21st Century assessment…
This last week has been quiet on the blogging front as I have been busy with examinations and marking. It is fair to say that I have been reflecting on my own marking and the comments colleagues have been making too.
As our curriculum gears itself towards 21st century education and the 21st century learner, assessment and examinations are lagging behind. That is not to say there have been no improvements, there have. We are now assessing some areas using assignments, produced using modes that suit our students learning.
But, examinations are still in the same mode they have always been in. Pen and paper.
I wonder if the last meaningful thing our students do with pen and paper will be their final examination at school or university. How many of us prepare crucial documents that will shape the course of our lives using pen and paper?
Often at presentations to parents, I will ask how many parents use computers in their work. Universally, the question is answered with a vast array of hands held high. Perhaps a better questions would be how many of the audience use pen and paper to write letters to clients, to write business plans or remittence notices? How many would expect to recieve professional correspondence in a hand written format?
Is a pen and paper examniation a fair and an appropriate test for the 21st century? Where our learners require and utilise collective intelligence, collaboration, adaptability, flexibility, digital literacy, inforamtion literacy, the skills of validation and information gathering etc. Is a test a suitable tool?
Is a pen and paper test fair or appropriate for the Auditory or Kinesthetic learners? It suits read write learners and perhaps the visual learner. Is this an unfair bias?
What was the last meaningful thing you did with pen and paper? Mine was signing a purchase agreement, before that I am not sure. I take notes using a laptop, a tablet or a PDA. I brain storm, draft and publish materials in a digital medium? My white board is a tablet connected to a projector or a smartboard. The notes for my students are mind maps created using c-map, windows journal pages or notebooks, videos podcasts and presentations.
Yet I make my students take pen and paper exams too..
I have a ways to go.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I completely agree with your thoughts, although I would take it a step further. It is not just about using pen and paper. Exams largely assess memory. They don’t assess many of the things that we say are valued in the 21st century workplace (and outside the workplace) - collaboration, creativity, lateral thinking, problem solving, etc. Ok, they may require some problem solving, but largely…it is memory.
Now being able to remember stuff is actually pretty damn useful, but it should not be the dominating factor in assessing learning.