Assessments in the 21st Century

We should take a good hard look at what and how we are assessing our kids. Over the past few years, we’ve done a great job of changing HOW we teach. We like to see more project based teaching. We encourage teachers to target higher order thinking by designing assessments in which students create a product. We’ve moved away from low level- “worksheet today and quiz on Friday” mentalities. That is a GOOD thing! There is no doubt about that! However, our current assessment strategies do not match these pedagogical best practices. Why on earth would we create higher order thinking lessons then ultimately judge our students based on how well they can choose between A, B, C or D?

Watch Diana Laufenberg from 3:30 - 6:40 as sh talks about this issue.

Instead, we should look to a “portfolio” style assessment. This can be on a small scale (a student keeps track of projects and products to present a portfolio at the end of a class) or on a large scale (a student keeps track of major projects and products throughout grades 9-12). At the end of each level, be it grade level or high school in general, a student can give a presentation/ overview or the portfolio. This model is already widely accepted in arts and I think it would be a great solution to the assessment mismatch we face today!

The Space of Creativity

The technology-infused classroom looks much different than a traditional classroom. I heard a Keynote the other day where the speaker was talking about “the space of creativity.” He had some interesting research. With everyone ones permission, he watch hours upon hours of “big brother” video footage at a scientific research facility. He wanted to know where, in what spaces, do these major scientific breakthroughs take place. Do researchers experience a great revelation while standing over the microscope? Do great ideas come while researchers pour over thick stacks of documents? Or, do they come in comfortable seating area with padded chairs and a small table, where creative minds can speak freely, in conversations with other creative minds, like a coffee house for example. It turns out, this is the kind of space where we see the greatest innovation (source)! But how does this “coffee house” design compare to our classrooms? Can we teach in a room that looks like a coffee house? More importantly, can students learn in this environment? I say YES! However, the role of the teacher will change. We will have to find a balance between “aimless chatter in the coffee house” and something that may seem like aimless chatter but may (at some point) give birth to a marvelous idea! Here are a few photos of typical office space at Lego and Google.

We plan for this with training and restructuring. It’s going to be a long road! But we need to keep an open mind, train our staffs and restructure our systems. We need to recruit these creative minds in to the education business. We need to learn from industry .These innovations can not only produce better competition for the global economy, but also bring innovative ideas back to education. This 5 minute video shows how innovation in these creative spaces can quickly lead to advances in educational technology.