A 21st Century Model of
Assessment for Emergent
Competencies
Marlene Scardamalia
Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology
OISE/University of Toronto
Emerge 2010 - Banff, Alberta
Knowledge Building in the Context of
21st Century Skills
… disparities in the productivity and growth of different
countries have far less to do with their abundance (or
lack) of natural resources than with the capacity to …
create new knowledge and ideas …
means to survive and prosper in highly competitive and
globalised economies.”
(David & Foray, 2003, p. 21)
Ability to Create New Knowledge-The Most Learnable and
Generalizable 21st Century Skill !!!????
• Emergence in cyberspace: A new ‘knowledge space’
linked to the evolution of new knowledge (Pierre Lévy)
• Ingenuity gap: Solving complex problems tied to the
generation of new knowledge (Thomas Homer-Dixon)
• Health and wealth of nations: Economic viability tied to
the generation of new knowledge (Paul Romer)
• Social transformations: “Education will become the center
of the knowledge society” (Peter Drucker)
The Oldest and Most Long Standing Finding
The Rich Get Richer
Knowledge
knowledge
inequities
magnified
Divide
Raising the Bar but
Not Closing the Gap
Digital
Knowledge
knowledge
inequities
magnified
technology
inequities
magnified
Divide
Divide
The Information Society:
The Rich Get Even Richer
Digital
Knowledge
knowledge
inequities
magnified
technology
inequities
magnified
Divide
Divide
The Knowledge Society: The Rich
Get Richer and Richer and Richer
New Knowledge
Digital
Knowledge
knowledge
inequities
magnified
technology
inequities
magnified
ingenuity
inequities
magnified
Divide
Divide
Divide
Ability to Create New Knowledge--The Most Learnable
and Generalizable 21st Century Skill !!!????
The creation of NEW KNOWLEDGE requires:
• Continual improvement of domain expertise and deep
disciplinary knowledge
• The full set of 21st Century skills --these are inseparable from
domain knowledge and serve as enablers.
Ability to Create New Knowledge--The Most Learnable
and Generalizable 21st Century Skill !!!????
The ASSESSMENT and NEW KNOWLEDGE challenge:
• Domain expertise advances with the advancement of 21st
Century skills
• Measures of 21st Century skills and domain expertise must
advance in parallel
Forces to be addressed
Constructivist Instruction: Success or Failure?
Edited by Sigmund Tobias and Thomas M. Duffy
Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work. An analysis of
the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and
inquiry -based teaching by Kirschner, Sweller, Clark. Educational
Psychologist
Constructivist Learning Pitted Against “Drill
and Kill”
The Mile Wide, Inch Deep Curriculum Made
Miles Wider and Shallower
21st Century Skills, entry- to high-level
characteristics of knowledge-creating
organizations
Shallow to Deep Constructivism
--Learning to learn-metacognition--student provide input and
reflect on their work to students able to take charge at the highest
levels (is our work as a whole advancing, what are our most
promising ideas, where are we stuck?)
--Collaboration/Teamwork--from small group work with divided
responsibilities to shared intelligence and community knowledge
--Digital Literacy--familiarity and use of applications and web
resources to shared community spaces built and continually
improved with connections to communities worldwide
Assessment and Teaching of 21st
Century Skills (ATC21S)
Complementary Approaches:
Working Backward from Established Goals
Working Forward to Discover New Goals
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Tasks and
Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Curriculum and Assessment
Activities
Students
Working Backward from Goals: View from the
Student’s Perspective
ideas
ideas
ideas
ideas
ideas
ideas
Task,
Activities
& Tests
ideas
ideas
ideas
ideas
ideas
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Problem solving: from Control-of-Variables Research to Theory Development
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Working Backwards From Goals
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
Problem solving: from Control-of-Variables Research to Theory Development
Teacher
Tasks and Tests
Students
Theory Development: High School or Beyond
Working Forward to Discover New Goals
Challenge 1: Design More Optimal Environments
for Knowledge Building
While it is important to develop new tests to measure
already identified 21st century skills, we believe it equally
if not more important to address the question of how we
get to yet-to-be discovered objectives—things students
can do but that are obscured by traditional learning
environments and not revealed by standard assessments.
