Spotlight on Assessment and 21 st Century Skills: Moving Beyond AYP

1. Spotlight on Assessment and 21st Century Skills: Moving Beyond AYP Partnership for 21st Century Skills CoSN K-12 School Networking Conference Washington, D.C. March 10, 2008

2. Overview • Who is the Partnership and what is the Framework for 21st Century Skills? • Formative Assessment of 21st century skills • Summative Assessment of 21st century skills • The Maine Experience • The North Carolina Experience

3. P21 Members

4. Who is the Partnership? A unique partnership between business, education and policymakers With support from the U.S. Department of Education

5. Overview • Who is the Partnership and what is the Framework for 21st Century Skills? • Formative Assessment of 21st century skills • Summative Assessment of 21st century skills • The Maine Experience • The North Carolina Experience

6. 20th Century Education Model

7. 21st Century Skills Framework

8. 21st Century Skills Framework Core Subjects • Economics • English • Government • Arts • History • Geography • Reading or Language • Arts • Mathematics • Science • World Languages • Civics • 21st Century Themes • - Global Awareness • - Financial, Economic, Business • & Entrepreneurship Literacy • - Civic Literacy • - Health Literacy

9. 21st Century Skills Framework Learning & Innovation Skills • Critical Thinking & Problem Solving • Creativity & Innovation • Communication & Collaboration

10. 21st Century Skills Framework Information, Media & Technology Skills • Information Literacy • Media Literacy • ICT (Information, Communications & Technology) Literacy

11. 21st Century Skills Framework Life & Career Skills • Flexibility & Adaptability • Initiative & Self-Direction • Social & Cross-Cultural Skills • Productivity & Accountability • Leadership & Responsibility

12. 21st Century Skills Framework Learning & Innovation Skills • Critical Thinking & Problem Solving • Creativity & Innovation • Communication & Collaboration

13. 21st Century Skills Framework How do I learn more about 21st century skills? www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21

14. Overview • Who is the Partnership and what is the Framework for 21st Century Skills? • Formative Assessment of 21st century skills • Summative Assessment of 21st century skills • The Maine Experience • The North Carolina Experience

15. Formative Assessment What is Formative Assessment? It is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended outcomes. -- CCSSO

16. Formative Assessment What does it look like in the classroom? • Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success • Engineering effective classroom discussions, questions and learning tasks that elicit evidence of learning • Providing feedback that moves learning forward • Activating students as the owners of their own learning • Activating students as instructional resources for one another “Classroom Assessment: Minute by Minute, Day by Day” Leahy, Lyon, Thompson, Wiliam. 2005.

17. Issues Definitional Issues Gray areas Grading Teacher Time Formative Assessment

18. Partnership for 21st Century Skills White Paper on Assessment Formative Assessment

19. P21 Paper Focus on 21st century skills Make thinking visible, structured, real time, authentic Data used to inform instruction Build capacity of teachers and students Formative Assessment Partnership for 21st Century Skills White Paper on Assessment • F. A. Characteristics • in Literature • Clarifying learning intensions/ • criteria (standards) • Rich information, elicit • evidence of learning, during • learning • Feedback to advance • learning • Process used by teachers • and students, activating • students

20. What Teachers Need Good assessment skills Pedagogical content knowledge Professional development Formative Assessment

21. Why is formative assessment so important for 21st century skills? Impact on performance Greater authenticity possible Formative Assessment

22. Additional Comments External resources Tools in white paper Technology Capabilities for formative assessment 21st century technology skills Formative Assessment

23. Overview • Who is the Partnership and what is the Framework for 21st Century Skills? • Formative Assessment of 21st century skills • Summative Assessment of 21st century skills • The Maine Experience • The North Carolina Experience

24. PISA Competition is global. Internationally we are being held to different standards. PISA is an assessment that is looking toward the future. It is rooted in “labor market demands.” Basic skills are necessary, but not sufficient. Summative Assessment

25. Summative Assessment Source: Levy F. and R.J. Murnane (2004) The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Labor Market. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

26. Summative Assessment • Developing large scale 21st century assessments is challenging • Expensive – government investment in innovation is essential (enhanced assessment grants). • Test development is bound by disciplinary conventions. • The status quo tends to drive much of what is done.

27. Innovation is possible and essential Assessments drive learning States – reframing of standards and RFP process Vendors can innovate and so can the government….. Summative Assessment

28. Summative Assessment E-assessment – migration vs. transformation Radical innovation Computer-based Paper-based No innovation

29. Summative Assessment • Collegiate Learning Assessment Council for Aid to Education • Performance tasks • Critical thinking • Analytic reasoning • Problem solving • Written communication

30. ASIAN TIGER MOSQUITO: Question 1 and Document Library Contents

31. ASIAN TIGER MOSQUITO: Experiment Pictures

32. MYTHS: Brueghel Painting

33. Summative Assessment ETS - iSkills • High school and college • Competencies: Define, Access, Evaluate, Manage, Integrate, Create, Communicate • Content Topics: Humanities, Social Science, Practical Affairs, Popular Culture, Natural Sciences • Technology Topics - Communication and Research Tools, Database Management, Productivity Tools

34. Summative Assessment www.21stcenturyskills.org/Route21

35. Overview • Who is the Partnership and what is the Framework for 21st Century Skills? • Formative Assessment of 21st century skills • Summative Assessment of 21st century skills • The Maine Experience • The North Carolina Experience

36. Maine Experience • Elements of classroom assessment • Self-assessment • Goal setting • Setting criteria

37. Maine Experience 21st Century Assessment • Criteria based assessments. • What counts in the work? • Engagement of students in reflection of learning = increased learning. Show evidence of learning – Use wikis, video and digital story-telling

38. Maine Experience Feedback • Peer conferences, peer editing • Project work with scientists, writers, journalists, architects and town planners • MEA constructed responses/ETS pilot

39. Keep the Focus on Learning Maine Experience

40. Overview • Who is the Partnership and what is the Framework for 21st Century Skills? • Formative Assessment of 21st century skills • Summative Assessment of 21st century skills • The Maine Experience • The North Carolina Experience

41. North Carolina Experience • North Carolina Computer Skills Test • Physics End-of-Course (online test) • Biology End-of-Course (true 21st century assessment)

42. North Carolina Experience NCDesk • The application suite designed to provide an interface to the North Carolina Online Test of Computer Skills. • NCDesk is a collection of small Java programs that replicate common applications, plus a test interface and a test simulation used to understand how the test will work. • The NCDesk programs perform a limited set of functions and can be used externally from the test and test simulation.

43. North Carolina Experience

44. Online EOC Physics Test 84 multiple choice tests Administered online No longer than 4 hours North Carolina Experience

45. North Carolina Experience

46. North Carolina Experience Biology EOC PFL* PFL: Preparation for Future Learning multimedia instructional technology

47. North Carolina Experience Challenge • Develop a multimedia product that can assess students’ content knowledge as well as their mastery of 21st century skills. • Provide students the opportunity to use information as adults do in their jobs/lives. • Provide formative and summative feedback to students while they simultaneously learn new information and develop new skills. • Help students learn while they are being assessed so that no instructional time is lost to testing.

48. North Carolina Experience • Design/research team headed by John Bransford (University of Washington) • Based on NC Standard Course of Study content: natural selection/genetic traits • Augmented classroom instruction with multimedia content to expand student understanding of core content

49. North Carolina Experience http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/ testing/computerskills/ http://cuacs8.mck.ncsu.edu/ncdesk/

50. Conclusion We need 21st century assessments.