At the end of the Watson and Gemin article, Mickey Revenaugh VP for State Relations at Connections Academy says "Ensuring quality in a fast-growing enterprise like online learning is like upgrading the engine on a jetliner while it is in flight." This quote reminded me of the book Disrupting Class where Christenson talks about the front plane and back plane of innovation. He says that innovation happens where there is an unserved need.
This weeks readings about state run online programs underscored this reality for me. The Watson and Gemin article also mentions that online programs are often under more scrutiny than traditional classrooms. I started to wonder if in the private or charter schools we might see different methodology to online school if they are outside the state regulations and assessment obligations. Perhaps a for profit or charter online program has more room to innovate? I look forward to week 3 reading to find out.
I have also been thinking about assessment. What are other methods of measuring educational outcomes that fit with the types of skills students need to develop. How can you measure problem solving skills and critical thinking. I hope some of our future reading will focus on those issues.
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How do we measure problem-solving skills and critical thinking? One of the major questions of those who focus on teaching "21st-century skills." This is partly a way to shift the focus from NCLB test scores to something with more substance, but the fact is that no one has figured this out yet--for f2f or online learning. Groups are trying to come up assessments, but the question is whether this turns this type of thinking into one more testable skill. Hard questions....
ReplyDeleteMaybe assessment should be a multifaceted view of the students' performance. Test results could be one component, but there would also be more.
ReplyDeleteGiven that we are trying to prepare students to go out into the world and be able to contribute, I was thinking about how corporations assess their employees. I've seen many places do a 360˚ evaluation where the employee reflects on their work, but also the person to whom the employee reports provides feedback, as does the direct reports to the employee and the employees' peers.
For students focused on learning in a way aligned with 21st century skills, this 360˚ view could be adapted to include feedback from those with whom they work in a group, their teachers, their parents and their own impressions of their progress. That group feedback about their contributions could be reviewed with test results to give a holistic view of student performance.
I also wonder if another indicator of student success could be to track the students beliefs in their own abilities. Meaning, a student could be surveyed at the beginning of the school year about where they think they'll be in ten years, what they hope to do for a living, etc. At the end of the school year they could be surveyed again and if their responses have shifted from perhaps not having college on their radar, or not having good expectations of themselves, to instead thinking of themselves as being capable of more that what they thought before – that is a measure of success.
So much of achievement comes from motivation and belief in yourself – maybe that is something we should try to measure as an indicator of future success?
We have sit down tests for efficiency reasons, but what we really need to have is something to analyze each case individually. The way it is now, assessments can be overly narrow. Especially, if we maintain that there is only one "correct" way to solve problems.
ReplyDeleteLast semester, our class was presented with a logic problem to solve. Instead of spending the class solving it, I wrote a little program to solve it for me. I got the right answer, but I didn't get it the way that the professor expected me to. In fact, I never really gave the specific problem much thought. Was this cheating or just another form of problem solving? It was just for an in-class discussion, so it couldn't have been cheating, but solving it myself wasn't the first method that came to mind.
I believe more and more students will be looking at problems this way, so broadening what we mean by problem solving needs to come into play.
I am always nervous about drawing from corporate models because the rewards that schools can give will never be immediately shiny enough for students. I say immediately because we all know the truth that schooling provides immeasurable value.
I think that's a great example of problem solving! How did your professor respond?
ReplyDeleteMy issue is that problems will have to be solved for which there is no existing right answer or best practice. So how do you prepare students for that? You certainly can't test them - we don't know what the questions will be yet.
Allowing students the opportunity to think creatively about how to solve a problem, even if it isn't what the professor envisioned, is the best preparation we can give.
He responded that some students prefer problem solving alone. He felt that in a group environment, I wouldn't have come up with the same solution feeling that I had to include everyone. Choices are important.
ReplyDeleteI guess we can start by encouraging and rewarding students for their creativity in solving known problems. Maybe we can encourage thinking "outside of the box" early in preparation for the unknown.