• Assessment FOR Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence that can be used to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there. The most common example of this is Formative Assessments that teachers use to determine what students already know.
• Assessment AS Learning is the use of a task/activity to allow students the opportunity to use assessment to further their learning. This kind of assessment usually manifests through self or peer evaluation. 
• Assessment OF Learning describes assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It is usually represented in the form of reports, judgements about the quality of learning, and assigned grades.

As a student, my only concerns with assessment centred on Assessment Of Learning. I hardly took notice of formative assessment or peer evaluation. My interest was divided only between scores on test and assignments, and grades on report cards.  This meant that whenever Report Card season crept up, an undeniable increase in anxiety seem to arise. As a high achiever and a confirmed perfectionist, Report Cards represented the totality of my need to be successful. Although I performed very well academically, I always managed to feel nervous about my grades. What if I got a B instead of an A? Did it mean I was losing my intelligence, slipping from my high standards in the previous grade?

When students realize assessment is criterion-referenced and properly spread between Assessment For, As and Of Learning, the pressures surrounding assessment can be reduced, and students can avoid some of the anxiety that it entails.

In terms of Mathematics, teachers sometimes need a reminder that there is more than one way to solve a problem mathematical equation, and therefore more than one way to assess students. Students and teachers can sometimes find themselves focusing too much on the “right way” or traditional way to solve a problem, when in reality, there are almost always multiple ways to arrive at an answer. Teachers should especially keep this in mind when assessing students’ work. If a student’s method for solving a problem differs from their own, it is not necessarily wrong. It is important to study the entire work involved in a student’s solution, rather than just marking the answer as “right” or “wrong”. Often, small errors are made that effect the student’s final answer, even though the student understood the processes and concepts necessary to solving the problem. In cases like these, students still demonstrate an understanding and/or application of Specific Curriculum Expectations, and thus it is important that they assessed with more than just respect to Assessment of Learning.

This motivates me to actively avoid ever giving a student a "zero" when they solve problems in math class. As long as the student shows their work, I believe there is opportunity to discover what is right about the student's wrongs.