For those of us who subscribe to Bloom’s taxonomy, one of the ultimate expressions of a student’s learning is synthesis, the creation of their own work based on the learned concept. This is actually the basis for authentic assessment, and a great argument against testing.  When the student can take what they’ve learned and apply it to a personal project, that is the true measure of how well the student has learned the concept.

We’re so bogged down in this concept that the only way to prove students are learning is in easily quantifiable tests that may or may not have any actual bearing on demonstrating whether or not a student really knows the material.

Really, what we’re seeing from students outside of school reflects this. They approach new applications, new technologies, and within minutes have often figured out the basics well enough to exert their personality over it. These persistent users of Web 2.0 take what they read and turn it into their web presence, expressing themselves visually and verbally. The evidence of their learning is on display to the world. We’d do well to consider this when setting up learning and assessing tasks for them.

The most sincere way to determine whether or not a student has mastered a concept is to give them the opportunity to apply that knowledge through  thecreation of a project.

It would appear everyone is looking for a better way to assess students. England is now considering getting rid of their national test, following the lead of neighboring country Wales.

What are these tests being replaced with? Teacher-led assessments. (Does this sound a bit familiar?)

The concern in Wales and England, not unlike here, is that rather than being taught what they need to succeed at the next level, students are being taught to pass a test. That’s never beneficial for anyone. The point of going to school is to learn the basics you’ll need to become a competent adult, but learning cannot take place when it’s crammed in.

Are these localized assessments going to serve as the key to improving education? I really don’t know right now, but I’ll be interested in following this.

One of our goals as a teacher is to create a sense of self-sufficience in our students. We try to help them move from dependent on us to dependent on themselves for certain bits of knowledge. We assign them a score of how well they have mastered their independence over the knowledge.

What if we were able to lead them toward a more independent, self-directed assessment model? Not only are they proving their mastery over the knowledge, but they’re also looking for acceptable levels of work from themself to reach that mastery. In the post, the students are critiquing a project and working to bring the quality of their work to a higher level, but what if this could be broadened to incorporate assessing other learning activities? Yes, there will always be students who will only do what they need to skate by and ones who will misapply the rubric, swearing they’ve done everything at the highest level because they don’t actually understand the rubric, or want the best grade for the least work, but there will also be students who can be brought to understand what the rubric is asking of them, and through critical thinking and honest appraisal bring themselves to that higher level.

It’s an interesting thought on bring out one more level of thinking, of reflecting, of being independent in students.

Found via Stephen Downes

Most of my students are in the middle of taking the state math test this week. This test is a fairly embattled event, with attempts being made form all sides to either shape it up or ship it out. Last year, this same test was thrown out when over half the state’s sophomores failed it.

As the test is still a graduation for this year’s sophomores, my students are naturally very nervous (and very hopeful the test will be thrown out yet again).

These same kids have taken the state exams nearly every year since they were eight years old. These same kids not only sit for two to three weeks of testing per year, but in high school (and more and more junior highs), they are also completing a culminating project each year that is supposed to demonstrate in some way shape or form what they’ve learned during the year.

It makes me wonder…is it really necessary to put these kids through both a standardized test and a culminating projects? Are we maybe asking too much of these kids? What can a standardized test tell us about our students that a directed year-long project can’t, especially if parts of the project are created in response to class assignments?

What are we really trying to accomplish? What do we want the students to come away with?

It would be fair to say that part of the reason I have never wanted to go into a traditional classroom setting is because I don’t agree with many of the traditional assessment methods. Of course, I then went to work for a company that creates standardized tests, both as a scorer and as a content editor. Now I work for a tutoring program where we have to assign grades to every single activity the student does.

I feel a bit hypocritical.

The theory behind assessment is a simple one: to gauge whether or not the student has accomplished the learning objective. For some reason, someone decided that the way this is best accomplished in the continental US is by assigning pieces of paper with strings of words crafted carefully into questions to elicit a response from the student. This really only tests the student’s knowledge of the theory behind the learning objecting. In many cases, it doesn’t test the child’s practical knowledge.

When we create our learning objectives, we generally have a change in behavior that we want to produce in the student. The learning objective does not address how we want to change that behavior. It merely states what we want to change.

So many teachers take the time to create relevant learning situations for students to help them learn both the theory and the practical of the learning objective. They create worksheets, hands-on projects, and relevant culminating projects to help the student grasp the concept. They then give them a test on a piece of paper that asks them to talk concretely about the individual aspects of what they learned, generally out of context. That’s the first problem with assessment. It moves the student out of context.

This is where authentic assessment could actually be a more useful assessment. It’s often avoided because it doesn’t provide a simple number-crunching way to assign a grade. Instead a rubric must be developed, and each student must be graded against themself instead of a number crunching scheme. But sometimes, it gives a much more relevant picture of what the student has actually learned. The student who excels in coursework, but chokes on every exam might very well be one who would benefit more from an authentic assessment.

In schools, each skill builds on the previous. We start by checking for prior learning. There is a continual assessment going on to make sure a student has actually learned a skill. In the corporate world, this continual assessment isn’t quite as persistent. An employee goes to a training. It’s assumed that they will come back to work and use the new skills in their job. This would seem like reinforcing, but what happens when it is a skill that isn’t used frequently. The employee may have taken notes during the training, but with everything going on they may have forgotten temporarily how to implement that skill. In these corporate settings, the only assessment given is whether or not the employee can effectively and immediately transfer the skills to their tasks. It’s black and white, pass and fail. No wonder so many employees are a nervous wreck!

It is important to keep assessment authentic and persistent. Very few people learn everything they need to in a single sitting.