Category: #assessment

The Meaning of Recognition

I think in the early days of thinking about open credentialing, I got fixated on the credential part. The proof you might receive from an authoritative body, qualified to judge, rather than a human nod or tip-of-the-hat from someone in my community. Recognition – we all need it. By the way, it’s a long time…
SATs – they don’t tell you.

Meaningless, meaningless all is meaningless… …and mildly oppressive. Does a filter bubble exist where everyone in it thinks SATs are actually a good idea, and I’m just not part of it?
The future of testing

I read this guardian article recently where a woman asked Tinder for all her personal information. They sent her 800 pages worth of data. Apply this to the world of testing, which is increasingly data rich, and it doesn’t take much to make a pessimistic prediction. This thought was originally from a town hall discussion at the E-ATP…
Academic failures – got any previous?

We carry around our academic failures like previous convictions. If pressed, we might even blame something: but I’d never even been to France so it just didn’t make sense… Whether or not the excuse is fair, we accept what the piece of paper tells us. I’m not very good at that. Sadly, what we really believe is…
The Recursive Spiral

…following a conversation with writer Ruth Culham about the relationship between formative assessment and instructional decisions— and the learning that takes place during the process.
Blowing up the SATS

Revolution doesn’t happen until the middle-classes are revolting on Minecraft… This thinkery was conceived of and constructed by my 11yo during our day of striking against the SATS.
Kids don’t need SATs

Have you ever heard anyone say “I’m no good at maths” ? Do you ever stop to wonder where they picked that up from? An exam? Or an adult’s opinion off the back of an test? We talk about maths as if it’s some sort of binary – either you’re good at it or you’re…
Open Badges (P.S. there’s data inside…)

Open Badges seem so simple, don’t they? But wait – don’t make assumptions – ask questions! They’ve got stuff inside. Data. Authenticated data. But the big news? – you can take them with you because they’re built on an open standard. They can be connected together to form a learning pathway. The data structure inside the…
Learning – to what end?

“Dad? What does this spell? F-L-A-P-P-E-R?” My 5 year old is an engineer in the making. He has a book of how to make a whole array of paper planes. And so he starts his self-crafted apprenticeship. “Dad? Can you help me with step 10?” But this is the Expert Section. “Can you just do it?”…
Changing your world view

This looks all wrong, doesn’t it? The thing is, it’s not at all easy to change your current world view. In fact, we actively look for things that will confirm our existing world view. This, I now know, is called confirmation bias, which always reminds me of the Simon & Garfunkel line “a man hears…
Learning to Credential

Due to the nature of the system, we start with the Credential and work backwards. Ah. This is further illustrated by this graphic, highlighting the massive difference between prescriptive and descriptive pathways.
Assessment System Design

How do you design an Assessment System? Patrick Craven from City & Guilds says that credibility is formed of three key aspects: Validity, Reliability and Viability…