1. Teachers assess and report on the student’s understanding of learning outcomes (LO) as a measure of achievement. All students have until the conclusion of the academic year to showcase their proficiency in the LO. This practice ensures that students requiring additional time to master the outcome have the opportunity to do so throughout the year.

By allowing students to attain mastery of an outcome before summative assessment, we are engaging in a fair and effective assessment approach.

2. Maintaining transparent and effective communication between instructional leaders, teachers, students, and parents is essential during a learning cycle and when reporting student achievement. Teachers and instructional leaders can establish trustworthy and collaborative connections with students and their families by cultivating interpersonal skills. 

These relationships are the foundation for parents to actively engage as genuine partners in their child’s educational journey.

3. The KUSPs are not intended for standalone summative assessment. Evaluating them in isolation turns them into a mere checklist of separate activities rather than a cohesive set of interconnected knowledge, understandings and skills. 

When teachers explicitly interweave the KUSPs together, students will more easily understand how the concepts of study relate to the world around them.

4. Many KUSPs can be grouped to create a comprehensive performance assessment of an outcome. Regardless of the type of assessment, teachers must align their assessments not only to the concepts of study in the outcome but also to the level of cognition. (Formative assessment can occur at various cognitive levels in the KUSPs – see Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design)

For student assessment results to contribute to a final grade on the report card, the cognitive level in the assessment must align with the level specified in the outcome.