Learning and the future of assessment ... a perfect storm? A perfect time to reflect?
Dr. Tassos Anastasiades
Global Educator for Educational Leadership, Staff Development, Quality Assurance
The educational arena is at turmoil with the disrupted examination system due to the Pandemic.
Educators are developing a unilateral agreement that empowering students to be more in control of their own learning, developing 21st century skills such as curiosity, inquiry and creativity, and other skills, do improve achievement. There is also a rapid move towards the value of mindfulness, physical activity as well as engaging learners in activities that develop resilience, teamwork, visual and performing arts, the use of technology to support their learning, coding, applying learning to the real world the opportunities for employment, developing an action oriented social conscience, philanthropy, working together and communicating, preparing presentations - video and digital media, collaborative projects, evidence of experiences outside of school as well as in school - these all contribute to the student portfolio of achievement.
The global pandemic has been a perfect storm where teachers now have been asked to assess their students' and be in charge of their "final grades".
But with this perfect storm are the teachers ready to record achievement and progress? Do they have the tools to be able to provide an equitable assessment, globally?
Are we failing our students and future generations?
Roy Blatchford founder of www.blinks.education and a former headteacher and HMI in his book, “The Forgotten Third” examines what needs to be done to tackle “the long tail of underachievement” in education – particularly relevant as schools emerge from the coronavirus pandemic …
He makes a powerful observation - "Without a GCSE paper having been taken by a single student, a third of 16-year-olds this summer have been awarded grades 1, 2 and 3 in English and mathematics. It is the same every year and is a withering indictment of our system of “comparable outcomes”. ( perceived fail grades ).
It remains the case that “the long tail of underachievement” casts a shadow over UK education …. which we need to address in a fresh and radical fashion’.
He goes on to challenge the political arena – “We do not have to fail a third, for two-thirds to pass. It is not a necessity but a political choice. So system change is needed – and quickly”
“For 2021 my fervent wish is for teachers to be trusted to determine their students' grades without the additional burdens of a muddled, last-minute cocktail of controlled assessments and moderation”.
The pandemic has forced educators do just this – and perhaps for the first time challenge assessment methodology as they now have to! This is a global reality - not just the UK.
The deeper understanding monitoring student progress and judging every child without using a fairly rigid examination process which is still the best tool we have – yet we all propose that personalising learning is the way forward.
The Perfect Time?
Most recently, the Sunday Times reported “Schools seize on ‘perfect time’ to explore a future free of GCSEs’
Oxford AQA, one of the largest UK curriculum examination boards, announced that it is cancelling international GCSE and A-level exams. These will now be replaced by Teacher Assessed Grades (TAGs).
Sadie Visick, AQA Managing Director said: “Since the announcement about exams in England being cancelled, we’ve been listening carefully to the views of teachers, parents and students around the world. Many schools have told us that a consistent approach would mean that no student in any school or country would be disadvantaged, and assessing all students in the same way is the only way to be confident grades are comparable and fair … the fairest thing we can do is ensure a level playing field for all students, and follow the same approach to assessment as in England. We know how crucial Fair Assessment is in preparing students for their futures and enabling them to progress to the next step.”
Fair Assessment.....!? An interesting concept ....
The IB has confirmed that it will offer a dual route for the May 2021 Diploma Programme and Career-related Programme examination session following a January survey of over 3,000 schools in 152 countries. The IB is working with schools to determine which of the two - written examinations, or an alternative route using a combination of internal assessment coursework and teacher-predicted grades.
"As school administrators, we are keenly aware of the extraordinary challenges our teachers and students face due to the COVID-19 crisis – we also understand that circumstances vary a great deal between regions", said the Heads council – a group of 12 members who advises the Director General.
" We also believe the non-exam route for allocating results to students who are unable to take exams is fair, clear and will allow for grades to be distributed that will reflect their achievements and abilities.”
Would education really break down if there were no examinations anymore?
By nature and culture, we tend to take many things for granted. For instance, that there needs to be examinations.
We are so accustomed to this cultural paradigm, by being exposed to it from early childhood on, that it is almost impossible - even frightening - to think of a world in which there were no examinations at all. Can we say that perhaps there is a Tyranny of the Test at the moment?
There is a strong argument that exams are an important learning experience in a student’s life, they need to work to deadlines, the process of revision teaches students to prioritise their efforts to achieve the best grades possible, to apply their learning under pressure - they develop resilience by adapting to pressure and through the examination process they reflect how to do better next time. Students all over the world take the same test at the same time so its standardised and grades are moderated - this forming a good measurement tool.
Children's learning
Children’s learning involves discussing and applying concepts and also involves a degree of memorising. Is it right that have programmed our children to learn solely to score well in exams. Is it correct that we expect them to score well so that they can get admissions to the best universities. They are often threatened - “If you don’t get good grades no one will want to employ you”. There are many children who spend an inappropriate amount of time to study merely to pass the exams - not for the sake of learning new things or having fun learning. If students saw the examination as an opportunity to build their self-confidence, an adventurous activity like a painter who has an image in his mind with every brush stroke contributing to their masterpiece... a creative writer ....
