For tens of thousands of years in human history, learning was NOT done in classrooms, it occurred in the world of everyday experience. Aeons ago, elders told stories to young people around a fire to convey community history. Young hunters followed experienced hunters to learn the skills to do things. For ages past until today, artisans learned their trades at the hands of a master. Socrates walked in the forum asking questions which caused his students to think deeper. So when did it seem like a good idea to enclose learners in small spaces with a generally-knowledgeable person and consider that excellence?
While not a “scholarly” source exactly, one of the first stops on this inquiry involved Wonderopolis, a fantastic inquiry-based learning resource (click here) to explore new ideas and get answers to questions. In Wonder of the Day #1268 “Why was school created?” (click here), the answer to the question above is revealed as the mid-1600s or the Age of Discovery. Is anyone else perplexed by the idea that the time period when discovery is happening across the globe, leading to many revolutions of the citizens against hereditary and power-wielding governments, is when children were confined to the classroom to learn about the world? Truthfully, population growth is probably the culprit. There weren’t enough expert artisans to pair one with each child so they could learn. One teacher with a room full of students was a more sustainable mathematical ratio, but that doesn’t make it ideal.
What If — the Classroom Was Only a Start?
Clearly, turning students loose to become feral children and learn in the wide world like Lord of the Flies spells disaster, but we know from tens of thousands of years of experience that they have learned about the tasks they will do as adults by shadowing practitioners. Logic indicates that the best way to learn something is by getting information from an expert. Practicing tasks which will be required in adulthood and the world of work is the best way to hone the necessary skills. Theory may be a start. Assessment will provide feedback on progress toward that goal. It is continued practice which will provide experiences leading to success, likely with some informative failures along the way.
Most teachers build units which open with background information about the subject. Next, they lead into skill-building practices. Then, they build the summative assessment to provide a higher-level challenge, which requires demonstration of both the knowledge of the topic and the mastery of the skills.
Unfortunately, summative assessments often look like multiple choice answers about the information or essays which require explaining procedures instead of demonstrating them. Once in a while, demonstrations are part of the assessment, but usually in a PowerPoint/Slides medium.
What If — Summatives Happened in the Real World
Using AAQ Prerequisite 3 (Realism) as a springboard, it’s clear that the more “real” an assessment experience is for students, the more power it will have. Practically, students must clock time in the classroom to meet state attendance requirements. In this space, they can do some of the work. Geography is not the issue; focus is. They can work from anywhere (as we saw in recent remote learning years), but a student’s work activity should be defined by the experience of the larger world.
What If — Assessments Were Not One-Size-Fits-All
In the 21st century, realization has shifted from the one-size-fits-all approach to differentiated learning. Variety in methods and a selection of task options has been helpful to reflect the idea that some learners benefit from reading, others from listening, and still others by doing, to keep it simple. In any explanation, it makes sense to describe things one way, check with learners, and see if an alternative explanation is necessary so that more students apprehend the information. Cognitive structures are different for each individual so “shelving” new information in those structures functions differently for each learner. If input must come through a variety of media, it stands to reason that output would function the same way.
Differentiating learning is only the start; differentiated assessment is the next logical step (Wormeli, 2006). In the AAQ Prereq 5 (Flexible) post, we explored the need to give students the opportunity to choose their assessment. However, it’s important to make it more than a menu-homework approach in which learners have a small subset of options and are merely choosing the least offensive one. In addition to being outside the classroom in focus, authentic assessment requires that learners have open-ended options for assessment.
It’s fine to have some suggested options for a summative assessment so that students can share the teacher’s vision of the level of complexity and reach that are expected from student engagement and credit-bearing participation in the task. However, there should always be an opportunity for students to design their own assessment parameters, with the approval of the teacher. Open-ended options for assessment allow students to:
- Explore their unique interests (which may be their professional pursuit);
- Capitalize on contacts and experiences unique to them; and
- Try a potential professional pursuit before making significant educational investment and discovering it’s not a perfect fit.
WAIT!! That Sounds Like Children Running Amok!
Understandable. The key is that the more open an assessment option is for students, the more stringent the reporting requirements are. For example, a student who goes with the boilerplate option used as an in-class example for the assessment is probably fine with a weekly check-in using a standard format, like a process journal or class blog post for teachers to check. However, students pursuing unique paths should define and maintain methods for the classroom teacher to have very regular, perhaps daily, awareness of the developments of the project, such as an in-class meeting. In such a case, plans should be prepared and submitted for approval before a single step is taken.
Open-ended assessments are not for students without direction or drive as a means of finding their own way. Open recommends freedom to take a different path, but it also requires the responsibility of detailing that path, setting expectations for the outcome, and being held accountable to those expectations.
Teachers are likely to step into this territory hesitantly. There is potential for utterly amazing results, but also instructive failures. Recognizing that valuable experience in assessment may involve failure, be sure that rubric standards do not require success, just adherence to the parameters of the assessment. Failure in experience is daunting enough. It shouldn’t automatically be accompanied by an F. Sometimes the final product completion element is ultimately beyond the control of the student. Pivoting may be necessary. Recognizing a flawed plan and identifying the locus of the failure also serves well.
Example Time
Each prereq exploration has included examples and this one is no different. However, these are indicative of the nature of the openness, although they may not fit the subject area.
- If a standard assessment might involve an essay about a person in history or a scientific discovery or a book, flexible authentic assessment might offer a variety of media for delivery of the information to a public audience, instead of a standard essay only seen by the teacher. Open authentic assessment could involve sharing the information with younger learners in the same or another school or even creating a community-based event to share the knowledge at a local library for the public.
- If research is the main focus, basic Google searching or depending upon a selection of curated resources for class is limiting. Flexible authentic assessment would offer depth of resources, such as the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, online collections of museums around the world. Open authentic assessment could involve unique family resources (like journals, family trees, or authored books), interviews with experts either online or locally, or connecting with an academic online community to harness the collaborative power of others for a common exploration.
- If modeling is the end product, a classroom activity might be to describe it, whereas a flexible authentic assessment might be to create architectural or engineering drawings of the model. On the other hand, open authentic assessment could involve constructing the model based on plan drawings and descriptions.
Is it reasonable to assess students at all three levels of the project on the same scale? Yes. The classroom assessment, in some ways, amounts to learning in a vacuum, which comes with its challenges. Moving to the flexible level helps students to operationalize their learning and see it with more context. Learners ready for the open level of assessment want to see their work proven, which they recognize may involved being proven wrong. They are learning by doing…and it does require more doing. They are generally agreeable to that step because they want to see how it works.
“Hard” is a matter of perspective. Taking a test apart from all of the real connections to the content can be hard. Creating a plan can be hard. Sometimes, doing it, regardless of the outcome, can be the easiest application for the project.
Teacher Takeaways
Open-ended assessments allow students to: 1) explore their unique interests; 2) capitalize on contacts and experiences; and 3) try a “professional” venture before making a long-term commitment.
Wonderopolis.org (N.D.) “Why was school created?” National Center for Families Learning. Accessed 15 Dec 2024. https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/Why-Was-School-Created
Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom. Stenhouse Publishers: Portland, ME.
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