Ethical Assessment

Check out this VLOG from Gary about Ethical Assessment and our upcoming session October 1, 2020 at 3:30 EST.

Our First Competency: Intake of Information

Students will intake, research, evaluate and use a variety of information from varied sources and media including text, video, audio, art from creators around the world, past and present.

We all need to be hyper aware of the messages coming at us and how they influence our thoughts and behaviors, including messages from teachers and other authority figures. Often we focus on the mass media that creates highly produced, intentional material that holds attention and it is edited for exactness, but the small informal inputs are just as important. If we are to really work toward a just and equitable world we need to examine bias, perspective and self-awareness about the media and messages we consume. This is the impetus behind the first competency in the Stewardship Model.

Everyday, Lil and I are going to consume some media together, some longer pieces like Gaza Fights For Freedom, and some shorter pieces like the economics lesson we watched today. We will reflect on these questions...

1. What did I just consume? What was the purpose? Was it worth it?

2. Do I trust it? Why? What information do I want to fact check or learn more about?

3. What bias do I need to be aware of? My own or the content creators?

4. How does this content make me feel? Will I act differently or think differently now that I have this new information?

All the reflections will be compiled in a portfolio. Some might be recordings of us. Some will be written by her and some will be my notes on our conversation. Let’s face it, some of the content might be too heavy to hold and write a reflection about…talking it through might make more sense. At the end, she'll have a body of evidence of her thinking and we'll be able to talk through how she demonstrated elements of this competency. 

Our Learning Framework based on Simplicity and Stewardship

Our Learning Framework

When I was getting my M.Ed. one of the tasks was to create a model school plan, a dream school. It had to be connected to our personal educational philosophy. To make the best plan, I knew that I couldn’t just rely on my philosophy, but that I would have to have a design for the learning journeys that would take place in the building. So, I created a competency based framework first. I’ve decided to use it with my homeschooler this year. My dream building, by the way, was pretty amazing. I’ll dig it out for a future post.

This framework is based on not only my personal philosophy of education, to create a just and equitable world that works toward good, but also my experience as a teacher in NH; I started my career when the state was beginning to dip its toes into this type of learning and assessment. I lived and worked in the capital region and because of proximity our district was often working closely with consultants and thought leaders who were also getting an opportunity to apply this new way of thinking to their work. We did and undid so many things; I really learned a lot about structure, process and scale. My most treasured learning is that simplicity and meaning are most important if implementation is the goal. Too complicated and it takes years for teachers to unpack what the competency really means, to create rubrics that are in student friendly language and then performance tasks that assess the competency. If the competencies are too shallow, they hold no meaning for teacher or student. The framework I created is simple, four skill based competencies with six overarching principles connected to stewardship. It’s my own little vision of a graduate, and I’ll use it this year with Lil to guide her learning journey.

So, below is the basic plan. The next few blog entries will be about how we are using the competencies to build a body of evidence. Although we are using this for a homeschool plan, this really could be a plan for any school.

The Competencies

Intake Information:

Students will intake, research, evaluate and use a variety of information from varied sources and media including text, video, audio, art from creators around the world, past and present.

Creating Meaningful Content:

Students will create meaningful content including text, video, audio, art, presentations, products and processes for a variety of purposes and audiences. 

Collaboration:

Students will collaboratively work in a variety of groups and pairings effectively to achieve goals and create products.

Self-Directed Learning:

Students will practice self directed learning practices such as planning, preparing, reflecting and advocating.  

The Principles of Stewardship

Stewardship is synonymous with taking care.  Our students will learn and practice this in six different areas preparing them for stewardship in career, post-secondary learning and participating meaningfully in community. While content skills are important, learning these skills without context and meaning is counterproductive to deeper learning.  Practicing skills while learning to become stewards of the natural environment, community, information, health, humans and the economy creates purpose for learning.

Natural Environment: Students will understand how choices and actions affect the natural environment including consumption of goods, sustainable practices and conservation efforts.  Students will learn to balance economic and entertainment pursuits and environmental impact.

Community: Students will understand how to impact and improve their local, state, national and global community through advocacy and service.  They will learn why communities organize around common interests, culture, religion, region and environment and participate positively in communities.

Information: Students will understand how information is collected, stored and used.  Students will learn the importance of managing their online presence, contribute meaningfully to the world, and to understand how others use information to influence, gain control and shift conversations. 

