TL;DR - ASSESSMENT IS THE KEY TO EDUCATION REFORM
If the task is to reform education, the priority should be reforming assessment. What we assess (standards), how we assess it (method), and how much we assess are the questions that determine the nature of a learning ecosystem. As someone who has created and implemented 'innovative' curriculum, it quickly became evident to me that if the classroom's assessment model was traditional (i.e., pen and paper, summative), then the lesson, no matter how innovative, would do little to affect the learning. This is because students determine what information is important and in what form based on how we assess it.
The problems with assessment today are many. The most damaging, in my mind, is this message we tell students every time they take a test: this moment is the most important moment in your education and what you receive on this test is a judgement of your capabilities. As a result, we produce students who equate education to testing and worse of all develop a serious aversion to failure. Yet in the world outside of education, anyone who has done or is doing anything of value has failed and continues to fail as a part of their creative process.
Now with more standardized testing, and higher stakes testing, teachers have no choice but to teach to the test and continue instilling in their students that being assessed is the value of their education.
Much more on assessment to come.
If the task is to reform education, the priority should be reforming assessment. What we assess (standards), how we assess it (method), and how much we assess are the questions that determine the nature of a learning ecosystem. As someone who has created and implemented 'innovative' curriculum, it quickly became evident to me that if the classroom's assessment model was traditional (i.e., pen and paper, summative), then the lesson, no matter how innovative, would do little to affect the learning. This is because students determine what information is important and in what form based on how we assess it.
The problems with assessment today are many. The most damaging, in my mind, is this message we tell students every time they take a test: this moment is the most important moment in your education and what you receive on this test is a judgement of your capabilities. As a result, we produce students who equate education to testing and worse of all develop a serious aversion to failure. Yet in the world outside of education, anyone who has done or is doing anything of value has failed and continues to fail as a part of their creative process.
Now with more standardized testing, and higher stakes testing, teachers have no choice but to teach to the test and continue instilling in their students that being assessed is the value of their education.
Much more on assessment to come.