Schools are looking for a new way to test what we think is truly important (those 21st century skills) with something a touch more quantitative than one’s gut. Well, the folks at the Council for Aid to Education are giving it a shot and have some early adopters, notably at the Lawrenceville School in NJ. While the presentation I attended at the NAIS conference was really nothing more than a conversation starter, it was framed around some intriguing questions and a topic that could really change things about the way schools go about assessing.
What are we saying is important in independent school education?
The not-so-recent call for 21st century learning has further pushed words like collaboration, critical thinking, authentic, task-based instruction and assessment, and multidisciplinary into the thinking of all of us. So, as we strive to find ways to include this pedagogy in our daily thinking and learning, we also must ask ourselves – how do we assess this? How do we know that the students are learning? Where is the benchmark?
Are we testing what we say is important?
If we’re talking about the daily formal and informal assessing that goes on in good classrooms, the answer is probably yes. If we’re thinking about our standardized testing, the answer is likely no with regard to the 21st century skills. This could be changing as the AP rethinks its curriculum and assessment and as alternative assessments like the College and Work Readiness Assessment change the game.
How do we have a valid gauge of what’s important? This is a judgement call that good schools across the country at all levels are making. The push now is toward the “21st Century” skills, and that’s calling into question our current manner of assessment as a way of telling what is important as a predictor of later success.
Are we testing what colleges say is important? Most colleges say they want “21st Century” students, but still hold AP and SAT as important factors to admissions. As a consequence, independent schools are taking a risk if they step away from these documents.
Are colleges looking at what they say is important? More and more of them are. According to the presenters at the conference, 200+ schools are using the CWRA and it’s undergraduate counterpart, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, as an assessment of 21st Century skills. More and more are also taking the SAT out of the admissions equation.
Where do 21st cent skills of problem solving and critical thinking fit into all this? The CLA (given to college freshmen) and it’s Grade 9 through 12 counterpart, the CWRA, may provide an alternative. The tests give students an authentic (though fictional) problem and then challenge them with documents such as emails, studies, newspaper articles and the like to synthesize and return with a solution/proposal. The problems are designed to be 21st Century skills friendly, multidisciplinary, and quantifiable. The tests can be given online and compared not just to those other students in the room, but against a national picture, and, over time, against one’s prior scores providing a national and school benchmark to the 21st Century learning. It may a way to see if we as schools are teaching what we say we’re teaching.
The CWRA model is one that begs a few more questions.
– can this model be expanded to the rest of the curriculum?
– will it catch on?
– if a school loves and adopts it, can it be brought down to the Middle and Lower Schools?
I’m intrigued and will be headed to a day-long session next month. It may not be the answer to what ails standardized testing, but it seems to be helping to kick the conversation in the right direction.
More information on the CLA and the CWRA can be found at http://www.collegiatelearningassessment.org.
awniblock 