deliberative assessment for integrative, reflective, and lifewide learning
DESCRIPTION
Keynote presentation at PebbleBash 2010, Shifnal, UK, June 9, 2010TRANSCRIPT
Deliberative Assessment for Integrative, Reflective, and Lifewide Learning
Darren Cambridge June 8, 2010
PebbleBash, Telford, UK
Rethinking Assessment
Assessment means making student learning visible so that it can inform programmatic and curricular innovation and demonstrate effect on learning and identity development
Looking afresh means asking:
• What kinds of learning do we value? • What assessment process do those values
imply? • How does this change how we think about
outcomes and evidence?
WHAT DO WE VALUE ABOUT INDIVIDUAL LEARNING AND IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT?
Authenticity
• Finding truth through examination of what is unique about oneself
• Enacting that difference through creative expression
• Protecting choice as a core value
Social Authenticity
Becoming an authentic individual is not a matter of recoiling from society in order to find and express the inner self. What it involves is the ability to be a reflective individual who discerns what is genuinely worth pursuing within the social context in which he or she is situated.
“Finding the Thread in My Life”
Integrity
• Consistency and coherence over time (lifelong)
• Consistency and coherence across roles (lifewide)
• Achieved and asserted through narrative
From Subject to Author
• Ordering role of institutions and traditions shifted to individual
• From being our values, relationships, and experiences to having them
• Overarching principles that mediate competition
• Thinking about the self as a system you compose and conduct
Symphonic Employability
• Career identity integrates– Human capital
(competencies)– Social capital– Adaptability
• Cultivated by narrative- Ashford et.
al.
Social Integrity
Environments for Growth
• In both personal and professional domains– Learning as attitude toward life– Supported by inviting environments
rich in content and people – Technology as a means to guide and
support
• Communicated by the portfolios as a whole
• Can inform her profession
IMPLICATIONS FOR HOW WE DO ASSESSMENT
Three curricula
Kathleen Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom
Competencies
• Communication• Critical Thinking• Strategic Problem Solving• Valuing• Group Interaction
• Global Understanding• Effective Citizenship• Aesthetic Awareness• Information Technology
Rubrics
• Useful • Cost-effective• Reasonably accurate and truthful
– Multiple– Direct
• Planned, organized, systematized and sustained
• Kinds of direct evidence– Portfolios of student work – Student reflections on their values,
attitudes, and beliefs, if developing those are intended outcomes of the course or program
Liberal Education for America’s Promise• Knowledge of Human Cultures
and the Physical and Natural World– Through study in the sciences
and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts
• Intellectual and Practical Skills– Inquiry and analysis– Critical and creative thinking– Written and oral
communication– Quantitative literacy– Information literacy– Teamwork and problem solving
• Personal and Social Responsibility– Civic knowledge and
engagement—local and global
– Intercultural knowledge and competence
– Ethical reasoning and action– Foundations and skills for
lifelong learning
• Integrative Learning– Synthesis and advanced
accomplishment across general and specialized studies
VALUE Intercultural Rubric
Deliberative Assessment
• Student are privileged informants about their own learning.
• Evidence of learning needs to come from multiple contexts, and the relationships between them need to be articulated.
• Assessment should be a system of deliberative processes inclusive of all stakeholders that makes programs more responsive to them.
A New Role for Competencies
• Standardized: Matching performance to a pre-defined set of outcomes
• Deliberative: Capture standards all stakeholders value as enacted in practice and examining alignment of both student and programmatic performance
Competencies in Organizational Learning
• Standardized: Articulating expectations to students• Deliberative: Means for mutually accountable connection
between individual and organizational learning • Boundary objects: “Boundary objects are objects that are
both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites” (Leigh Star 1989)
Ineffable Essentially Contested
• Ineffable outcomes: Things we all think are important but don’t think we can measure– E.g., ethics, leadership, social responsibility
• Essentially contested concept (Gallie, 1956)
– More optimal development because of contestation
Liberal Education for America’s Promise (LEAP)• Knowledge of Human Cultures
and the Physical and Natural World– Through study in the sciences
and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts
• Intellectual and Practical Skills– Inquiry and analysis– Critical and creative thinking– Written and oral
communication– Quantitative literacy– Information literacy– Teamwork and problem solving
• Personal and Social Responsibility– Civic knowledge and
engagement—local and global
– Intercultural knowledge and competence
– Ethical reasoning and action– Foundations and skills for
lifelong learning
• Integrative Learning– Synthesis and advanced
accomplishment across general and specialized studies
Eportfolios for Contested Outcomes
• Measurable learning outcome: Ability to articulate a reasoned stance based on evidence
• Makes multiple understandings of outcomes visible
• Requires reasoning to be articulated• Grounds understanding in evidence and
experience• Puts multiple positions into conversation
NEW WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT EVIDENCE
Academics as Test of Self
• We intended for curricular content to be an central source of evidence and ideas and strategies, but it didn’t show up this way
• Class work functioned as– A demonstration of character virtues– An experience – A goal putting aspiration towards those virtues in
action
Complicating Evidence
• Eportfolios are reflection on a selection of digital evidence • Link between evidence and reflection distinguishes eportfolios
and other digital means for– supporting reflective learning– Managing information about knowledge, skills, abilities and
experiences
• “Evidence” is the documents included in a portfolio on which the author reflects
• Use of evidence in practice is more complex than the eportfolio literature often acknowledges
An Emergent Typology of Use of Evidence in ePortfolios
• Characteristics of item used as evidence– Agency– Media
• Purpose of incorporating evidence– Rhetorical Function– Object
• Characteristics of associated learning activities– Sponsorship– Participation
Matches and Mismatches
• Reflective description of evidence • Content of evidence • Local – site of specific evidence use • Global – the whole portfolio • Matches and mismatches yield more
sophisticated understanding and resources for supporting portfolio authors
An Example: Richard Zepp’s ePortfolio
Public Displays of Connection
• Blogroll and friends lists as messages (Donath and boyd, 2004)
• Intentional performance of identity rather than a transparent representation of a social network beyond the system
• Network as implicit validation of profile information
danah boyd as suicide girl“impression management is an
inescapably collective process” (2008)
Participation
• Neither fully production or consumption • “Materially connected”: meaning and
functionality dependent on connections (Perkle 2008)
• Challenges conventional conceptions of “authorship” and “ownership” and “control”
Deliberative E-Portfolio Assessment
• Assessment as both a social and individual good means moving:
• From measuring outcomes to putting authentic, integral self-representations into conversation
• From consensus to contestation • From proof to inquiry • From authorship to participation with
authenticity and integrity
Available from Jossey-Bass, October, 2010
Stylu
Published by Stylus, 2009
[email protected]/darren (slides here)