Health: Students will understand how personal health impacts performance.  They will practice balancing personal goals and healthy living pay attention to sleep, mindfulness, food and movement.

Humans: Students will understand the importance of individuals in community and work to honor individuals’ assets. Students will study social justice, equity and barriers for social and economic mobility as well as human and social capital.  

Economy: Students will understand their role in the local, state, national and global economy.  They will study how economic systems work, the national budget, investments, and credit and loans in order to be more informed about how money they make and spend affects themselves and others. 

This year, schools should rethink how students are graded

As we enter the new school year, many are focused on the safety of returning to school buildings, but little focus has been on what our learners are expected to learn once they get there. As a parent and an educator, this leaves me with a lot of questions. How we will know if the expectations are met? Will the expectations even be the same as last year? Will our learners still receive grades? How are those determined? Are schools making a concerted effort to ensure that grading is fair and doesn’t lead to inequities? How will the pandemic affect students’ abilities to learn and demonstrate learning?

We need to start by honestly reflecting on local assessment and grading. Education assessment is a human act, and because it is human, it is imperfect. Grading is the general way schools report out on the assessments our teachers make of our students learning, skills and knowledge, and those grades have some serious value. At the elementary and middle school level, the value is generally limited to what students, teachers and parents assign to grades. Some parents give praise and even monetary reward for high grades or improving grades. Others deprive their kids of video games until grades improve. Some parents use grades as a way to shame their kids or in the case of an abusive home, another proof point for parents to use against their children. Some students are left with low self-esteem because they never get “good” grades. Others have inflated sense of skills because they have only receive high grades, likely through a combination of skill and compliance.

Eventually, most parents end up as the parents of high schoolers where grades hold much more value. They are indicators of success for college admission. They help get learners scholarships. They provide access to more opportunities. They even give discounts on car insurance. And, passing grades are required for a diploma. Very rarely do system wide conversations happen about grades. Many parents and students just accept that when a teacher gives a student an A, that student deserved an A. If student got an F, they earned that F. These notions of deserving and earning when it comes to learning and assessment are important to think about. There are inherent problems with grading systems already that are unfair and create inequity. If schools do not address grading up front as part of their plans for the upcoming school year, there will be consequences for students that will negatively affect them in the short term, and keep them from opportunities that will affect their long term success, widening the opportunity gap.  

The uncomfortable truth is grades are not honest communication about the learning our students do. They are a complicated story of learning reduced to one number that is usually the result of a complicated math formula the teacher may or may not understand. In most schools, the grading practices of each teacher differ greatly from classroom to classroom. Often teachers teaching the same class in the same high school, have different ways of collecting and reporting student progress. Even if teachers are collecting the same evidence from learners to use in the assessment process, rarely are teachers calibrated to each other to ensure that they are interpreting the learning expectations in the same way. Bias is not addressed in many schools, and time for quality assessment is not afforded to teachers. Grading in our schools is not transparent, not equitable and is harmful in so many ways. Exacerbated by the pandemic, parents need to be hyper aware of the grading practices that all children will endure, especially at the high school level, so that opportunities are not lost, anxiety and depression, often side effects of grading are avoided, and parents can get an honest understanding of where their learners are in relation to the learning expectations.

Here are some questions to ask your school leaders before the first grades are issued...

What are the learning expectations for this year? How will parents and students understand if the learning expectations have been met? What happens if they don’t?

Are teachers calibrated? Are learning targets written and are teachers interpreting them generally in the same way if they teach the same level students? Example: Is an “A” in English 9 with Mrs. S the same as an “A” in English 9 with Mrs. T?

How is the district ensuring that grading practices during this time do not limit access to opportunities

including summer programs and scholarship?

What if a student does not do well under the hybrid or remote model and their grades slip? What if the pandemic and the anxieties that come with it make it difficult for that student to learn, to concentrate, to do their best?  Example: A previous “A” student is now a “B or C” student. How will this affect students’ access programs such as summer programs, scholarships, honor societies etc.?

What additional supports are being put in place to ensure that students’ grades do not adversely affect self-esteem, mental health and anxiety?  

One last question that is probably the most important to consider, and will take some moral courage from school and district leaders to answer this question publicly and honestly:

What is the worst that would happen if we chose not to grade this upcoming year, especially in high school, where there are long term consequences for low grades that bring down GPAS, and short term consequences that will pile on the anxiety and depression exacerbating the effects on the social emotional well being the pandemic is already causing?