The Wisdom of Pre-service Teachers

In the first week of their graduate class on assessment, students watched the Edutopia video on comprehensive assessment at http://www.edutopia.org/comprehensive-assessment-overview-video. On an exit slip they were asked to make a statement about the future of assessment in terms of balancing standardized tests with authentic assessments. Their insights are lovely.

· I sincerely believe that our over-reliance and single-mindedness of relying on test scores has crippled our educational system.

· Eventually the data will show that performance assessment is the more proper measure of students’ understanding, problem solving, and applications of learning

· Communication and collaboration are important skills that standardized tests can’t measure.

· Our younger generations need to be savvy, creative, and innovative. If we aren’t helping them to also be analytical and independent learners, the “real world” isn’t going to wait for them.

· Standardized tests may not be guiding teachers to help students reach the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

· Assessment is moving towards continual assessments throughout learning rather than one final summative measure.

These responses are so hopeful for our educational future.

Deidre's Question

I met Deidre Donovan at the ASCD Conference. Deidre is a high school history teacher in Burlington, Vermont. As in many other cities, her school is increasingly diverse with a wide range of ethnic and socioeconomic groups. She didn’t say much during my presentation but later, I happened to sit next to her at Carol Ann Tomlinson’s presentation on 21st Century Skills and Differentiation.

I could tell that Deidre was trying to balance these diverse ideas when she asked me “Is it possible to do both: To prepare all students for 20th century tests while building 21st century skills? We talked for a while about the idea of “wrappers”. This is the extension of 20th century learning with complementary 21st century skills.

For example, when teaching about genetically modified food, include a debate with teams of farmers, scientists, and consumers to build in digital literacy and collaboration. For a unit on Spanish food vocabulary, have students create a descriptive restaurant menu that includes previously learned adjectives with newly learned foods in a creative (digital or traditional) wrapper. In a unit on styles of poetry add peer editing and publication technologies to make products visible. Then hold a “read aloud” day. Consider using a variety of assessment such as rubrics, progress logs, and reflective self assessment.

Deidre contemplated how to use this is her history class. She realized that a unit on Middle East history was a great opportunity to create a graphic organizer comparing historical and current events and creating a brochure for students, teachers, and parents to build understanding on how the past is influencing the present. She brainstormed possible 21st century skills such as analysis, synthesis, technology, and collaboration that could feasibly be added on. We finished our conversation by brainstorming how she could give a traditional test and add a comparative graphic organizer as a wrapper.

Please give it a try and let me know how you used these ideas.