Thought of the day:
Attempting to do competency-based assessments without involving your students in the process is not competency-based assessment.
Conversely, involving them in the narrative makes it a true learning journey.
How are attainments different that assessments?
Assessments are point-in time. Attainments may be achieved at any time.
How can we measure learning?
Via conversations, observations, and evidence.
Food for thought:
- The SIS tracks enrollment and schedules.
- The LMS delivers content and assignments.
How do you track student progression itself?
You need a tool guiding student learning and reporting true readiness.
Doing what neither the SIS nor LMS can.
Yep.
Wouldn't voting be more practical? That's what we do in Canada.
It's worth noting that not only the *government* loses their jobs, but the *opposition* does as well. So it forces everyone to act like adults.
Have you ever heard of the Curb Cut Effect? You might not have, but you've benefitted from it. In a nutshell, accessible design ends up benefiting all users.
See ssir.org/articles/ent... for deets.
So it is in edu. Universal Design for Learning helps all learners, not just special needs kids.
2/ Administrators and teachers didn’t choose the old system. They inherited it.
In too many districts, the current system works exactly as it was designed in the 1920s: sorting, ranking, promoting.
But today:
- Learning needs to be visible
- Skills need to be demonstrated
- Progress must be personalized
- Readiness matters more than seat time
Districts want competency based education.
Districts believe in learner profiles, portfolios and mastery progressions.
But districts get stuck here:
District leaders already feel this pain:
Students are earning grades and moving forward—even graduating—without consistently demonstrating the knowledge and skills required to succeed.
- Grades obscure readiness.
- Averages hide learning gaps.
- Remediation costs are rising.
And another thing: Change agents in public school districts are the least-appreciated people in the world.
Hot take: It's not possible to use a traditional gradebook, with every single student being assessed on the same thing at the same time, and also promote student agency.
Prove me wrong.
4/ So we now have 10,000 pieces of data for each teacher. Or HALF A MILLION pieces of data in a typical school.
If you are serious about competency-based education, you need a system to manage all that. Ad-hoc systems can't cut it.
3/ But it gets worse. Each of those competencies had 5 success criteria. That's 5000 pieces of evidence for the teacher to juggle. And if the kids ask a few questions, that's another 5000 message threads.
2/ Let's suppose each teacher is teaching 5 classes -- either 5 subject for elem, or 5 rotary classes in middle/high. Each class has 20 kids.
Now let's suppose that each class has 10 competencies we want the kids to learn. That's 1000 competencies for the teacher to manage.
Why competency-based assessment is a scale problem.
Come with me on a journey.
We all agree that in a perfect world, every competency would have a set of success criteria, and we would track the conversation, observations, and evidence for each of those success criteria.
Seems reasonable, right?
"Competencies"? Or "Outcomes"?
Or "Destinations" or "Expectations" or "Standards"...
There are plenty of terms to describe the same thing: A chunk of knowledge that we want kids to demonstrate that they have learned.
4/ A good record-of-learning system displays info when & where it is needed, and can record not only marks but also the critical conversations and evidence needed to triangulate student progress.
And without such a system? The kids who need the most help are the ones falling through the cracks.
3/ It's a never-ending treadmill for the student and their family.
And to make it even worse, guess what? It turns out that the very students with these needs are the ones most likely to be in precarious living situations and more transient.
2/ Because all of the knowledge about the individualization is carried around in people's brains and postit notes and random spreadsheets. And that in turn means that when a student moves to a new class/teacher/school all of that knowledge is lost.
It's funny to say "systems" and "individualized" since the same breath, but here goes:
If you think that you can manage individualized education without systems to manage it, you are dreaming. Why?
3/ If we can provide a tool that helps the teacher SEE and ACT, we're doing our job right.
2/ So it is with outcomes based education. We hear from teachers that they want to be able to do two things really really efficiently:
1) Identify which students would most benefit from their guidance
2) Understand what specific help each individual student needs
Great discussion at at work today with my co-founder Jon A. -- How is Outcomes Based Education similar to #agiledevelopment ?
Surprisingly similar, in fact.
Agile development is all about answering one simple question: ** what is the most valuable thing that I can work on **?
In the medical field, they have a great saying:
"When one teaches, two learn."
Can I make a suggestion? Write just three things. Like this:
Here's three things I know:
Thing 1
Thing 2
Thing 3
I know thing 1, thing 2, and thing 3.
And THAT'S IT.
If you come up with something more important than one of those, then replace JUST THAT THING.
And lastly, you need tools to analyze & report on the conversations, observations, and product for each student.
It's critical that to do this at the individual student level (for reporting), the school level (to catch kids at risk) and the district level (for planning and resource allocation).