Assessment in the 21st Century
by Langwitches ~ February 6th, 2010. Filed under: 21st Century Learning, 21st Century Skills, Assessment.
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Brian’s TRT Blog picked up one of my blog posts from Educon’s session Taking.Play.Seriously. Brian has only a very short response to this:
So, would more play produce more creativity which would result in higher test scores? Hmmmm………
That “Hmmmm” sparked the following comment from me:
That is exactly what I am pondering as well. How can we have the same assessments (standardized tests) to measure “learning” if we want to encourage creativity? Why would schools/teachers change the way they have taught for years, if they are seeing results in their test scores? Why would curriculum change to prepare students for THEIR future if the assessment of the present will not measure nor value these skills?
All this seems to connect well with the book “Curriculum21“ by Heidi Hayes Jacobs that I am currently reading. Heidi advocates that change growth in schools should start with upgrading assessment. Now this makes sense to me. We can’t ask teachers to change grow in their teaching, but continue to expect them to evaluate students with the same types of assessments as they did 50 years ago.
Wikipedia defines educational assessments as:
the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs.
Since we don’t want/can’t overwhelm teacher by asking them to CHANGE everything at once
Curriculum Decisions
Heidi challenges teachers to a 21st Century Pledge by taking one “traditional” assessment and replacing it with a new kind of assessment. Those new kinds of assessments include:
- Documentaries
- Podcast
- CAD projections
- Web sites
- E-mail exchanges
- Digital music compositions
- Webcasts from live sites
- Online Journals
- Films
- Online courses
- Video podcasts
- Screenplays
- Quarterly e-reports
- Video conferences
- Second Life simulations
- Blogs
Note: I am not sure of the difference between an online journal and a blog?
I would add the following to her list of possible assessment replacements:
- Wikis (information depository & collaborative work)
- VocieThreads
- Tutorials
What would YOU add to this list of assessments which could measure more accurately skills of the 21st century?
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February 6th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Foe me, the key component here is the act of reflecting critically on our actions. Engaging learners in deep inquiry.
Yes, there are district policies and provincial curriculum, but in the end it is the teacher who structures the learning for his/her students behind the classroom door. My son’s teacher is still giving spelling tests, teaching cursive writing and handing out stencils of number calculations. I don’t even know where to start! The approach and materials used date back 100 years, ….
Top-down pro-d doesn’t work. Inspirational leadership alone is ineffective. Until the teacher engages in the learning process in a way that is meaningful to him/her, it is unlikely that their practice will shift.
What tools can we use to track this progress / growth over time? Have we not just defined the process portfolio?
http://learnquebec.ca/en/content/pedagogy/portfolio/index.html
For students, the process portfolio is likewise the tool I would suggest for tracking progress over time. Yes, there needs to be an alignment with the mandated curriculum and (unfortunately) a documenting of the preparedness for standardized examinations, but that should not be the sum total of the portfolio. The learner identifies goals that are meaningful to him/her and gathers evidence that supports their learning statements. The specific technologies used to me are irrelevant. I think we would want to see a multi-modal representation of student understanding, so samples including a wide range of forms of expression would be preferable. Whether they give an impassioned speech to the class or record a podcast, whether they write in a journal or blog; either way, I’m more interested in the content than the container.
Hm. Thanks for your post, certainly got me thinking on this beautiful sunny morning
@tomfullerton
February 6th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I believe the only addition I would add to this very comprehensive list of assessment tools would be an image of a learner’s personal learning network. Today’s learners need to be connected in order to find, reflect on and share information and knowledge. A view of their PLN would let others get a glimpse of how they go about learning.
Maryanne Burgos´s last blog ..Read, Reflect, Share
February 8th, 2010 at 11:41 am
What I love about this post and the examples Heidi has suggested and you have added is that it provides for differentiated assessment. As long as the students know what needs to be included in their podcast, blog, video, etc. then they can choose the modality that 1. they are interested in using and 2. they are more comfortable with. As a teacher I would possibly narrow down the choices to one for the students who have a penchant towards public speaking (podcast, video, voicethread), one for the reflective soul (blog), one for the musically inclined (create a soundtrack or song), etc. I wouldn’t have them necessarily all do what I impose on them.