Working Forward to Discover New Goals
Challenge 2: Environmental Supports for
Knowledge Building and Concurrent, Embedded,
and Transformative Assessment
Optimal environment will require scaffolds for high-level
knowledge processes that are integral to learning
environments, with new assessment tools providing
continuous and helpful feedback so teachers and students
can stay on continual improvement trajectories and
exceed, not just meet expectations. In turn the work
informs the design of increasingly powerful learning
environments and systems surrounding them.
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
Theory Development: Natural Tendency
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
Formative feedback
Goals and learning progressions accessible to students
Open knowledge spaces; communities build on and improve ideas
Scaffold high-level knowledge processes
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
Formative feedback
Goals and learning progressions accessible to students
Open knowledge spaces; communities build on and improve ideas
Scaffold high-level knowledge processes
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
activities
activities
tasks
tasks
tasks
activities
IDEAS
activities
tasks
activities
tasks
tasks
tasks
activities
activities
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
Formative feedback
Goals and learning progressions accessible to students
Open knowledge spaces; communities build on and improve ideas
Scaffold high level knowledge processes
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New
Distribute Expertise in Networked Environments:
Social Network Analysis
The Leader
Classroom Change Supported by Optimal
Environments:
A Social Network Analysis View (on demand, 30second look at the knowledge space, year one)
Optimal Knowledge Building Environments:
Students Take Collective Responsibility
Social Network Analysis, Year Three
The
teacher
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
Formative feedback
Goals and learning progressions accessible to students
Open knowledge spaces; communities build on and improve ideas
Scaffold high level knowledge processes
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New
Grade 1 Curriculum: Cycles, Energy and Adaptation
Grade 1 Curriculum: Cycles, Energy and Adaptation
Grade 1 Curriculum: Cycles, Energy and Adaptation
--Students should
understand cycles in lives
of plants
Latent Semantic Analysis
Benchmark--Expert Corpus
Student Discourse--Day 1
Latent Semantic Analysis
Benchmark--Expert Corpus
Student Discourse--Day 10
Latent Semantic Analysis
Benchmark--Expert Corpus
Student Discourse--Day 32
Total and distinct words--average per student over four semesters
Vocabulary Beyond Grade Level
Number of new
words per student
over two years,
four school terms
Beyond current grade
At or below current grade
The number and grade level of new vocabulary (words not used earlier) per student
notes.
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
Formative feedback
Goals and learning progressions accessible to students
Open knowledge spaces; communities build on and improve ideas
Scaffold high level knowledge processes
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New
C. Bereiter
Theory Development Beyond Grade Level
Theory Development
T war
T live
T maybe there is
T atmosphere
? is there water in spase
T no
T plaets water
T never dicovered lands
T Planet water
T space
Theories
Questions
Information
Other
is there water
in spase
T war
T live
Apr 15
mabe bkus of urth
T maybe there is
T atmosphere
is there water in
You might be?interested
inspase
reading:
Avaporate
T no
T plaets water
YES
T never dicovered lands
NO
T Planet water
? if water is in spase where dus it go
T space
T space
yes becas the pepl
need to live
Apr 29
no! but if you cont
spase ships yes
Apr 30
Yes! because thier are
other planets and
thier mite be water in
them
Apr 30
the atmosphere opins
May 2
and cuase there were
light that bounced
back water to mars
suggestion!
Working Forward to Discover New Goals:
Emergence of New Competencies
Formative feedback
Goals and learning progressions accessible to students
Open knowledge spaces; communities build on and improve ideas
Scaffold high level knowledge processes
Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards
21st Century Skills: Theory Development, Leadership, Risk Taking, New Ideas
Leadership, Risk Taking
Idea Diversity
New Ideas
Teamwork--Build On, Reading, Reference, Search
Teamwork-Build On
Teamwork-Read
Teamwork-Citations
Distinct Words
Vocabulary Beyond Grade Level
Literacy--Writing, Vocabulary Growth
Vocabulary Growth
21st Century Skills--For All, From the Earliest
Years of Schooling
Collaborative Problem Solving--peripheral to initiating;
knowledge telling to knowledge transforming; high
egocentric to contributions to others; individualistic and
competitive to conflict regulation; trial and error
hypothesis testing to reflective regulation; knowledge
telling to knowledge transforming; arguing for a position
to explanatory coherence
Innovation
Digital Literacy
…and so forth
URL for Big Ideas Movie:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7599158/Big%20Ideas%20%28med%29.mp4