"Education in the times of Corona: Are we ready to reimagine assessments?"

The pandemic has impacted the design, delivery, and approaches in education and has set a "new reality." World over, educational institutions, leaders, and educators are responding and adapting to this new reality with astonishing creative energy, duty, and generosity in engaging learners in learning.

Before this new reality set in, learning assessments had remained heavily conditioned on students' physical attendance. Prevailing school closures demand the development of alternative approaches and strategies to deliver the critical feedback function of learning assessments. There is no denying the need to evolve past the centuries-old model. Many believe this is an opportunity to realize a decade-long movement that's been demanding the modification of standardized testing in a way to include "whole person" assessment— that accounts for social and emotional skills, as well as socio-economic contexts.

It is in this context that we discuss, "Education in the times of Corona: Are we ready to reimagine assessments?" at the 7th OELF. The OELF panelists will also attempt to explore — the impact that inequality can have on the ability to assess students fairly, whether it is possible to change long-established patterns that many experts conclude is failing to benefit either students or schools? And, is it possible to incorporate a contextualized approach to assessment that accounts for the learner's socio-economic context, as well as the potential discrimination faced by an individual from a particular background?