Initial Consequences of the DML 2012 Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition

Daniel T. Hickey

The announcement of the final awards in MacArthur’s Badges for Lifelong Learning competition on March 2 was quite exciting. It concluded one of the most innovative (and complicated) research competitions ever seen in education-related research. Of course there was some grumbling about the complexity and the reviewing process. And of course the finalists who did not come away with awards were disappointed. But has there ever been a competition without grumbling about the process or the outcome?

A Complicated Competition

The competition was complicated. There were over 300 initial submissions a few months back; a Teacher Mastery category was added at the last minute. Dozens of winners of Stage 1 (Content and Program) and Stage 2 (Design and Tech) went to San Francisco before the DML conference to pitch their ideas to a panel of esteemed judges.

Open Badges and the Future of Assessment

Of course I followed the roll out of MacArthur’s Badges for Lifelong Learning competition quite closely. I have studied participatory approaches to assessment and motivation for many years.  

EXCITEMENT OVER BADGES

While the Digital Media and Learning program committed a relatively modest sum (initially $2M), it generated massive attention and energy.  I was not the only one who was surprised by the scope of the Badges initiative.  In September 2011, one week before the launch of the competition, I was meeting with an education program officer at the National Science Foundation.  I asked her if she had heard about the upcoming press conference/webinar.  Turns out she had been reading the press release just before our meeting.  She indicated that the NSF had learned about the competition and many of the program officers were asking about it.  Like me, many of them were impressed that Education Secretary Duncan and the heads of several other federal agencies were scheduled to speak at the launch event at the Hirshhorn museum,

THE DEBATE OVER BADGES AND REWARDS

As the competition unfolded, I followed the inevitable debate over the consequences of “extrinsic rewards” like badges on student motivation.  Thanks in part to Daniel Pink’s widely read book Drive, many worried that badges would trivialize deep learning and leave learners with decreased intrinsic motivation to learn. The debate was played out nicely (and objectively) at the HASTAC blog via posts from Mitch Resnick and Cathy Davidson .   I have been arguing in obscure academic journals for years that sociocultural views of learning call for an agnostic stance towards incentives.  In particular I believe that the negative impact of rewards and competition says more about the lack of feedback and opportunity to improve in traditional classrooms.  There is a brief summary of these issues in a chapter on sociocultural and situative theories of motivation that Education.com commissioned me to write a few years ago.  One of the things I tried to do in that article and the other articles it references is show why rewards like badges are fundamentally problematic for  constructionists like Mitch, and how newer situative theories of motivation promise to resolve that tension.  One of the things that has been overlooked in the debate is that situative theories reveal the value of rewards without resorting to simplistic behaviorist theories of reinforcing and punishing desired behaviors.

School Creativity Indices: Measurement Folly or Overdue Response to Test-Based Accountability?

Daniel T. Hickey

A February 2 article in Education Week surveyed efforts in California, Oklahoma, and other states to gauge the opportunities for creative and innovative work. One of our main targets here at Remediating Assessment is pointing out the folly of efforts to standardize and measure “21^st Century Skills.” So of course this caught our attention.

What might come of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Smith’s search for a “public measurement of the opportunities for our students to engage in innovative work” or California’s proposed Creativity and Innovative Education index?

Mercifully, they don’t appear to be pushing the inclusion of standardized measures of creativity within high stakes tests. Promisingly, proponents argue for a focus on “inputs” such as arts education, science fair, and film clubs, rather than “outputs” like test scores, and the need for voluntary frameworks instead of punitive indexes. Indeed, many of these efforts are described as a necessary response to the crush of high stakes testing. Given the looming train-wreck of “value-added” merit pay under Race to the Top, we predict that these efforts are not going to get very far. We will watch them closely and hope some good come from them. 

What is most discouraging is what the article never mentioned. The words “digital,” “network,” or “writing” don’t appear in the articles, and no consideration of the need to look at the contexts in which creativity is fostered is present. Schools continue to filter any website with user-generated content, and obstruct the pioneering educators who appreciate that digital knowledge networks are an easy and important context for creative and knowledgeably engagement. 

Finnish Lessons: Start a Conversation

Rebecca C. Itow and Daniel T. Hickey

In the world of Education, we often talk of holding ourselves and adhering to “high standards,” and in order to ensure we are meeting these high standards, students take carefully written standardized exams at the state and national level. These tests are then used to determine the efficacy of our schools, curriculum, and teachers. Now, with more and more states tying these scores to value-added teaching, these tests are having more impact than ever. But being so tied to the standards can be a detriment to classroom learning and national educational success.

Dr. Pasi Sahlberg of Finland spoke at Indiana University on January 20, 2012 to discuss accounts of Finnish educational excellence in publications like The Atlantic and the New York Times, and promote his new book, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? One of his main points was that the constant testing and accountability to which the U.S.'s students and teachers are subjected do not raise scores. He argued that frequent testing lowers scores because teachers must focus on a test that captures numerous little things, rather than delving more deeply into a smaller number of topics.

