Rethinking Assessment

How can we measure our students in a manner that allows them to demonstrate knowledge without it being a purely individualized and secret memorization test?  This is one of many dilemmas our system of education is addressing as we push through this powerful wave of technology in education.  Whether you are implementing the Common Core Standards or looking to engage students and raise the rigor of the curriculum in your school, assessing student performance remains crucial to any effective instructional program.

Doug Reeves, in his chapter titled A Framework for Assessing 21st Century Skills in the book 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, edited by James Bellanca and Ron Brandt,  makes a compelling argument for a radical shift in how we are measuring student performance and why we need change our current practice.  Dr. Reeves points out quite clearly that when people outside of education ask the question of "How do we know kids are learning?" our response, especially in the last 10-15 years, tends to be to show the results of a state, standardized test and see if the child is "proficient" and is meeting academic standards.  Ask any education expert and you will here that to base a student's knowledge on a two day test is a measure of what that child knows on those two days.  It may not necessarily reflect all they "know" and understand about the topic.    In essence, Dr. Reeves suggests that in order to fully move our practice into the 21st Century, we need to rethink assessment and move away from our current concept of testing.  In fact, "the very nature of testing - with its standardized conditions, secrecy, and individual results - is antithetical to the understanding, exploration, creativity, and sharing that are the hallmarks of a 21st Century framework for assessment." (pg 306)  The struggle we face is our need for accountability through data in order to know who to blame if things do not go as planned.  But more importantly, there is a disconnect between what 21st Century businesses are looking for in employees and the experiences our graduates have gone through in their education.  The work place is not always filled with nice, easy problems to be solved.  Most certainly you do not get to pick A, B, C, or none of the above. 

As schools, we need to prepare our students by placing them in assessment situations that mirror the everyday, rapidly changing, globalized community they are now a part of.  Assessments need to be in conditions that are more non-standardized.  The idea of comparing one student to another and identifying their class rank is quickly diminishing as the key indicator of future success in our world.  Instead, how one is able to function as a member of a problem solving team is becoming more and more desirable.  Reeves is clear to state that this does not mean abandoning certain skills that must be mastered by students, often in rote fashion.  However, his framework asks us to move way beyond the Learn part assessing student knowledge.

Reeves' assessment framework includes 5 elements and questions to guide students and teachers thinking through the assessment:

• Understand: What is the evidence that you can apply learning in one domain to another?
• Share: How did you use what you have learned to help a person, the class, your community, or the planet?
• Explore: What did you learn beyond the limits of the lesson? What mistakes did you make, and how did you learn from them?
• Create: What new ideas, knowledge, or understandings can you offer?
• Learn: What do you know?  What are you able to do?

These concepts/practices are not novel to education.  How we apply this type of thinking, is more critical.  Formative assessments have gained much more prominence in the role of learning.  Reeves now is taking this even farther where these questions are presented prior to the beginning of a lesson/unit/project to serve as guides to our thinking.  All elements need to be addressed.

Reeves goes on to further define and explore the transformations "required of assessments: from standardized to fluid conditions, from secrecy to openness, and from individual to collaborative assessments." (pg. 318)  He is quite clear in his point that "educational leaders cannot talk about the need for collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity and at the same time leave teachers and school administrators fenced in by obsolete assessment mechanism, policies and assumptions." (pg 318)

I have written extensively about bringing 21st Century instruction full force into our Hawaii Catholic Schools.  To effectively mange this transition, we need to take an honest look at our practices of instruction and assessment.  This piece on assessment by Doug Reeves really hit home.  The questions and strategies that he offers make so much sense.  If we ask the right questions, we can get our students to think, create, analyze, etc.  That is our role as Educators.  I guess I am wondering if we can really meet 21st Century needs in a 19th Century structure.  Maybe we need to think about changing the structure?  Thanks Mr. Reeves for a great read!

Source:
21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, Bellanca, James and Brandt, Ron (2010, Solution Tree Press): Chapter14 - Doug Reeves, A Framework for Assessing 21st Century Skills