Thank you Mr Barton!

This is gold:

From "How I wish I'd taught Maths", Craig Barton says:

"If I only remember three things:

• We can only observe performance, and it may be a poor indicator;

• At times the learning must be desirably difficult to make retrieval more effortful so memory storage is strengthened;

• Low stakes quizzes are often the most powerful learning tool."

I love the first dot point and it's about time others did as well. Data is NOT the end all. It's just one very small piece of evidence which is often not a true indicator of student learning;

BUT as long as systems, tertiary institutions and governments continue to place value on just the data, then we will continue to churn out learning that focuses on the end assessment tool rather than allowing our students the joy of deep understanding and creative application of their learning.