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

• 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

Overview

P21 Members

Who is the Partnership?

A unique partnership between business, education and

policymakers

With support from the U.S. Department of Education

• 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

Overview

20th Century Education Model

21st Century Skills Framework

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

Learning & Innovation Skills

• Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

• Creativity & Innovation

• Communication & Collaboration

21st Century Skills Framework

21st Century Skills Framework

Information, Media & Technology Skills

• Information Literacy

• Media Literacy

• ICT (Information, Communications &

Technology) Literacy

21st Century Skills Framework

Life & Career Skills

• Flexibility & Adaptability

• Initiative & Self-Direction

• Social & Cross-Cultural Skills

• Productivity & Accountability

• Leadership & Responsibility

Learning & Innovation Skills

• Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

• Creativity & Innovation

• Communication & Collaboration

21st Century Skills Framework

How do I learn more about 21st century skills?

21st Century Skills Framework

www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21

• 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

Overview

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

Formative Assessment

• 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.

Formative Assessment

What does it look like in the classroom?

Issues

• Definitional Issues

• Gray areas

• Grading

• Teacher Time

Formative Assessment

Partnership for 21st Century Skills White Paper on Assessment

Formative Assessment

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

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

Partnership for 21st Century Skills White Paper on Assessment

What Teachers Need

• Good assessment skills

• Pedagogical content knowledge

• Professional development

Formative Assessment

Why is formative assessment so important for 21st century skills?

• Impact on performance

• Greater authenticity possible

Formative Assessment

Additional Comments

• External resources

• Tools in white paper

• Technology– Capabilities for formative assessment– 21st century technology skills

Formative Assessment

• 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

Overview

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

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

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.

Summative Assessment

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

No innovation

Radical innovation

Paper-based Computer-based

E-assessment – migration vs. transformation

Summative Assessment

Collegiate Learning Assessment Council for Aid to Education

Performance tasks• Critical thinking• Analytic reasoning• Problem solving• Written communication

Summative Assessment

ASIAN TIGER MOSQUITO: Question 1 and Document Library Contents

ASIAN TIGER MOSQUITO: Experiment Pictures

MYTHS: Brueghel Painting

• 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

ETS - iSkills

Summative Assessment

Summative Assessment

www.21stcenturyskills.org/Route21

• 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

Overview

Maine Experience

• Elements of classroom assessment• Self-assessment• Goal setting• Setting criteria

• 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

21st Century AssessmentMaine Experience

Feedback• Peer conferences, peer editing

• Project work with scientists, writers, journalists, architects and town planners

• MEA constructed responses/ETS pilot

Maine Experience

Keep the Focus on Learning

Maine Experience

• 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

Overview

North Carolina Experience

• North Carolina Computer Skills Test

• Physics End-of-Course (online test)

• Biology End-of-Course (true 21st century assessment)

• 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.

NCDesk

North Carolina Experience

North Carolina Experience

Online EOC Physics Test•84 multiple choice tests•Administered online•No longer than 4 hours

North Carolina Experience

North Carolina Experience

Biology EOC PFL*PFL: Preparation for Future Learning multimedia

instructional technology

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.

North Carolina Experience

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

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/

testing/computerskills/

http://cuacs8.mck.ncsu.edu/ncdesk/

North Carolina Experience

We need 21st century assessments.

Conclusion

Conclusion

We need a balance of formative and summative

assessments of 21st century skills.

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Contact Us

www.21stcenturyskills.org