What if instead of testing a students knowledge on a subject, we measured their ability to use that knowledge to create something new and innovative? Imagine if we evaluated students’ learning based on their unique works of art, film productions, scientific findings, philosophical musings, entrepreneurial ideas, and theatre or public speaking performances?
As a best-selling author and education expert, Tony Wagner points out in Creating Innovators : We continue to believe that school is mainly about acquiring content knowledge. We under-emphasize the importance of skills. And of course, with far too many of our standardized tests are multiple choice, factual recall tests and with much more pressure on teachers to get students ready for those tests, they are cutting everything else out of the curriculum. What get’s tested is what get’s taught.” As Wagner points out, because we don’t test the competencies that matter the most, we neglect to teach them.
https://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/+Prensky-Real-World_Accomplishment-Based_Education.pdf
A perfect storm - what does the future look like?
I would be keen to hear peoples views on the traditional narrative around exams and how it relates to the digital age and encouraging innovation in education. Do we really need a change or are soft skills assessed in different ways?
How can develop our focus on the things that actually matter to our students, and provide "a fair assessment" - also inspire them to become our future leaders and develop their sometimes untapped innate talents?
Dr. Tassos Anastasiades
Administrative Manager at Optima NGO
3 年“If you don’t get good grades no one will want to employ you”. There are many children who spend an inappropriate amount of time to study merely to pass the exams - not for the sake of learning new things or having fun learning. - I can relate to this 100/100 this is what I've been grown to believe when I was a pupil. Having the opportunity to learn, evaluate yourself, and keep track should give the children the comfort of becoming strong, independent leaders. Very nice article Dr. Tassos!
IB Chemistry Teacher & Author. Dedicated to Inspiring Student Success
3 年Exams are a relic, but until an acceptable replacement is proposed we will have to live by them. Exams and their supporters are thriving behind the issues of grade inflation, which external exams are really good at moderating, and the sense of fairness that they provide. As a note "Fairness", "equality" and "equity" are not necessarily equivalent terms. The statement (in bold) "We do not have to fail a third, for two-thirds to pass" ?is really interesting. Have we ever define what it means to pass? (or "fail" for that matter). The notion is that the exams are some sort of litmus test for the attainment of certain credentials; a bottleneck in the competition for higher education and eventually higher paying jobs, more prestige and higher status. In my view, for as long as schools are considered as a "credentialing" industry exams are going to reign supreme.
Math Professor
3 年Yes so there have been lots if accommodationsfor students who are physically, visually , aurally , tactile challenged on many national and state exams. It’s still not as good as it can be , but many people are working on getting it to be fairer for all.
Math Teacher, Author: Math, Humor, Fiction, Essay; FOLLOW ONLY, 30K connections ??
3 年Etymologically, “assess” comes from “sit beside”, and that’s not the student sitting beside the exam. Keeping practicalities in mind, and maybe even right up front, we need to rethink assessment and ranking, so that it is not an absolute charade. Nor something pushed and mined by those with highly questionable ideologies and intentions.
Homeschooling/Unschooling Education Specialist and Cozy Mystery Ghostwriter
3 年?Assessments are essential to determine what learning has taken place. When we think of the total student population of any country, we feel there is a need for a test which not only can assess the “fairness” of the different schools or learning environments but also can be marked or verified quickly. This leads to standardized tests which are able to assess only the very narrow area of memorized facts and their applications. A perfect test that assesses little of value and wastes enormous time and money. Before we can properly assess students we need to determine who should be doing the assessing. At this time we have standardized tests written to assess textbook learning. But we know that children can and should learn much more than the textbooks provide. I would argue that the assessment should be done by the professionals who work with the students - the teachers. Just as a doctor is the one to assess the progress of the patient. If we were to examine this field of professionals, the doctors, we would see a very different kind of assessment happening. There are two levels: the professional assessment of the doctor by peers and client feedback; and the doctor's assessment of the clients. Perhaps we could apply the same to teaching. We have this interesting distrust of teachers. We, as a society, insist that our teachers receive training, both initially and ongoing, but we do not trust them to be able to teach. This is indicated by the fact that we use the standardized tests to assess teachers. As a teacher myself I can tell you that if students in my Grade 9 English class are only literate at a Grade 6 level, this is a flaw of the system not of my teaching. If teachers were to be professionally assessed by peers and to receive feedback from the clients, then we would have a fair judgement of their abilities. If they are judged to be competent teachers, then let them control the assessments of their students. This might include standardized tests for those who like hard data, but it would also include much of the soft data which is more an indication of a student’s ability to function productively in society. With the growth of the internet we have less of a need of an information download system and more of a need for students to learn how to evaluate and use the data available to them. You also speak about having students become engaged in their learning. This will only happen when they have input. When they can have some say in the lessons which are relevant to them. We have made the common fallacy of equating “fair” with “same”. Perfectly demonstrated by the cartoon at the beginning of your article. Everyone in education has seen this cartoon and we all immediately agree with it and yet we keep asking children to climb the same tree. Until we can accept that the system can be fair but different for each student; until we can accept that this means that the assessment for each student will be different; until we can acknowledge that the best person to determine the nature of the assessment is the teacher who knows the student; we will never be assessing “fairly”.??