Assessment
and evaluation in the 21st Century has changed, and it should.
Three Philosophical Shifts
From Tests to Tasks
Instruct. Practice.
Test. This rhythm has formed and
continues to form the basis for much of the teaching and learning that occurs
within our schools. However, tests,
especially the standardized ones, are more and more coming under fire and are
accused of being unrealistic. The test
(no pun intended) that we’re given to illustrate this point is to try to name a
real-life, authentic scenario in which you write a test. For example, is your knowledge of French
grammar going to be evaluated through a spontaneous written test that gets
plunked down in front of you mid-conversation on the streets of Paris? The more likely scenario is that the
francophone to whom you speak will form an impression of you based on the way
you speak and conduct yourself during the conversation.
In
the 21st century, we have only become more and more obsessed with
how many problems we have (global warming, economic crisis, superbugs). The way many educators have decided address
these problems is by investing energy into making children problem-solvers. Hopefully, these children will solve all our
problems when they grow up. Given the proper scaffolding, the sort of
evaluation discussed above could be introduced as the central focus of an
inquiry-based learning project, where the goal is to ask for directions.
From Product to Process
In
the past, education has been results-oriented.
We evaluated students based on what they produced. For example, “Your baking-soda and vinegar
volcano does not work, so you clearly do not understand the concept.” The reasoning behind this approach is that
the outcome of the project shows whether or not you understand the concepts
involved. Unless you produce something,
you fail. To loosely quote Yoda, “There
is no ‘try.’ There is ‘do,’ or ‘do not.’
Now,
the emphasis has shifted to process.
This shift shows itself best in how teachers now do more assessment for
and as learning, than they do of learning.
We place a much greater value on the mistakes, corrections, and failures
that students experience while attempting fulfill the requirements of the
task. In the 21st century,
we’re much more likely to accept late work because not every student works at
the same pace, and they need time to finish the learning/work process. We’re also more likely to give students a
second chance on summative evaluations, so that students read the feedback that
the teacher gives to them and correct their work, which leads to greater
learning.
One
growing trend is to take pictures of students as they’re working as evidence or
documentation of the learning/work process.
Whereas the teachers’ few anecdotal notes saw a few words, a picture
says a thousand.
From Content, to Choice
Reading
lists just make sense. Everyone is
reading the same material, so everyone will be able to participate in class
discussions. When students can discuss
reading comprehension questions together, they understand the text better. Instruction is more efficient, and there is a
base of literary knowledge that every human being, let alone child, should have
to be a productive member of society.
Not
everything that makes sense is worth repeating.
In
the 21st century we are exchanging novel study for each student
reading a book that he or she has chosen.
The rationale for this practice is that it leads to greater student engagement
and
encourages children to continue reading into their teen and adult years. Rather than helping students become experts
on one novel, teachers help students become experts on choosing books that
interest them and developing their tastes in literature. 21st-century Language teachers
aren’t ditching novel studies completely; they’re simply reducing the number of
them that they conduct in a school year and replacing them with books chosen by
the students. Arguably, nothing has
changed at all because of how closely this scenario resembles the traditional
book report.
One (Of Many) Technical Shifts
From Journals, to Blogs
Rather
than writing journals in spiral-bound notebooks that students add to (or
neglect) throughout the year, students are now encouraged to self-publish their
journals on the internet in the form of a blog.
Instead of writing to themselves, they’re learning how to appeal to a
general audience, and perhaps most importantly, how to write in a way that will
make others actually want to read their work.
Socrative – An Example of a 21st-century
Assessment Tool
Socrative is an online polling or surveying tool (or student response system) that turns
students’ cell phones, tablets, or mobile devices into something akin to an
iClicker. The teacher sends out surveys
or quizzes using his or her laptop or device, and the students, either with names or anonymously, can use their
phones/tablets to answer the questions. The
teacher can set the quiz to be self-paced (students move on to the next
question when they finish) or teacher-paced (the teacher chooses when everyone moves
on to the next question). Socrative will
give students instant feedback after they’ve chosen an answer. After each question, results are tallied and
if the teacher runs Socrative from a laptop hooked up to a projector, students can see
how many people chose which answers.
Socrative will also email the teacher the results if he or she so desires.
This
tool could be used for formative, diagnostic, or summative assessment, though
it would be best used diagnostically or formatively. Having the instant feedback on answers, as
well as seeing what other people answered, is useful in having students
self-assess where they are in their learning.
It also helps the teacher see what concepts may need to be reviewed.
The
downside to using this website is that the teacher must ensure that every student
in the class has a mobile device to use. The teacher must either rely on every student having a cell phone, or he or she must provide these devices.