Another Misuse of Standardized Tests: Color Coded ID Cards?

An October 4, 2011 Orange County Register article that reports a California high school’s policy to color code student ID cards based on their performance on state exams raises several real concerns, including student privacy. Anthony Cody in his blog post “Color Coded High School ID Cards Sort Students By Test Performance” published on October 6, 2011 in Education Week Teacher writes that “[s]tudents [at a La Palma, CA high school] who perform at the highest levels in all subjects receive a black or platinum ID card, while those who score a mix of proficient and advanced receive a gold card. Students who score "basic" or below receive a white ID card.” These cards come with privileges and are meant to increase motivation to perform well on state standardized exams. Followers’ comments and concerns posted to the blog address “fixing identity” and that testing conveys the idea that “learning and achievement isn't reward in itself. … You're not worth anything unless WE tell you are based on this one metric.” These are valid concerns, but the larger issue being highlighted here is the misuse and misapplication of the standardized tests themselves. 

Introducing Rebecca

It has been just about six months since I closed up my classroom in sunny Southern California, picked up my life, and moved to Bloomington, Indiana to pursue my PhD in Learning Sciences. I can say that a year ago I certainly did not think I would be posting on a blog about Re-Mediating Assessment. I didn't think I would writing up my research or be helping teachers develop and discuss curriculum that fosters more participation and learning in their classroom. But here I am.

In fact, a year ago I was celebrating Banned Books Week with my AP Language and Composition and Honors 9 English classes, preparing my Mock Trial team for another year of success, starting a competitive forensics team, chairing the AP department, and generally trying to convince my colleagues that my lack of “traditional” tests and use of technology in my almost-paperless classroom were not only good ideas, but actually enhanced learning. A year ago I was living life in sunny Southern California as normal ... then I decided to take the GRE. And I am so glad I did. It has been an interesting journey getting to this moment.

I never thought I would become a teacher. I have an AA in Dance, an AA in Liberal Arts, and a BA in Theatre Directing, but I found that working in the top 99 seat theatre in Los Angeles left me wanting more. When I went back for my MAEd and teaching credential, I was the only one who was surprised. Teaching students, I learned, is very much like directing actors - we want them to come to conclusions, but they need to come to them in their own way in order for the outcome to be authentic.

I have worked as a choreographer, director, and actor. I have taught 10 minute playwriting and directed festivals, as well as developed curriculum around this theme. I studied Tourette Syndrome under Dr. David Commings at the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope, and informally counseled TS students at the high school. I am a classical dancer and recently picked up circus arts as a hobby.

Each of these very different interests contributed to my teaching. We explored literature through discussion, and often took on the roles of the characters to discuss what a piece said about the society in which it was written and its relevance today. Quite often administrators walked in while students were debating the ethics of the latest redaction of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or discussing Fitzgerald’s symbolism while dressed to the nines at a Gatsby picnic. Still, I came up against resistance when presenting my methods and ideas to my colleagues; they didn't think that I was teaching if I wasn't giving traditional tests. I had too many A's and too few F's. I knew that I could affect greater change, but I wasn't sure how. Then the opportunity to come to Indiana University and work with Dan Hickey arose, and I had to take it.

Now I am in Bloomington, reflecting on a semester of writing, learning, studying, and creating curriculum. I have immersed myself in the school and culture and work here, and have found smaller networks of people with whom I can engage, play, think, debate, and grow. I am excited and encouraged by the adventures that await in this chapter, and am looking forward.

RMA is back!

After an extended hiatus, Re-Mediating Assessment is back.  In the meantime, lots has happened.  Michelle Honeyford completed her PhD and joined the faculty at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.  Jenna McWilliam has moved on to Joshua Danish's lab and is focusing more directly critical theory in new media contexts.  She renamed her blog too.

Lots of other things have happened that my student and I will be writing about.  I promise to write shorter posts and focus more on commentary regarding assessment-related events.  I have a bunch of awesome new doctoral students and collaborations who are lined up to start posting regularly about assessment-related issues.


For now I want to let everybody know that today is the official release day of a new volume on formative assessment that Penny Noyce and I edited.  It has some great chapters.  On the Harvard Education Press website announcing the book, my assessment hero Dylan Wiliam said:

"This is an extraordinary book. The chapters cover practical applications of formative assessment in mathematics, science, and language arts, including the roles of technology and teachers’ professional learning. I found my own thinking about formative assessment constantly being stretched and challenged. Anyone who is involved in education will find something of value in this book."

