assessment

RECENT POSTS

Report: Federal Rules Impede Competency-Based Learning

April 29, 2013 | 10:31 AM | By
scantron

Getty Images

Competency-based learning, which allows students to progress at their own pace after they’ve shown mastery of a subject, rather than by their age, is quickly gaining momentum. Already, a few states like New Hampshire, Maine, and Oregon are moving towards implementing competency-based learning models throughout the entire state. What’s more, 40 states have at least district experimenting with the model. But despite this growth, its proponents say federal policies for accountability and assessment are holding the movement back.

KnowledgeWorks, an organization that supports three education-focused initiatives — New Tech Network, EDWorks and Strive — recently released a report highlighting the pain points between federal policy and a competency-based system. The report, Competency Education Series: Policy Brief One [PDF], points out that, although the federal government has supported some aspects of competency-based learning, implementing the new model can be difficult because of federal restrictions.

“The greatest conflict stems from disconnect with the work on the ground and federal accountability and assessment systems,” the report states. “Implementers faced with this disconnect have no choice but to juggle two systems: one required by federal law and one developed by the educators, students, parents, and community leaders committed to successful implementation of competency education.”

CLASHES OVER TIME

Time is the biggest point of contention between the two systems. The federal government measures school accountability as well as student achievement through time-based modules. Seat time and annual test results are the primary ways that the government keeps schools accountable, Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Research, assessment, competency-based education, KnowledgeWorks, SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium

In an Era of Global Competition, What Exactly Are We Testing For?

April 19, 2013 | 9:28 AM | By
test-taking

Renato Ganoza/Flickr

 

In this era of global competition, test scores are used as the primary benchmark to call out which countries will produce “successful” students. Knowing that American students are competing against a global pool of the best and brightest has led education leaders to focus more on how they score on international tests compared to students from other countries.

But high test scores don’t provide a complete picture of students’ success, according to Yong Zhao, world-renown author, scholar, and professor of education at University of Oregon.

“Countries that score highly, have students with lower confidence,” Zhao said in his keynote address to educators gathered online for the 2013 Leadership Summit.

That seems counter-intuitive, and Zhao isn’t claiming a causal connection — he questions whether focusing on test scores might inadvertently lower confidence. Zhao has analyzed data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and discovered a negative correlation between high math scores and confidence.

“Countries that score highly, have students with lower confidence.”

Similarly, in his analysis of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test that analyzes how countries score in reading, math and science, Zhao found a negative correlation between attitude and attainment. In other words, the countries with lower scores had students who reported higher interest in the subjects. Zhao analyzed media stories from high scoring countries like Korea and Japan, where students don’t show enough confidence or enthusiasm for subjects in which they excel.

He found the same results when he looked at students’ belief in their entrepreneurial capacity, their ability to start businesses or be self-starters. “Everybody is trying to perfect this system and make Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Research, assessment, collaborative learning, Common Core State Standards, global learning, personalized learning, Yong Zhao

SimCityEDU: Using Games for Formative Assessment

March 14, 2013 | 8:00 AM | By

SimCityEDU

SimCity

As game-based learning gains momentum in education circles, teachers increasingly want substantive proof that games are helpful for learning. The game-makers at the non-profit GlassLab are hoping to do this with the popular video game SimCity.

GlassLab is working with commercial game companies, assessment experts, and those versed in digital classrooms to build SimCityEDU, a downloadable game designed for sixth graders. Scheduled to be be released in the fall of 2013, it builds on SimCity’s city management theme, but provides specific challenges to players in the subject of STEM.

“The big pain point we’ve heard from teachers is that they cannot entertain their kids to the level that they are being entertained outside of the classroom,” said Jessica Lindl, general manager of GlassLab. “They want to be able to create meaningful learning experiences and they just can’t compete with the digital tools their kids are accessing all the time.”

“None of the other games are trying to do formative assessment to the level we are. They aren’t validating whether they are assessing what they should be assessing.”

