Imagine a national assessment that called for collaborative problem solving. Would our learners excel at the task? Change comes slowly, with conflicting goals between what is seen as a favorable pedagogical shift and the realities of how students are being assessed.
The digital world brings new tools and opportunities, and a need for a shift in how we think about literacy. Along with language and mathematical literacy skills, we now have to include a host of digital literacy skills. Digital Literacy is such a broad term, encompassing topics such as: safety and security of personal information, how we use various devices to accomplish a multitude of tasks, finding and evaluating information, communicating and collaborating online, and understanding our role as digital citizens.
“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist … using technologies that haven’t been invented … in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”—Richard Riley, former Secretary of Education
This quote is intimidating if one approaches education as a list of content and task-based standards that each student should acquire. Content knowledge is important, but we need a shift in how we engage, process, and develop skills and capacities in terms of that knowledge. With the ability to access virtually any fact, with an endless stream of knowledge bases at our fingertips, education needs to empower students to work and think at a higher level.
Much of the data that is being used for educational decision-making doesn’t align with trends and initiatives, such as personalized learning, design thinking, the “Four Cs” (communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking), “21st Century Skills.” Higher-order tasks and assessments produce individualized data, which can be harder to aggregate and analyze in a consistent way. When the learner asks, “How did I do?” the answer is subject to factors measuring success at creativity, critical thinking, innovation, and team work. Does such individualized assessment require individualized measures?
Our assessment of a learner’s success is part of the learning process, but in the end, that learner goes into the world and needs to be be his or her own best measure of success.
Teaching Today's Learner 