In our most recent discussions at the Mid Day Musings sessions last week, a theme emerged about testing and assessment. It is very clear to us as instructors why we have to assess student learning. What we seem to agree on about this subject was that the testing and assessment process is less clear for our students. Sure they get a grade and are either happy, sad, or neutral. But what happens next can lead to either deeper learning or the promotion of surface learning. When students merely regurgitate facts and figures back to us, the learning process has probably not occurred. You can check this by including questions from the most recent test on the next assessment you give. If they are able to use the knowledge again (in a different context perhaps) then they really learned. If they give you a look that says "we already used that information and I purged it from my brain" then we have a problem. So getting students to understand that the assessment process is as much for them as it is for us is a great teachable moment. Jared Cooney Horvath and Jason M Lodge have posted a series of articles on the assessment process. One of the most interesting to me was their exploration of how and why the mind goes blank during testing. Their post is targeted at students and begins, "You prep for an exam and all the information seems coherent and simple. Then you sit for an exam and suddenly all the information you learned is gone. You struggle to pull something up – anything – but the harder you fight, the further away the information feels. The dreaded mind blank." Continue reading here.