How To 'Marie Kondo' Your Assessment Schedule

Considering we’re now preparing to move into a new house, this threat has been weighing heavily on my mind.

I’m worried that the close relationship I’ve established with both my postman and aisle 1 location 22 of my local Ikea store (home of Billy the new bookshelf) may be a problem for this next move…

Fortunately, I’ve developed a simple solution for this issue:

Engage in a significant, Marie Kondo-style declutter of the rest of the house, in order to make space for all my precious books.

Now, if you’re new to the world of the 'KonMari Method' of tidying, here’s a quick overview of her 6 six rules for success:

1. Commit yourself to tidying up. This isn’t a small tidy- it’s a complete overhaul.
2. Imagine your ideal lifestyle. Create your vision for success.
3. Finish discarding first. Work out what you no longer need first, before deciding where to store it.
4. Tidy by category, not by location. Rather than cleaning one room at a time, clean one category at a time instead. E.g., start with decluttering all of your clothes.
5. Follow the right order. Marie suggests cleaning in this order: clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous, sentimental items.
6. Ask yourself if it sparks joy. The golden rule for helping you discard items is to hold the item and ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” (This apparently helps you identify what you love and what you need to keep).

As I’ve been Marie Kondo-ing my way through our house, I’ve started to consider the applicability of this approach for schools and, more specifically, to assessment schedules in schools.

 

“The real path to greatness, it turns out, requires simplicity and diligence... It demands each of us to focus on what is vital- and to eliminate all of the extraneous distractions” (Collins, 2001).

Here are 5 rules you can follow to assist with decluttering your school's literacy assessment schedule:

Rule 1. Tidy by category

(Ok, I stole this one directly from Marie…)

Attempting to overhaul your entire literacy assessment schedule could become overwhelming very quickly.

Start by selecting just one area of literacy (E.g., reading OR writing OR speaking and listening OR spelling) and commit to tidying this up first.

Work your way through this one before moving on to another category.

Rule 2. Create a vision for literacy instruction

Considering all the required elements for your chosen area of literacy will help guide any refinements to your literacy assessment.

Take the area of READING, for example.

First you need to consider all the elements that work together to create successful readers.

You might use a framework such as Nell Duke and Kelly Cartwright (2021)'s one as a starting point for this conversation. In their 2021 journal article, they outlined all the constructs scientific research has proven to impact reading ability. (See Figure 1 below).

• How are each of these elements reflected in your reading assessments?
• Do your current reading assessments acknowledge this broad spectrum of required ingredients?
• Are your reading assessments giving you information across this framework or are they narrowly focused?
• Which areas aren't you learning about through your current assessments? 

In addition to considering the broad spectrum of skills required in your chosen area of literacy, you also need to consider the usefulness of any current assessments:

• Are they serving you well?
• Are they achieving their intended aim (to provide either summative or formative information).
• Is the assessment's time commitment worth it?
• Are there any unnecessary double ups (e.g., are you collecting the same information multiple times unnecessarily?)

Rule 3. Discard first

In her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying, Marie Kondo comments that ‘letting go is even more important that adding.’

‘Educators are drowning under the weight of initiative fatigue—attempting to use the same amount of time, money, and emotional energy to accomplish more and more objectives’ (Reeves, 2006).

Douglas Reeves’ solution to this problem is to ‘pull the weeds before you plant the flowers.’ In other words, start removing assessments from your schedule before you even think about adding any new ones.

My advice is to seek input from your peers here, as Reeves suggests that one person’s weed could be another person’s flower.

Ask our colleagues:

• Which assessments do they value?
• Are there any assessments they don’t use or understand?
• Could more training on the assessment make it more useful?
• What information do they want/need about their students as readers/writers/spellers that they don’t currently feel they’re getting?

Rule 4. Ask yourself what the purpose is

For each assessment on the schedule, rather than asking yourself, “Does this spark joy?” as Marie Kondo suggests, ask yourself “Does this have a current and valid purpose?”

Don’t be afraid to put every assessment through the wringer (even the ones you love). Lay them all out and ask the tough questions:

• Why should teachers conduct this assessment?
• Who will use the data from this assessment? (E.g., Will the leadership team use the data to track student growth across the school or will classroom teachers use it to inform daily instruction?)
• What will this assessment teach teachers about their students as readers /writers / spellers/ speakers or listeners?
• How can teachers use the information from the assessment to inform their planning and teaching?
• Is the assessment superfluous? Are there other assessments that provide the same information?
• Why was this assessment added to the schedule in the first place? What was the intended purpose? Is it achieving that purpose? Is that purpose still relevant?

Rule 5. Move forward with precision

Once you’ve evaluated each of the current assessments on your schedule, you’ll be able to use your vision for literacy instruction (step 1) to guide the selection of any new assessments.

Remember: When searching for new assessments always start with the purpose.

Being more precise about the purpose of an assessment is the difference between asking, “What reading assessments do you use?” VS “What assessments do you know of that can provide information on a students’ phonological awareness?”

One will give you a general response that may not be relevant to your needs, the other will give you specific purpose-focused options to research for possible inclusion in your future assessment schedule.

In summary

It’s not spring (yet) but report writing season is a great time to consider a Marie Kondo-style spring clean of your literacy assessment schedule.

As Marie (2021) herself says, “now is the time to get rid of duplicates, items you don’t use and objects that no longer spark joy” (or have a current and valid purpose).

All this in the name of making space for more books.

(Ok, so she didn’t exactly say that last line, but I think that’s what she meant).

Here are my  5 updated assessment-focused rules again:

1. Tidy by category
2. Create a vision for literacy instruction
3. Discard first
4. Ask yourself what the purpose is
5. Move forward with precision

Anyway, it’s back to packing boxes for me (and searching for a friendly, book-loving removalist company…)

Have you decluttered your assessment schedule? How did you do it? What tips do you have for others? Let us know over on the Oz Lit Teacher Facebook Group

Related Blog Posts

• How do the 6+1 Traits Align To Naplan?

• 2 Quick Tips For Effective Data Use

• 2 Mindset Traps To Avoid When Leading Change

References:

• Duke, N. and Cartwright, K., 2021. The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading. Reading Research Quarterly, [online] Available at: <https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rrq.411>.
• Collins, J., 2001. Good to great. London: Random House.
• Kondo, M., 2021. Marie's Guide to Moving. [online] The Official Website of Marie Kondo. Available at: <https://konmari.com/marie-kondo-top-10-moving-tips/> [Accessed 23 May 2021].
• Kondo, M., 2014. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. London: Vermilion.
• Reeves, D., 2006. Leading to Change / Pull the Weeds Before You Plant the Flowers. Educational Leadership, [online] 64(1), pp.89-90. Available at: <http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept06/vol64/num01/Pull-the-Weeds-Before-You-Plant-the-Flowers.aspx> [Accessed 23 May 2021].