Over the past two decades, creativity has emerged as one of the core 21 st century learning objectives within K-12 education systems around the world. While some literature has demonised assessment as something that inhibits creativity, a growing body of research supports feedback-driven teaching -also known as formative assessment or assessment for learning-as an effective pedagogical approach across contexts and content areas. Given this empirical foundation, we propose that assessment for learning holds powerful potential for helping students to learn about being creative. To examine intersections of creativity and assessment in K-12 educational contexts, we carried out the scoping review study reported here, with the aim of advancing understanding of how assessment can support and promote creativity in classroom contexts. Fifty-one research articles were selected for review, based on inclusion criteria which required that articles (a) reported the collection and analysis of quantitative or qualitative data, (b) addressed K-12 classroom or extra-curricular contexts, (c) addressed the formative or summative assessment of creativity for pedagogical intent, (d) were peer-reviewed, and (e) were published in English. Analysis of the research revealed two dominant and consistent themes. Firstly, multiple studies indicated the importance of defined criteria for effective and useful creativity assessment within K-12 classroom contexts. Secondly, a number of studies identified the particular value of self-assessment and/or reflection in supporting creativity. We discuss implications of these findings in relation to educational policies and practices that seek to promote creativity, and areas for future research.

Context The standards-based movement in U.S. public education has reached as far as kindergarten. Early primary teachers are increasingly required to teach academic standards in core subject areas, while engaging in increased levels of student assessment. In kindergarten, this growing emphasis on academic standards and student assessment is expected to operate alongside longstanding social and personal developmental expectations. However, recent research has identified a significant tension as teachers endeavor to negotiate a balance between traditional developmental programming and new standards-based academic curricula. Purpose The purpose of this scoping review is to synthesize research related to three kindergarten traditions—Reggio Emilia, Waldorf, and Montessori—to develop a common understanding of key tenets for kindergarten assessment that can inform policy and practice in public education contexts. Research Design A scoping review methodology was used to analyze research on assessment practices native to three kindergarten traditions—Reggio Emilia, Waldorf, and Montessori. This methodology followed a five-stage framework: (a) identifying the research question, (b) identifying relevant studies, (c) study selection, (d) charting the data, and (e) summarizing and reporting the results. Guiding the collection of articles was the following research question: “What does the extant literature on practices native to the three focal kindergarten traditions tell us about the assessment of kindergarten (4–6-year-olds) students’ learning?” In total, 80 texts satisfied the inclusion criteria across all traditions and were included in this study. Conclusions Empirical and non-empirical literature pertaining to each tradition were analyzed and considered in relation to their potential contribution to public education. In comparing across traditions, differences were evident based on their (a) assessment discourses and purposes, (b) reference systems, (c) assessment methods, and (d) uses of assessment information. However, the three traditions also maintained key commonalities leading to the identification of core tenets for kindergarten assessment. Specifically, three core priorities for kindergarten assessment were identified: (a) a commitment to child-centered and developmentally appropriate teaching, (b) a continuous embedded formative assessment approach, and (c) the use of multiple methods for gaining assessment information. In addition to core priority areas, results from this study suggest consistent processes that facilitate assessment practices at the kindergarten level. These four iterative processes are: (a) participation in teaching and learning, (b) reconstruction of teaching and learning, (c) engagement in assessment dialogues, and (d) integration of feedback for enhanced teaching and learning.

Stevie Jackson and Jackie Jones regarded in her article- Contemporary Feminist Theory that “The concepts of gender and sexuality as a highly ambiguous term, as a point of reference” (Jackson, 131, ch-10). Gender and Sexuality are two most complexly designed, culturally constructed and ambiguously interrelated terms used within the spectrum of Feminism that considers “sex” as an operative term to theorize its deconstructive cultural perspectives. Helene Cixous notes in Laugh of Medusa that men and women enter the symbolic order in a different way and the subject position open to either sex is different. Cixious’s understanding that the centre of the symbolic order is ‘phallus’ and everybody surrounding it stands in the periphery makes women (without intersectionality) as the victim of this phallocentric society. One needs to stop thinking Gender as inherently linked to one’s sex and that it is natural. To say, nothing is natural. The body is just a word (as Judith Butler said in her book Gender Trouble [1990]) that is strategically used under artificial rules for the convenience of ‘power’ to operate. It has been a “norm” to connect one’s sexuality with their Gender and establish that as “naturally built”. The dichotomy of ‘penis/vagina’ over years has linked itself to make/female understanding of bodies. Therefore my main argument in this paper is to draw few instances from some literary works which over time reflected how the gender- female/women characters are made to couple up with a male/man presenting the inherent, coherent compulsory relation between one’s gender and sexuality obliterating any possibility of ‘queer’ relationships, includes- Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915), Bombay Brides (2018) by Esther David, Paulo Coelho’s Winner Stands Alone (2008) and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall apart (1958).

This practice note illustrates a situation where, as program evaluators, we crept beyond the provisional boundaries set by our Developmental Evaluation (DE) goals to facilitate learning. Our DE was initially focused on one program which was being designed for online delivery in higher education. During the DE of this program, questions and themes arose which had larger organizational applicability; we were asked to help design a strategic learning session that addressed a large group of stakeholders within which existed the tiny subset of stakeholders engaged in the original DE. This practice note describes how we negotiated the emergent purposes of the DE with the need for intentional pivots within the strategic learning session to serve our intended subset of stakeholders with their project as well as stimulate evaluative thinking within the larger stakeholder group.

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