New Assessments and Environments for Knowledge Building: Design Challenges

New Assessments and Environments for Knowledge Building: Design Challenges Marlene Scardamalia Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology OISE/University of Toronto

Advances in research, technology, and the international organization of knowledge Building • Research-- program conveys richness of advances. Programme Committee: Maria Chuy, Chris Teplovs, Jan Van Aalst • Assessment and 21st Century Skills--emergence of new competencies • Technology--open source teams create new assessment tools and work with researchers to increase the pace of innovation • International Association for Education for Knowledge Creation. Basic funding in place.

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 Knowledge 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 ingenuity inequities magnified technology 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 which are inseparable from domain knowledge and serve as enablers.

Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills 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 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 Task, Activities & Tests ideas 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 GoalsChallenge 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 GoalsChallenge 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.

How to Make Good Knowledge Building Discourse BetterTuesday, August 3rd

Working Forward to Discover New Goals: Emergence of New Competencies Theory Development: Natural Tendency Curriculum Expert • Subject-Matter Expert • Assessment New Standards

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

Working Forward to Discover New Goals: Emergence of New Competencies activities activities tasks tasks tasks activities IDEAS activities tasks activities tasks tasks activities tasks 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 Standards

Distribute Expertise in Networked Environments: • Social Network Analysis The Leader

Classroom Change Supported by Optimal Environments: A Social Network Analysis View (on demand, 30-second look at the knowledge space, year one)

Optimal Knowledge Building Environments: Students Take Collective Responsibility • Social Network Analysis, Year Three The teacher

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

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.

Theory Development Beyond Grade Level Theory Development

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 Literacy--Writing, Vocabulary Growth Vocabulary Growth Distinct Words Vocabulary Beyond Grade Level

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

Design Workshops and Breakout Sessions

New Assessments and Environments for Knowledge Building: Design Challenges