Time for an assessment!

Does that idea make you shudder? Does it sound like judgment? Sizing you up? Putting you in a box? Something to signal the end of learning? A chance to prove you're better than your peers? A chance to worry you aren't as good as your peers? Possibly even a way to punish or get even?

Or does it sound like helpful feedback? An opportunity for growth? A way to explore deeper and learn more? An exercise to know yourself better and work toward your dreams? Possibly even a way to help others?

Assessment is not the first thing you think of in a learning design because there is a good chance you've never thought it could be different.

But the importance of assessment in learning design cannot be overstated. Assessment reveals what is actually happening in a classroom and highlights the core values of an organization or group. It is a crucial indicator of what is truly important in any learning environment because everything that happens in that environment is downstream of how assessment is handled.

Let's start with a story. I was at a Montessori training held in a well-established and well-regarded Montessori school in Chicago. The school's program went from Primary to Upper Elementary (preschool to 6th grade). When the Q&A portion started, everyone wanted to know, since the school only went up to 6th grade, how the students did after they left? How did "regular" school work for them after being in a Montessori program their whole lives?

The students performed well and had no trouble adjusting to traditional school. 

However, the Montessori teachers seemed to feel a tinge of sadness for what they perceived as a loss. They shared a story about a bright student who was excelling at her new middle school, earning all A's. When she returned to her Montessori school to participate in a panel discussion and answer parents' questions about transitioning to a traditional school, she explained that the biggest adjustment was stopping work before doing her best. At her new school, she would stop once she achieved an A, whereas at her previous Montessori school, where there were no grades, she would work until she reached her highest potential.

This young woman's new school may have posters up on the walls that exclaim, "Be your best self!" or "Your potential is limitless!" But their assessment system tells otherwise.

Did you ever pick up a book in middle school to study a subject further and move yourself to mastery if you received a B or C on the final summative assessment, aka test? No, you didn't. You were trained to think of yourself as a B or C student in that area, move on, and most likely forget the items you did cram for. Your school may have posters or a school campaign championing a growth mindset, but their assessment system tells otherwise.

We could banter examples of this all day. No matter what forward-thinking goal a school has, a backward-thinking assessment system is going to hobble it. What Is the History of Grading? (turnitin.com)

The assessment system most of us know from school using grades is so ingrained that we are very nervous about letting go of those report cards with letters totaling up to a GPA. However, grade inflation is pushing those GPAs into the realm of meaninglessness. (National Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities and When GPA No Longer Matters (forbes.com))

Leaning on formative assessments to move learners toward unlimited growth and their personal best is not possible unless your assessment system supports it from beginning to end. With grade inflation making GPAs a suspicious form of measurement, why cling to an assessment system that forces the idea of limited growth to permeate your classroom?

At Aspire Savannah, we track our study habits and set goals for mastery in content areas where there are clear milestones. Mastering content sets learners up to be confident and ready for more advanced work, avoids holes in learning, and develops a growth mindset. In areas where milestones can be more subjective, we employ rubrics and critiques in order to work toward proof of achieving mastery in various competencies. What is gained through the ethos of this system of assessment is as valuable as the content itself.

Our assessment system, which has been thoughtfully created to encourage growth and learning, is an alternative to an assessment system that was never devised to benefit student learning in the first place. (What Is the History of Grading? (turnitin.com))

If you'd like to learn more about how assessment can look different, here are resources:

Rethinking Grading: Empowering Schools to Redefine Learning Assessment (youtube.com)
The Ocean School - Future of Education - 3rd Cut (youtube.com)
Reinventing the Traditional HS Diploma: Mastery Transcript Consortium ® - Aurora Institute (aurora-institute.org)
Q&A with Mastery Transcript Consortium - Challenge Success

These are tools we use in the area of assessment:

Mastery Portfolio
Mastery Transcript Consortium® (MTC)

In the last post, we looked at inquiry-based education as an alternative to industrial education. Let's briefly look at some of each approach's attributes.

Style and Methods

During the period of industrialization in our country, industrial education was introduced to prepare workers for the emerging factories. As we transitioned from an agricultural society to an industrial one, our education system also had to adapt to meet the needs of this new era. Like the standardized systems in factories, education focused on standardized learning to cater to mass consumption.

The Prussian model had a significant impact on the development of public education in the United States. In 1843, Horace Mann, often referred to as the father of American public education, visited schools in Prussia. The standardized curriculum, hierarchical structure, and emphasis on discipline in the Prussian model were well-suited to the needs of a factory model. In these models, students played a more passive role in their education, receiving information from their teachers with limited input of their own. Personal engagement was also limited as the class needed to be standardized for the model to work.

Inquiry-based education is an alternative to the most common education method in the United States. However, it is not a new form of education and can be traced back to the 5th century BCE and the Socratic Method. In this method, questions are used to foster deeper thinking on a topic. Assumptions are challenged, and critical thinking and questioning are encouraged.

As inquiry-based education moved into the realm of childhood education starting in the late 19th century, an emphasis on autonomy, reflection, personalization, hands-on learning, and projects developed. The concept of active engagement is essential. Learners do not passively receive information. Instead, they question, work with, and participate in the discovery of information. Montessori, Project-Based Learning, Reggio Emilia, and the International Baccalaureate (IB) are all models that utilize inquiry-based learning.

