De la nota al aprendizaje: el camino hacia un uso formativo de las evaluaciones

Do your students feel an automatic "chill" or immediate stress every time you announce an assessment with associated grades? In the Chilean school system, we tend to treat SIMCE or DIA results as definitive verdicts, forgetting the emotional and cognitive impact that anxiety generates in the classroom. The scientific reality is compelling: cognition does not run on a track isolated from emotions; sustained stress raises cortisol and directly blocks working memory. In this second part of the interview, María Paz Cadena immerses us in an urgent diagnosis: we have tons of data on the results, but very little reflection of actual pedagogical practices. The solution to unlocking learning does not lie in pushing for more goals in the PME (School Improvement Plan), but in changing our culture of error, structuring real practice time, and mitigating the reading load and math anxiety that hold back our classrooms. Subscribe to our newsletters to receive free resources on this challenge and others: http://eepurl.com/g2q3Uf María Paz Cadena is an educational psychologist with a Master's degree in Educational Psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and a Master's degree in Public Policy from the University of Melbourne, Australia. With a distinguished career in the field within the Chilean public education ecosystem, she worked at the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) in the Teacher Evaluation program and led the learning achievement assessments division at the Education Quality Agency, actively participating in the design and implementation of the Comprehensive Learning Assessment (DIA). She currently serves as Head of Assessments at Aptus. Editorial Resources Bring evidence-based practice to your school with these key readings from our Aptus Publishing House: “Classroom Challenges”: A crucial text for understanding how academic anxiety acts as an invisible obstacle to teacher professional development and learning. “How Do We Work? A Guide to the Science of Learning”: Essential for administrators and teachers seeking to understand the impact of cortisol, stress, and working memory collapse in the face of complex assessments. Data shows that schools that manage to mitigate academic anxiety score up to 23 points higher on the SIMCE Math test in 4th grade. At Aptus, we support you in generating this comprehensive change: Midterm and Progress Assessments (PDN/PDD): Designed with methodological rigor and an intentionally low reading load to assess both direct algorithm and actual knowledge without overwhelming your students. Instructional Leadership Consulting: We support Principals and Heads of Academic Units in systematizing classroom observations and collecting data on teaching practices (such as reading time or independent practice). Classroom and Quality Management Training: Practical workshops for your teachers to master the culture of error and differentiate between a simple mistake and a deep understanding error. 👉 Get a quote for our institutional services at: www.aptus.org/soluciones or write to [email protected] 00:00 – Welcome to the second part of the interview with María Paz Cadena. 00:33 – The emotional impact of assessments and the fear of grades. 01:12 – The "mirror" of practice: How much actual time do students spend reading and practicing in the classroom? 05:03 – Data analysis in 10th grade: Gaps and shortcomings in reading comprehension. 10:16 – The limitations of reading comprehension strategies in the face of a lack of basic knowledge. 14:31 – Neuroscience in the classroom: Cortisol, stress, and academic anxiety in new generations. 17:57 – Key technical differences for teachers: A deep comprehension error or simply an unintentional mistake? 19:26 – How the use of pedagogical data intersects with immediate feedback in the classroom. 20:53 – Planning and time management: Ensuring space for effective reteaching after analyzing test results. 24:37 – The danger of rushing to meet curriculum coverage at the expense of creating structural learning gaps. 26:40 – Initial teacher training and the need for practical tools for managing educational quality at the university level. 28:15 – The instructional leadership of the principal and the head of the academic unit as a fundamental pillar for sustaining pedagogical changes. 35:05 – Transfer of learning: Enabling students to apply what they have learned in new and non-routine contexts. 36:58 – Educational innovation: The use of technology and data platforms to optimize teacher grading time. 42:05 – Closing of the interview and thanks to María Paz Cadena for her technical analysis and on-the-ground perspective. #AcademicAnxiety #CultureOfError #Assessments #SchoolImprovement