I have slowly continued to read Seth Godin's education manifesto called Stop Stealing Dreams. A couple of weeks ago I read article #50, called The Problem with Competence. Seth defines competent people as those that "have a predictable, reliable process for solving a particular set of problems." He also says that competent people "resist change." Seth's conclusion is that competent people are not good for our future. He wants to find an "incompetent worker," someone that will "break the rules and find me something no one else can."

I understand Seth's point, but I don't think the answer is to hire an "incompetent worker." I would rather hire a competent worker with a skill set that allows him/her to overcome resistance to change. My inspiration for this alternative comes from Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline. In the book, Peter defines a learning organization as one "where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to learn together." An organization or individual that adopts these ideas will move to higher levels of achievement and respond to change with greater speed and success.

I propose that lifelong learners, those of us that never settle and consistently seek personal mastery, are competent people with the skills necessary to break the rules and find something that no one else can. However, I didn't study to be a lifelong learner in school (well, at least not K-12). I learned some of this in college, but I learned most of what I know about personal mastery after making the decision to be a lifelong learner.  

Is Seth proposing that we find a way to expose students to notions of lifelong learning and personal mastery during their K-12 years? Is he proposing that we force students to adopt these principles? Let me know what you think.

Earlier this week Seth Godin released a manifesto on education called Stop Stealing Dreams. You can download a printable version or view an online version. I follow his blog and I've written about a couple other of Seth's works (Tribes and What Matters Now). I enjoy reading his ideas and am often challenged by his perspective.

Seth's education manifesto is arranged as a series of short, numbered sections that resemble blog posts. In one section (10. Frederick J. Kelly and your nightmares) he tells the story of  Frederick J. Kelly. Seth credits Kelly with developing the multiple-choice test item. He then goes on to say that Kelly "disowned the idea, pointing out that it was an appropriate method to test only a portion of what is actually taught and should be abandoned." According to Seth, we continue to use multiple-choice tests because its "the easy and efficient way."

I agree with part of what Kelly said. Yes, multiple-choice items assess only a portion of the curriculum; in particular recall of facts and skills. However, this important item type should not be abandoned. In my opinion multiple-choice test items share a place with a number of other item types: constructed-response items, performance tasks, and technology-enhanced items. Every item type has its strengths and weaknesses, so why throw one out? I think that we should be looking for ways to have many item types and student experiences work in concert to provide valid and reliable information about what each student knows and can do.

Thankfully, I've been working for better than a year on projects that help achieve this vision. I'm grateful for these opportunities because I feel like I'm "doing something" about bad testing practices. However, this is change on a scale I've never seen before. This means that this transition won't be perfect, or pretty, or fast. However, if we can sustain the change, I am confident that educational assessment will become a powerful tool to improve student learning.

Do you think that educational assessment can be transformed into a positive change agent in the field of education?

I am waiting, like many of us, for the release of the final Mathematics Content Specifications from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. If you haven't reviewed the draft specifications, click here. In the meantime, I thought I would point out some of the other materials available at the Consortium's Web site (http://www.k12.wa.us/smarter/).

The Consortium recently began development of the Mathematics Item Specifications. This document, alongside the content specifications, will provide valuable information about the future SBAC tests. The Consortium released draft portions of the specifications from the first two "Showcases," including sample items. I think these documents will give you an early look into how items for the SBAC assessments will be designed.

Photo Credit: Image: Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In its draft content specifications the consortium identified four major claims that will map assessment targets to the Common Core State Standards. These claims are provided below.

• Claim #1 - Students can explain and apply mathematical concepts and carry out mathematical procedures with precision and fluency.
• Claim #2 - Students can frame and solve a range of complex problems in pure and applied mathematics.
• Claim #3 - Students can clearly and precisely construct viable arguments to support their own reasoning and to critique the reasoning of others.
• Claim #4 - Students can analyze complex, real-world scenarios and can use mathematical models to interpret and solve problems.

These claims, in my opinion, define what important habits of mind students will need in college and the workplace. These claims are supported by the Common Core State Standards and how that document is organized. However, the consortium took a very interesting additional step. They are proposing that these claims become the reporting categories for the assessments that they are developing. The table below, taken from the draft specifications document, shows how this would look.

I find this recommendation to be both revolutionary and intriguing. This is revolutionary because I am not aware of a state summative assessment that organizes reporting categories in any way other than the content domains. I have grown accustomed to seeing reporting categories such as: number and operation, algebra and functions, geometry, and statistics and probability. I find the recommendation intriguing because, as an assessment content developer, I find myself challenged to meet the expectations of this design. I think I will enjoy whatever role I will play in trying to make this work.

What do you think?

Reference

Burkhardt, H., & Schoenfeld, A. (2011). Content specifications with content mapping for the summative assessment of the common core state standards for mathematics. Review Draft, SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, Retrieved from http://www.k12.wa.us/SMARTER/ContentSpecs/MathContentSpecifications.pdf

Photo Credit - Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The definition of computational fluency provided by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is my motivation for this investigation. The organization, in its Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, defined computational fluency this way.

