From Aristotle To Assessment As Learning

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• From Aristotle To Assessment As Learning
• Lorna Earl, Ph.D.

• Yonge St. Suite 240 Toronto ON M4N 3S1
• aporia_at_attglobal.net www.aporia.ca
• tel 4 1 6 . 6 8 6 . 2 2 7 9 fax 4 1 6 .
  6 8 6 . 4 1 6 2

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Why Change Assessment?

• The World Is Changing
• Assessment is a Powerful Lever for Learning

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Assessment As an Historical Lens

• Aristotle
• Trade Guilds
• Industrial Revolution and Legislated Universal
  Education
• High Quality Education for All

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Assessment As a Powerful Tool For Learning

• How People Learn
• Multiple Purpose for Assessment

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3 Powerful Insights about How People Learn
(National Research Council)

• People come to learning with preconceptions about
  how the world works. If their initial
  understanding is not engaged, they may fail to
  grasp the new concepts and information that are
  taught or may learn them superficially and revert
  to their preconceptions in real situations.

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Assessment and Learning

• Jojo Story

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3 Powerful Insights about How People Learn
(National Research Council)

• To develop competence in an area of inquiry,
  people must
• have a deep foundation of factual knowledge
• understand facts and ideas in the context of a
  conceptual framework
• organize knowledge in ways that facilitate
  retrieval and application

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Using Assessment to Differentiate Learning
From Deficit Explanations Of Diversity To
Inclusive Strategies For All Deficit
Paradigm Inclusion
Paradigm Whats wrong with the child Whats
wrong with the environment Focus on deficits
Focus on strategies Prescriptive
Malleable Diagnoses diversity Values
diversity Tolerates differences Embraces
differences Reliance on external expert
Teacher/parent/student as expert
Professionalized Personalized (ad
apted from Philpott et al., 2004)
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Stages in Growth from Emergent to Proficient
Emergent
Proficient
No practical experience. Dependent on rules.
Analytical. Locates and considers possible
patterns. Has internalized the key dimensions so
that they are automatic.
Uses analysis and synthesis. Sees the whole
rather than aspects. Looks for links and
patterns. Adjusts to adapt to the context.
Understands the context. Has a holistic grasp of
relationships. Considers alternatives in an
iterative way and integrates ideas into efficient
solutions. Solves problems and makes ongoing
adaptations automatically.
Expects definitive answers. Some recognition of
patterns. Limited experience. Still relies on
rules.
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3 Powerful Insights about How People Learn
(National Research Council)

• A meta-cognitive approach to instruction can
  help people learn to take control of their own
  learning by defining learning goals and
  monitoring their own progress in achieving them.

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How Networks of Schools Work
Earl et al (2006)
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Purposes of Classroom Assessment

• Assessment for learning
• Assessment as learning
• Assessment of learning
• Balance and Tensions in Assessment Purposes

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Assessment For Learning

• Assessment for learning is designed to give
  teachers information to modify the teaching and
  learning activities in which students are engaged
  in order to differentiate and focus how
  individual students approach their learning.
• It suggests that students are all learning in
  individual and idiosyncratic ways, while
  recognizing that there are predictable patterns
  and pathways that many students go through.
• The emphasis is on teachers using the information
  from carefully-designed assessments to determine
  not only what students know, but also to gain
  insights into how, when, and whether students use
  what they know, so that they can streamline and
  target instruction and resources.

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Assessment As Learning

• Assessment as learning emphasizes using
  assessment as a process of developing and
  supporting metacognition for students.
• Assessment as learning focuses on the role of the
  student as the critical connector between
  assessment and learning. Students, as active,
  engaged and critical assessors make sense of
  information, relate it to prior knowledge, and
  use it for new learning.
• This is the regulatory process in metacognition.
  It occurs when students personally monitor what
  they are learning and use the feedback from this
  monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations and
  even major changes in what they understand.
• When teachers focus on assessment as learning,
  they use classroom assessment as the vehicle for
  helping students develop, practice and become
  comfortable with reflection and with critical
  analysis of their own learning.

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• For students to be able to improve, they must
  develop the capacity to monitor the quality of
  their own work during actual production. This in
  turn requires that students possess an
  appreciation of what high quality work is, that
  they have the evaluative skill necessary for them
  to compare with some objectivity the quality of
  what they are producing in relation to the higher
  standard, and that they develop a store of
  tactics or moves which can be drawn upon to
  modify their own work.
• Sadler, 1989

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Assessment Of Learning

• Assessment of learning is assessment used to
  confirm what students know, to demonstrate
  whether or not the students have met the
  standards and/or show how they are placed in
  relation to others.
• In assessment of learning, teachers concentrate
  on ensuring that they have used assessment to
  provide accurate and sound statements of
  proficiency or competence for students, so that
  the recipients of the information can use the
  information to make reasonable and defensible
  decisions.

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Shifting the Balance Among Assessment Purposes
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Assessment As Learning The Ultimate Purpose

• We must constantly remind ourselves that the
  ultimate purpose of evaluation is to enable
  students to evaluate themselves. Educators may
  have been practicing this skill to the exclusion
  of the learners. We need to shift part of this
  responsibility to students. Fostering students
  ability to direct and redirect themselves must be
  a major goalor what is education for?
• Costa (1989)

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Collaborative Inquiry

• regularly challenge one anothers assumptions
  about teaching and learning
• regularly discuss past activities or projects to
  determine what made them work well or not so
  well
• engage in systematic analysis of data
• share and discuss research on effective teaching
  methods
• learn from failed initiatives
• learn from successful initiatives
• monitor initiatives to make sure they are
  working
• regularly draw on research and/or outside
  expertise to improve practice
• have had professional learning opportunities in
  relation to inquiry