Teaching Style

In industrial education, teachers have direct control over every aspect of the classroom. Managing behavior and enforcing rules is crucial for the system to function. This control allows teachers to guide students through a standardized curriculum with the goal of conforming to set standards. The teacher's responsibility is to deliver content efficiently and effectively so that the group meets standardized benchmarks.

In inquiry-based education, adults are guides, asking questions and encouraging critical thinking and discovery. They facilitate hands-on activities and discussions and must get to know each learner to effectively support them on their individual learning journey. This involves understanding what personalized assistance each learner might need to meet their specific goals.

Classroom Environment

Industrial education is known for its structured factory-like setting with desks in rows. It is a teacher-centered environment designed for the teacher to deliver information through lectures and direct instruction. The focus is on compliance and uniformity, with students listening to lectures, taking notes and quizzes, working on worksheets, and memorizing facts to prepare for tests. There is little room for creativity or critical thinking.

Inquiry-based education is known for dynamic spaces set up for group work, individual study, and hands-on projects. Collaboration and problem-solving are emphasized, as are open dialogue, debate, and creativity. Exploration and critical thinking, both individually and in groups, are used to deliver information.

Assessment

Exams and standardized tests are important assessment tools in industrial education. Student performance is evaluated based on scores from these summative assessments. Final grades are determined by these tests as well as other factors such as participation, homework, and classwork, as deemed relevant by the teacher or someone in a higher position. This final grade reflects the student's grasp of the subject.

Inquiry-based education uses regular formative assessments to give feedback and support, to create an environment of ongoing improvement. Feedback encourages reflection, enabling learners to employ metacognition to enhance their understanding of the learning process. Portfolios and projects are showcased to demonstrate growth and the learner's comprehension of a particular subject.

Conclusion

Today's schools are moving away from the traditional factory model of education associated with the Industrial Era. This shift is aimed at better serving the needs of our post-industrial society.

But finding an alternative at the scale of a district or large school is difficult due to inertia and the need for efficiency, especially when educating a large number of people. Factories are efficient. The risk of losing that efficiency makes it challenging to integrate other options. Additionally, behavior can be an issue. Children with behavior issues who require strict discipline to prevent them from disrupting the learning process for the whole class may be unable to thrive in an inquiry-based model, as they may lack the social skills needed for the dynamic environment and group projects.

As a small school Aspire Savannah is free to operate on an inquiry-based model. What from the above do you think makes us the most foreign and "alternative" to you? I think assessment is the one that throws most people for a loop. The idea of a letter grade being assigned is ingrained in us all. We'll look at that in depth in the next post.

What we know as a traditional school in the US follows the Industrial Model of Education, also called the Factory Model. 

In the late 18th century, the US moved from an agricultural economy to an industrialized one. As a society, we needed to industrialize education. Factories needed an interchangeable workforce with the same basic reading, writing, and math skills to follow instructions and do repetitive tasks. We needed interchangeable, obedient workers to keep our industrialized society humming along. 

Industrialization was the latest and greatest. It was creating wealth and modernizing the country. Mass production and efficiency were inspiring everything at the time. But you don't have to work with children to know all children are different. If you have more than one child, you know all kids are different. Chances are you adjust your parenting and communication style for your different children. You do not think of them as interchangeable widgets. 

To send a person somewhere where they are treated like a widget, no different from the other widgets, how does that make sense in today's world? At the time the Industrial Model, while not the most exciting education model for anyone who loves learning, did fill a need in society. However, our world has changed. Fewer and fewer jobs are in factories or operate in a factory-style fashion.

Today, schools are changing to move away from a factory model. They must do so to be relevant in a post-industrial economy. Think about that: we are living in a post-industrial economy. So then why continue an industrial education model? Most schools don't want to retain a factory model. But it's difficult to significantly shift from the model after being entrenched in the large bureaucracy and hierarchical structure that has existed and defined the Industrial Model for over 200 years.

While we often call the factory model "traditional education," remember it has never been used exclusively worldwide. Nor was it the original model for education. 

One example of a different model, there are many, is the Montessori Method. In the late 19th century, a woman named Maria Montessori started to develop a method of education. She was a scientist who created her method mainly through observation and careful use of the scientific method. She was inspired by the idea that every person has an inner teacher and that their inner teacher can be cultivated. Her method leans on inquiry-based learning. After living through two world wars, she also had a dream that education could be a way to cultivate peace in the world. 

Her inspiration was not to create a workforce to feed industry, it was the idea of the child as a genius and to make the world more welcoming for all people. 

Aspire Savannah does not follow the Industrial Model of Education. We're new enough and small enough not to be saddled with a preexisting bureaucratic authority to slow innovation. We have the luxury of picking our own inspirations. We follow an inquiry-based model, not an industrial model. We are inspired by the Montessori Method, Joseph Renzulli's Three Ring Concept of Giftedness, The Autonomous Learner Model of Gifted Education and other innovators in the realm of inquiry-based learning. We are inspired by the idea of our learners finding their genius through personalized inquiry to become their best selves, for their own inner joy and ultimatly to share with the world. After all, someday they will be the stewards of our world.

Inspiration matters, it shapes everything that happens downline. What has inspired the learning model you most connect with? Is it an "alternative" to the Industrial Model?