Abstract

Schools are awash with assessment data, but the data are mostly used for reporting, comparing, and competing, and this has driven a ‘teach to the test’ dynamic. The governing by numbers in the performativity culture of neoliberal education has rendered professional skills and judgements unreliable and disabled innovation in assessment. As assessment drives teaching and learning, this accountability discourse is impacting learning. The learner has been dislodged from the center of the learning relationship. This review interrogates literature that puts learners back in the center of that relationship and examines how educators can develop an assessment culture that enriches learning. The literature reviewed presents and discusses how emerging assessment approaches that use digital technologies, such as Common Ground Scholar, are challenging long-held conceptions of assessment. The literature reviewed is aspirational, recognizing the new tools inspired by digital learning may shake off the shackles of 20th century education and herald a new age transforming assessment.