Notes from 21st Century Assessment

Notes from 21st Century Assessment Session

Konrad Glogowski

  • What we know about assessment
    • Assessment is the tail that wags the curriculum dog
    • Grades with substantive comments have the most impact on
      learning
  • What impact does a blogging community have on the role of the teacher?
    • Reflecting on what happens in the classroom, both online and off — show how much you have learned
    • Noticed that the students were engaged in talking with the community, but not by communicating with the teacher
      • Students saved docs, printed them and gave them to the teacher offline
      • But, they were interested in conversations with one another
    • Is this evidence of learning?
      • Not in the sense of “data” that is measured on a test
      • Rubrics, too, only focus on what they can not do and not on what they can do.
  • Current Models
    • Metaphor of acquisition moving to a metaphor of participation to metaphor of knowledge creation
    • Assessing learning of what is taught in test conditions (behaviorist) to assessing learning as individual sense-making through problem solving and demonstration through projects and writing (cognitive constructivist) to assessing learning as building knowledge with others in a situated context of a community and with real-life problems using resources and represented in a variety of forms(sociocultural)
    • Most of us would want to be in the socio-cultural paradigm
    • Suggestion One: Sociocultural Assessment Practices
  • Models for the Future
    • All of this is woven together, like a mat
    • There are no specific goals, and what they use to
      assess student progress is a narrative, learning and assessment are dynamic and continuous
    • If there is no score, what are they working towards?
      • Rubric combined with narrative response
    • Focus on what students can do, not just the deficits
      • Individuality, learning as holistic, inquiry-based,
        draws from family and home
      • When children see that teachers, families, peers, and others see value in their work and that what they do have meaning, then wonderful things will happen
    • Children who are valued with do valuable learning
    • The government of New Zeeland is looking for learning
      dispositions that invite students to investigate and collaborate
  • Two common dispositions
    • Resourcefulness and agency
  • What we need to do with assessment:
    • Feedback — timely and substantive
      • “Needs to provide information related to the task or process of learning that fills a gap between what is understood and needs to be understood” — missed citation
      • Where am I going, how am I going, and where to next?
      • These three questions can work at different levels: task, process, self-regulation, and self level
    • Self-assessment — and peer assessment, to some degree
    • Revisiting episodes of competence — need to do this more intentionally
    • This creates spaces for conversation about learning
  • Example: how to grow a blog — flower metaphor
    • What do I want to accomplish?
    • How will I nourish it and help it grow?
    • Questions
      • What makes me unique?
      • As a blogger and writer, what will I do?
      • How will I support my peers?
  • Frequency of blog posts as compared to quality of writing and impact on the blogging community
  • Discuss how their own blog post has impacted their own learning and the community by using a “ripple effect” diagram
  • Questions
    • What is the role of the teacher in the 21st century classroom?
    • What are your experiences with assessment as a student?
    • What are the benefits of a learning story approach? What are the drawbacks?
    • To what extent do your current assessment practices promote resourcefulness and agency?
    • Detailed and timely feedback can be time consuming — how do we do it?