Assessment through Reflection

Elaine Wrenn:

I absolutely love having kids do video reflections!  They have been such an authentic way for us to understand our students' thinking, where they are in the process, how they are feeling about the process, and what they are learning.  It's hard to describe the element that is captured in a video reflection that you don't always get in a written reflection.  It's like you can see them thinking as they speak and also hear the emotion and passion in their voices. I've always felt that reflection is an important part of the learning process for both the teacher and the students.  I don't know why it didn't occur to me to use video as one way to reflect but it is definitely in my reflection toolbox going forward.

I agree with Elaine. Audio and video reflections are an extremely effective way at getting at important aspects of learning.  What did the student learn from her mistakes?  What skills did she acquire through her collaboration.  How hard did she work?  In what respects did she show initiative and leadership?  Did she engage in activities that did not show up in the groups' presentation or final solution?

At Mercy, we are engaged in exploring ways to teach Tony Wagner's Seven Survival Skills.  I believe that Challenge Based Learning is an effective vehicle for addressing these.  Consequently, I have shared two of my recent student reflections in a recent slide presentation in order to provoke a discussion on how to effectively assess for these skills.  Here are the slides:

Assessment through Refection

After having required numerous reflections, I have found it critical to invest thought and time into developing good prompts.  Without specificity, the students sometimes drift into superficial commentary.  If the prompts are too specific, the respondents more or less treat them like a check list.  In the audio reflection below, Madison is responding to the following:

1) What concretely did you contribute to your group’s research and solution (I don’t mean suggested and idea . . . . What did you do like conduct an interview or edit a video).

2) Assess your individual contribution to the group’s in class presentation.  Describe your performance and your personal contribution to the slide show.

3) What did you personally learn from your project?

4) To what degree did you offer your best effort and maximize your talents in this project.

Madison's Audio Reflection

The consensus of the teachers who have listened to both reflections, agree that the following video piece is even more personal and authentic than the audio

I believe Elaine Wrenn's enthusiasm for video reflections is borne out by videos like this one.

The Other Side of the Coin

I admit to some fatigue with the PCG thing.  But I have revved up my engines for one last push after Easter Break.  Before I make that push, I want to reflect on an area of frustration.

It seems like some folks will take a swipe at CBL at every opportunity.  A portion of the skepticism and criticism is no doubt valid, but more than a tad is motivated by those who just want it to go away because it calls for changing old ways.

On the one hand, this frustrates me because it is hard to discuss the issues with CBL that I see, without opening a discussion up to the slings and arrows of those who resent anything related to our professional development efforts.  I hear myself becoming a booster rather than a problem solver.

However, my greater frustration comes from biting my tongue about seeing an elephant in the room when CBL is subjected to criticism: Why is CBL  subject to special scrutiny?  People want proof that it works and and assurance that it will not cut into more valuable activities.  I want to ask them to prove that those other activities work.  Can they show me that the students have attained mastery by all those homework assignments, lectures, and discussions?  Assessment is essential, but across the board.

I think I have fashioned a constructive way to  address this issue of assessing CBL.  That will be the subject of my next post.

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Flickr CC Photo by woody1778a

The Crisis of the American Intellectual (part 2)

In my last post, I introduced Walter Russell Mead’s essay about The Crisis of the American Intellectual.  I reflected on his assertion that the “learned professions – lawyers, doctors, university professors . . . and (aspirationally anyway) school teachers and journalists" operated from “guild” world views which did not meet the needs of contemporary America.

I commented that “the guild metaphor is quite valid.  Among many educators there is an attitude of “if it’s not broken why fix it” about the system they went thrived in as students and then entered as apprentices who would then move into tenured positions.  This creates a terrific amount of certainty among teachers that not only are their methods tried and true, but new ones should be viewed with a high degree of skepticism.”

Mead also discusses another factor contributing to the crisis of the American Intellectual.  He calls it “credentialism”:

We are extraordinarily rich in specialist intellectuals who have a deep knowledge of a particular subject. . . .We are much less effective at teaching and supporting people who are able to master the essentials of many complex subjects, integrate the insights from this kind of study into a coherent social or political vision . . . .

 In most of our learned professions and knowledge guilds today, promotion is linked to the needs and aspirations of the guild rather than to society at large.  Promotion in the academy is almost universally linked to the production of ever more specialized, theory-rich (and, outside the natural sciences, too often application-poor) texts, pulling the discourse in one discipline after another into increasingly self-referential black holes. . . .

Those who run our government agencies, our universities, our foundations, our mainstream media outlets and other key institutions cannot at this point look the future in the face.  The world is moving in ways so opposed to their most hallowed assumptions that they simply cannot make sense of it.  They resist blindly and uncreatively and, unable to appreciate the extraordinary prospects for human liberation that this change can bring, they are incapable of creative and innovative response.

These comments resonate with me very strongly. First, technology and social networking have allowed me to become a very uncredentialed "expert" in learning design and ed tech matters.  My credential is who I am and what I have done in the real world.  I present at state and national forums but cannot produce a degree that verifies my qualification.  I've worked very hard for three years to attain this goal, but have not been formaly trained in a traditional way.

Mead's remarks also justify where we are going with our curriculum at Mercy.  We are pursuing Tony Wagner's Seven Survival Skills

--critical thinking/problem solving
--collaboration/leading by influence
--agility and adaptability
--initiative and entrepreneurialism
--effective oral and written communication
--accessing and analyzing information
--curiosity and imagination


This sincerely believe  directly addressing these skills through new models, such Challenge Based Learning, we will prepare our students better for the real world than the traditional process offered by "the guild."

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"Diploma" Flickr CC photo by .snow