose of report cards are to provide an assessment of student achievement, I made my students completion of the self assessment page mandatory.

On each set of report cards, I asked my students to describe 3 strengths (e.g. "I'm good in math because I know my times table") and 3 things they needed to improve on (e.g. "My reading isn't very good, so I will read for 20 minutes extra each night").

In my opinion, self assessment is an excellent way for all of us (not just students) to grow, improve and become better individuals.

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