"No Cheating!" Nontraditional Assessment With No Proctor Needed

Purpose & objective

- Participants will identify and discuss the challenges they have met in the last two years regarding assessment, demonstrations of knowledge, qualitative and quantitative data

- I will take those experiences and provide examples of solutions based on content I have across subjects and grade ranges, and possibilities for converting qualitative data into quantitative data points where needed to fit into a traditional grading system

- Participants will be able to ask questions, discuss, and challenge ideas with current gaps and road blocks at their schools, to generate ideas to take back.

- Participants will be able to ask a student presenter about experience in the various approaches where it's easy to "cheat" and where design doesn't allow for simply looking up factual knowledge.

- Evidence of success will be presented in a Wakelet collection with student exemplars and student voice

Outline

The session will start with asking participants to express themes and variations on what the phrase "Don't Cheat!" means to them as they talk to someone near by. I will circulate and invite several to share out for the group, what that phrases means.

The student presenter will share what it means to people her age that she's talked with.

Then the discussion will continue with asking participants to describe roadblocks they have experienced in the space of education, assessment, and unavoidable changes in approaches to teaching and assessing.

From there, based on participant voiced interest (poll), I will pull from the collection of student examples and walk through what the artifacts are designed to demonstrate, how students are in charge of providing evidence of meeting ISTE standards for students, and more advanced students co-develop demonstrations of learning based on goals they set out to meet. This is much like a graduate school approach where learners define their goals and the framework and structure to demonstrate their learning.

From there, participants will be directed to the Wakelet, and with projection on screen, pointing out some highlights of student exemplars, how to access them, and give a few minutes to choose one they are interested in looking at more. During that time, ISTE Standards for students will be on the screen to refer to, with the goal of seeing how and which of those standards are visible to an outside observer who was never part of the class or instructional design. What could they see come through.

Student presenter will express what this approach to co-designing learning assessment after learning about ISTE Standards for Students teaches different skills than just completing an assignment where standards are designed into the assessment, but not disclosed to students.

Finally, there will be visual examples of how qualitative and quantitative data can be combined to demonstrate mastery, and an approach for those interested in maintaining quantitative, but valuing the qualitative aspects of data that cannot be fully captured though quantitative data alone.

Supporting research

PBS The Origin of Grades:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqjolyDN5tw

This post includes a range of perspectives on assessment.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/assessment-remote-learning-data-michelle-zimmerman/

RAND has been publishing on impact of disrupted learning, and included projections based on school closures during natural disasters:

https://www.rand.org/education-and-labor/research/k-12-accountability-and-assessments.html