Lorrie Shepard's foreword is a nice update on the state of assessment.  David Foster writes about using the tools from Mathematics Assessment Resources Services in the Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative Dan Damelin and Kimberle Koile from the Concord Consortium write about using formative assessment with cutting edge technology. (And we appreciate that the Concord Consortium is featuring their book on their website.

For me the best part was the chapter from Paul Horwitz of the Concord Consortium.  Paul wrote a nice review of his work with Thinker Tools and GenScope and the implications of that work for assessment.  Paul's chapter provided a nice context for me to summarize my ten year collaboration with him around GenScope.  That chapter is perhaps the most readable description of participatory assessment that I have managed to write.  A much more detailed account of our collaboration was just accepted for publication by the Journal of the Learning Sciences and will appear in 2011.

I promise you will be hearing from us regularly starting in the new year.  We hope you will comment and share this with others.  And if you have posts or links that you think we should comment on, please let us know.  I will let the rest of the team introduce themselves and add their bios to the blog as they start posting.

short-sighted and socially destructive: thoughts on Ning's decision to cut free services

Lord knows I'm not a huge fan of Ning, the social networking tool that allows users to create and manage online networks. I find the design bulky and fairly counterintuitive, and modifying a network to meet your group's needs is extremely challenging, and Ning has made it extremely difficult or impossible for users to control, modify, or move network content. Despite the popularity of Ning's free, ad-supported social networks among K-16 educators, the ads that go along with the free service have tended toward the racy or age-inappropriate.

But given the Ning trifecta--it's free, getting students signed up is fast and fairly easy, and lots of teachers are using it--I've been working with Ning with researchers and teachers for the last two years. So the recent news that Ning will be switching to paid-only membership is obnoxious for two reasons.

The first reason is the obvious: I don't want to pay--and I don't want the teachers who use Ning to have to pay, either. One of the neat things about Ning is the ability to build multiple social networks--maybe a separate one for each class, or a new one each semester, or even multiple networks for a single group of students. In the future, each network will require a monthly payment, which means that most teachers who do decide to pay will stick to a much smaller number of networks. This means they'll probably erase content and delete members, starting fresh each time. The enormous professional development potential of having persistent networks filled with content, conversations, and student work suddenly disappears.

Which brings me to my second point: That anyone who's currently using Ning's free services will be forced to either pay for an upgrade or move all of their material off of Ning. This is tough for teachers who have layers upon layers of material posted on various Ning sites, and it's incredibly problematic for any researcher who's working with Ning's free resources. If we decide to leave Ning for another free network, we'll have to figure out some systematic way of capturing every single thing that currently lives on Ning, lest it disappear forever.

Ning's decision to phase out free services amounts to a paywall, pure and simple. Instead of putting limits on information, as paywalls for news services do, this paywall puts limits on participation. In many ways, this is potentially far worse, far more disruptive and destructive, far more short-sighted than any information paywall could be.

If Ning was smart, it would think a little more creatively about payment structures. What about offering unlimited access to all members of a school district, for a set fee paid at the district level? What about offering an educator account that provides unlimited network creation for a set (and much lower) fee? What about improving the services Ning provides to make it feel like you'd be getting what you paid for?

More information on Ning's decision to go paid-only will be released tomorrow. For now, I'm working up a list of free social networking tools for use by educators. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Update, 4/15/10, 6:48 p.m.: Never one to sit on the sidelines in the first place, Alec Couros has spearheaded a gigantic, collaborative googledoc called "Alternatives to Ning." As of this update, the doc keeps crashing because of the number of collaborators trying to help build this thing (the last time I got into it, I was one of 303 collaborators), so if it doesn't load right away, keep trying.

Diane Ravitch Editorial on the Failure of NCLB

I have long admired Diane Ravitch. While I have disagreed with her on fundamental philosophical grounds, her arguments have always been grounded in the realities of schooling--even if those were the realities of conservative parents and stakeholders.

Now the evidence has shown what some of us predicted and what many of us have known for years: that external tests of basic skills and punitive sanctions were just going to lead to illusory gains (if any) and undermine other value outcomes. Her editorial in today's (April 2) Washington Post is very direct. While I disagree with her on where to go from here, I applaud her for using her audience and her reputation to help convince a lot of stakeholders who have found one reason or another to ignore the considerable evidence against continuing NCLB. Like Jim Popham has been saying for years, all of the improvement schools could make with test scores already happened between 1990 and 2000, once newspapers began publishing test scores.



Certainly this will factor into the pending NCLB reauthorization. Perhaps Indiana's Republican leadership will read this and think twice about going forward with their two core ideas for their Race to the Top reform proposal, even though it was not funded. The twin shells in their reform shotgun is "Pay for Performance" merit pay for Indiana teachers based on basic skills test scores, and "Value Added" growth modeling that ranks teachers based on how much "achievement" they instilled in their kids. For reasons Ravitch summarizes and other concerns outlined in a recent letter and report by the National Academy, the recoil from pulling these two triggers at once might be just enough to blow our schools and our children pretty far back into the 20th century.