Computational fluency refers to having efficient and accurate methods for computing. Students exhibit computational fluency when they demonstrate flexibility in the computational methods they choose, understand and can explain these methods, and produce answers efficiently.

There are elements of this definition, including flexibility in choosing methods and the ability to explain these methods, that I am not sure are a focus of current assessment. Testing for computational fluency is focused on efficiency, which is often assessed through a timed test of computational questions. One thing I hope to do is challenge the notion that assessing computational fluency means evaluating efficiency. A timed test may assess efficiency, however, I believe there are assessment methods that can get evaluate a student's flexibility and understanding. Identifying these methods will be a focus of my research.

If this is an area of interest please leave me a comment. I am interested in connecting with other educators and researchers interested in computational fluency.

References

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, Virginia: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Image: anankkml / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Balanced assessment systems synthesize data collected from three assessment types. Each assessment type is described below. I credit Tracy Huebner's 2009 Educational Leadership article titled Balanced Assessment with helping me provide brief descriptions of each assessment type.

• Summative Assessment - Summative assessments are delivered at the end of instruction and provide data that can be used to evaluate a program or some entity (e.g., school, district, state).
• Interim Assessment - Interim assessments are delivered at fixed points during instruction (e.g., at the end of a grading period) and provide information about whether a student or group of students are on track to pass the summative assessment.
• Formative Assessment - Formative assessments are delivered at frequent intervals during instruction and provide information to the teacher about any need there may be to change instruction.

In my opinion the concept of a balanced assessment system is not new. I learned very early in my educational assessment career is that we (i.e., the assessment community) recommend that stakeholders use multiple measures to determine what a student knows and can do. I believe that the term multiple measures is a predecessor to balanced assessment.

Balanced assessment systems may move from concept to reality over the next few years. The federal government jump started the conversation when defining the rules for the Race to the Top Comprehensive Assessment Competition. The two consortia, in their proposals, provided visions for balanced assessments that are aligned with the Common Core State Standards.

Until we get a better idea of the consortia's plans for balanced assessment, if you are implementing the concept of a balanced assessment system, please leave a comment and let us know the direction your work is taking.

References

Huebner, T.A. (2009). Balanced assessment. Educational Leadership, 67(3), 85-87.

There is a need for additional information about the assessment of the common core standards. However, what I discovered today was that developing assessment standards was not an appropriate method to provide this additional information. When I started looking into the notion of separate assessment standards I was unable to reconcile the idea with the need for alignment. Standards-based tests, like those being used to fulfill the requirements of The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, must be aligned to the standards that the test proposes to measure. There are many issues of alignment, but the fundamental question is, "Does each item align to one standard (or some number of standards)?" Evidence of alignment is collected and made available during the development of a new assessment. Assessment standards, In this context, would create an extra link in the alignment chain and potentially weaken the alignment evidence.

I have come to conclude that additional information about assessment of The Common Core State Standards should come from the development of assessment designs. An assessment design describes the number, type, and frequency of testing as well as the number and types of items within each test. The goal of an assessment design is to define the assessments and items that will need to be developed. The assessment designs developed by the consortia receiving federal money from The Race to the Top Comprehensive Assessment System Competition, as well as competing designs provided by interested parties, will provide the context needed to bring into focus what assessment will look like in the common core landscape.

I intend to start exploring the elements of an effective assessment design for the common core standards. I will start by defining a new term that has become popular over the past couple of years. In the meantime, share with me what you think is important in assessing the common core standards. What should we keep doing? What should we stop doing? What should we do differently?

• Analogy - a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based.
• Metaphor - a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.
• Parable - a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.

I find these three communication types to be remarkably similar. All three depend on imagery unrelated to the current situation in order to communicate. All three depend on the listener to capture the meaning from the unrelated, yet similar, image and apply it in the current situation. All three can be powerful tools for a leader trying to communicate mission, vision, and values.

I enjoy finding parallels between secular teaching and the teachings of Jesus. I wonder whether Terry Pearce made the connection while writing the book?.

Reference

The definitions of analogy, metaphor, and parable are taken from dictionary.com.

Leading Out Loud is the book I am currently carrying around. This book, by Terry Pearce, talks about authentic communication.

I picked up Drive sometime before Christmas last year. Drive is now third on my reading list. This book, by Daniel Pink, talks about motivation.

Leading Change was handed to me this past spring. I started reading Leading Change and then put it down when I decided to finish reading Leading Out Loud. This book, by John P. Kotter, talks about leading groups through the change process.

If these books don't suit your fancy, the catalystspace blog wrote an entry earlier this month titled What Are the Top 5 Books Every Young Influencer Should Read? You know it's a pretty good list when the first book is The Bible.

What's on your reading list? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Here are some pictures from our trip. They are on Picasa again, so if you click on the slideshow you'll be able to see enlargements on Picasa.