Teachers have been using the commercial version of SimCity as a classroom tool for a long time, but with the newest version recently released and the EDU version soon to follow, GlassLab is trying to convene an online community of educators already working in the space, asking them to Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Research, Teaching With Tech, assessment, Common Core State Standards, computer games, game-based learning, SimCityEDU, STEM

Anxious About Tests? Tips to Ease Angst

February 8, 2013 | 11:28 AM | By
359572657_89c53cca6e_z 2

Flickr: ccarlstead

As any parent or teacher knows, tests can create crippling anxiety in students–and anxious kids can perform below their true abilities. But new research in cognitive science and psychology is giving us a clearer understanding of the link between stress and performance, and allowing experts to develop specific strategies for helping kids manage their fears. These potential solutions are reasonably simple, inexpensive and, as recent studies show, effective. Some work for a broad range of students, while others target specific groups. Yet they’re unfamiliar to many teachers and parents, who remain unaware that test anxiety can be so easily relieved. Here, three such approaches:

1.   UNLOAD ON PAPER.

When students feel nervous, their capacity to think clearly and solve problems accurately is reduced, says Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist at the University of Chicago. Students taking an exam must draw on their working memory, the mental holding space where we manipulate facts and ideas. “When students are anxious, their worries use up some of their working memory, leaving fewer cognitive resources to devote to the test,” Beilock explains. One method recently tested successfully by Beilock and a colleague, Gerardo Ramirez, had students spend ten minutes writing about their thoughts and feelings immediately before taking a test. The practice, called “expressive writing,” is used by psychologists to reduce negative thoughts in people with depression. They tried the intervention on college students placed in a testing situation in Beilock’s Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Research, assessment

7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning

February 1, 2013 | 10:55 AM | By
kids in class

Flirck:WoodleyWonderworks

Every educator wants to create an environment that will foster students’ love of learning. Because the criteria are intangible, it’s difficult to define or pinpoint exactly what they are. But one group is giving it a try.

Researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launched the Innovative Learning Environments project to turn an academic lens on the project of identifying concrete traits that mark innovative learning environments. They sifted through and categorized the research on learning science, documented case studies, and compiled policy recommendations they hope will transform the current system.

Their book, The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice and the accompanying practitioner’s guide, lay out the key principles for designing learning environments that will help students build skills useful in a world where jobs are increasingly information and knowledge-based. The principles are not job-specific – no one knows what the future economy will demand. Instead, the main goal is to develop self-directed learners, students with “adaptive expertise.”

“Adaptive expertise tries to push beyond the idea of mastery,” said Jennifer Groff, an educational engineer and co-founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign. “You may be proficient, but without adaptive expertise you can get stuck very quickly as the world shifts.”

[RELATED READING: How Can Teachers Prepare Kids for a Connected World]

Groff doesn’t dispute that mastery is important and that students need to learn age-appropriate content, but she also argues it’s equally important to develop students’ ability to go beyond that, to question and apply learning in new situations.

To that end, these are their identified principles for innovative learning.

  1. 1.Learners have to be at the center of what happens in the classroom with activities focused on their cognition and growth. They have to actively engage in learning in order to become self-regulated learners who are able to control their emotions and motivations during the study process, set goals, and monitor their own learning process.
  2. 2. Learning is a social practice and can’t happen alone. “By our nature we are social beings and we learn by interacting,” Groff said. “We learn by pushing and pulling on concepts with Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Research, adaptive expertise, assessment, collaborative learning, personalized learning, social emotional learning

More Teachers Refuse to Give Standardized Tests

January 21, 2013 | 8:00 AM | By

Flickr: albertogp123

By

An entire school of teachers in Seattle is refusing to give students a standardized test that’s required by the district. The teachers say the test is useless and wastes valuable instructional time.

Meanwhile, individual teacher protests of standardized tests are popping up nationwide, and the Seattle case may make bigger waves.

Students in Seattle Public Schools take a test called the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, up to three times a year, from kindergarten through at least ninth grade. The school district requires the test to measure how well students are doing in reading and math — in addition to annual standardized tests required by the state.

“No one likes what’s going on, but no one has really found a mechanism to stand up and say, ‘This is wrong,’”

The MAP test is used as part of the teacher-evaluation process, and it’s supposed to help teachers gauge students’ progress.

“We’ve lost a whole lot of class time. I don’t know what the test was about, and I just see no use for it at all,” says Kit McCormick, who teaches English at Garfield High School.

McCormick says teachers are never allowed to see the test, so she has no idea how to interpret her students’ scores.

“So I’m not going to do it. But I’d be happy to have my students evaluated in a way that would be meaningful for both them and me,” she says.

Instead of this kind of high-stakes testing, teachers at Garfield propose that student learning be judged by portfolios of their work.

The school’s academic dean, Kris McBride, was supposed to administer the test this week. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, assessment, standardized tests