Assessment AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT Featuring Tom Schimmer and Natalie Vardabasso FEATURED RESOURCE What led you to reexamine conventional assessment practices, and what inspired you to shift the conversation toward storytelling as a meaningful method of assessment? Tom: Conventional assessment asks students to recall the right answer, but it rarely captures the story of learning behind it. That gap has always been a problem, but AI has made it undeniable. When a tool can generate a polished product in seconds, teachers can no longer rely on artifacts alone to know whether students actually did the thinking. But AI can’t tell a student’s story—the missteps, revisions, decisions, and breakthroughs. That’s why we turned to storytelling: It reveals the human process behind the performance. For an educator ready to “rehumanize” their assessment practices, what is one concrete step you recommend starting with tomorrow, and how would you measure its impact? Natalie: Start by identifying one critical competency in your subject, the skill that shows up across multiple tasks. This instantly shifts assessment from “Did they complete the assignment correctly?” to “How are they growing as critical thinkers, collaborators, creators, etc.?” When you anchor your feedback to a competency, rather than a single task, it becomes transferable across multiple tasks. Students begin to see patterns in their learning, not just task-specific fixes. You’ll know it’s working when their progress shows up in new contexts. What challenges do educators commonly face when moving away from conventional assessments toward narrative approaches, and what strategies have you found most effective in helping them make that shift successfully? Tom: The biggest challenge is that educators grade too often and too early, ending the story before it gets good. Once a grade appears, students stop revising and stop revealing their thinking. The most effective strategy is shifting feedback into a dialogue. A single- point rubric invites students to add evidence, explain decisions, and extend the narrative of their learning. When teachers delay the grade as long as possible, students stay in the learning phase longer. That space is where narrative assessment becomes both natural and powerful. Looking ahead at the world of education, what do you see as the next frontier in assessment work (beyond what’s in this book)? Natalie: The next frontier is augmented humanity. As AI takes on more of the planning load (drafting lessons, generating exemplars, designing tasks, etc.) it frees teachers to return to the heart of assessment: sitting beside students in dialogue. That space is where students learn to analyze their own work, make decisions, and grow their competencies with intention. In this future, AI becomes a powerful thought partner—not to replace human judgment, but to elevate it, so students can engage more deeply in assessment of, for, and as learning. Featured resource: Rehumanizing Assessment See page 69 for details.