Video of Barry McGaw on Assessment Strategies for 21st Century Skills (Measurement Working Group)

I just came across a video of a keynote by Barry McGaw at last month’s Learning and World Technology Forum. McGaw heads the Intel/Microsoft/Cisco initiative known as Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. This high-powered group is aiming to transform the tests used in large-scale national comparisons and education more broadly. Their recent white papers are a must read for anyone interested in assessment or new proficiencies. McGaw’s video highlights aspects of this effort that challenge conventional wisdom about assessment. In this post I focus on McGaw’s comments on the efforts of the Measurement working group. In particular they point to (1) the need to iteratively define assessments and the constructs they aim to capture, and (2) the challenge of defining developmental models of these new skills.


Iterative Design of Assessments and Constructs
McGaw highlighted that the Measurement Working Group (led by Mark Wilson) emphasized the need for iterative refinement in the development of new measures. Various groups spent much of the first decade of the 21st century debating how these proficiencies should be defined and organized. In this abstract context, this definition process could easily consume the second decade as well. Wilson’s group argues that the underlying constructs being assessed must be defined and redefined in the context of the assessment development process. Of this, McGaw said

You think about it first, you have a theory about what you want those performances to measure. You then begin to develop ways of capturing information about that skills. But the data themselves give you information about the definition, and you refine the definition. This is the important point of pilot work with these assessment devices. And not just giving the tests to students, but giving them to students and seeing what their responses are, and discovering why they gave that response. And not just in the case where it is the wrong response but in the case where it is the correct response, so that you get a better sense of the cognitive processes underlying the solution to the task.

In other words, you can’t just have one group define standards and definitions and then pitch them to the measurement group when dealing with these new proficiencies. Because of their highly contextualized nature, we can’t just pitch standards to testing companies as has been the case with hard skills for years. This has always nagged at me in previous consideration, in that they seemed to overlook both the issue and the challenge that it presents (e.g., the Partnership for 21st Century Skills). Maybe now we can officially decide to stop trying to define what assessment scholar Lorrie Shepard so aptly labeled “21st Century Bla Bla Bla.”

The Lack of Learning Progression Models
McGaw also reiterated the concerns of the Measurement Working Groups over the lack of consensus about the way these new proficiencies develop. There is a strong consensus about the development of many of the hard skills in math, science, and literacy, and these insights are crucial for developing worthwhile assessments. I learned about this first hand developing a performance assessment for introductory genetics working with Ann Kindfield at ETS. Ann taught me the difference between the easier cause-to-effect reasoning (e.g., completing the Punnett square) and the more challenging effect-to-cause reasoning (e.g., using a pedigree chart to infer mode of inheritance). We used these and other distinctions she uncovered in her doctoral studies to create a tool that supported tons of useful studies on teaching inheritance in biology classes. Other more well known work on “learning progressions” include Ravit Duncan’s work in molecular genetics and Doug Clements’ work in algebra. In each case it took multiple research teams many years reach consensus about the way that knowledge typically developed.

Wilson and McGaw are to be commended for reminding us how difficult it is going to be to agree on the development of these much softer 21st century proficiencies. They are by their very definition situated in more elusive social and technological contexts. And those contexts are evolving. Quickly. Take for example judging credibility of information on the Internet. In the 90s this meant websites. In the past decade it came to mean blogs. Now I guess it includes Twitter. (There is a great post about this at MacArthur’s Spotlight Blog, as well as a recent CBC interview about fostering new media literacies, featuring my student Jenna McWilliams.)

Consider that I taught my 11-year-old son to look at the history page on Wikipedia to help distinguish between contested and uncontested information in a given entry. He figured out on his own how to verify the credibility of suggestions for modding his Nerf guns at nerfhaven.com and YouTube. Now imagine you are ETS, where it inevitably takes a long time and buckets of money to produce each new test. They already had to replace their original iSkills test with the iCritical Thinking test. From what I can tell, it is still a straightforward test of information from a website. Lots of firms are starting to market such tests. Some places (like Scholastic’s Expert21) will also sell you curriculum and classroom assessments that will teach students to pass the test—without ever actually going on the Internet. Of course ETS know that they can’t sell curriculum if they want to maintain their credibility. But I am confident that as soon as organizations start attaching meaningful consequences to the test, social networks will spring up telling students exactly how to answer the questions.

There is lots of other great stuff in the Measurement white paper. Much if it is quite technical. But I applaud their sobering recognition of the many challenges that these new proficiencies pose for large scale measurement. And they only get harder when these new tests are used for accountability purposes.

Next up: McGaw’s comments about the Classroom Environments and Formative Evaluation working group.