Personalized, Competency-Based

“Personalized, Competency-Based.” These three words (maybe two words, depending on how you count) most succinctly define an approach to education that puts each learner at the center of the learning ecosystem.  An alternative term often used for this movement, “blended learning,”  while it has advantages, evoking nuance and hybrid approach, instead of false dichotomies (such as digital and physical, testing and anti-testing, whole language and phonics, new math and old), loses the imperative to move past antiquated approaches to teaching and learning, built from 18th century Prussian model, and brought to scale under Horace Mann in America as universal public education.

Although this assembly line model for education made universal public education possible, it no longer serves our diverse population to prepare them for the careers of the future.  Since the 90s, all 50 states have worked towards clarifying academic standards in core academic areas that are aligned with preparation for college and careers.  Whether based on Common Core, or not, each state has published a taxonomy of 50-100 competency statements for each grade and subject.   In an effort to ensure all young people stay on track to these standards, ability-grouped tracking has lost favor and been replaced by a commitment to all kids.  While an understandable reaction to the demonstrated stigma of hard tracking, this approach has resulted in classrooms that by middle grades where a math teacher may be challenged by students whose math abilities may range from one or more grade behind to one or more grade ahead, therefore, spanning perhaps 600 skill differential between highest and lowest performing students.  From this perspective, “teaching to the middle,” makes little sense.

Instead, as Sal Kahn says, we can “flip the classroom,” and provide anytime, any place, any pace access to learning experiences that target the “zone of proximal learning” for each student.  Instead of moving with the herd of learners by age and grade, each learner can “move on when ready” to the content and depth optimized to their needs. In these new learning environments, teachers become elevated from that of lab technician, working nights and weekends in a near futile attempt to provide timely feedback, to learning doctors, synthesizing self-grading learning materials into personalized, constructive feedback.

We stand at the brink of a new era in education; one in which learners demonstrate skills in diverse settings both within and outside traditional schools.  For less than 1% of the average US K12 budget, every student in America can have access to a learning device like a Chromebook.  New skills, like computational thinking, add to the foundational skills of numeracy and literacy that are rapidly becoming indispensable for participating in the new economy.  Open source, not-for-profit, and philanthropic learning tool providers like EnageNY, Open Up, Kahn Academy, Code.org, EdX are providing a rapidly growing set of high-quality free resources.  While many public schools remain on the treadmill of letter grades on transcripts targeting college admissions, elite independent schools across the nation are shifting the conversation by coming together through the Mastery Transcript Consortium to replace letter grades on transcripts within five years.  Although the federal government is no longer providing meaningful leadership, US global tech titans Apple through XQ Super Schools and FaceBook through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have joined foundations funded by Gates, Dell, and Hewlett to help spur the innovation needed for these changes to occur.

What does it look like?  A classroom that has been “flipped” provides learners with online videos and reading material they can watch and read at their own pace, and often in their own language, in their home or any other informal learning environment.  When in school, in the presence of a trained educator, learners typically benefit most from learning while doing, practicing skills like writing and problem solving under the supervision and support of their teacher.  The classroom is flipped because the type of active learning traditionally assigned to homework is done in the classroom and the more passive reading and viewing are done outside of class.  In this environment, learners are freer to move at their own pace, practicing each skill until mastery is evidenced and then moving on instead of waiting for classmates.  Taken to its logical extreme, the concepts of “class” and “course” break down to learning modules that group students more dynamically and avoid the negative consequences of rigid tracking.

What should states do to support personalized, competency-based learning?  The evolution of the learning ecosystem occurs at all levels, individual, class, school, district, and state.  States have a critical role, establishing the conditions to support local innovation.  Most importantly, as I described in my prior post, state-supported summative assessments must evolve to take less instructional time and separate faster accountability instruments from embedded diagnostic tools.  In addition to that, states need to support technology and policies that enable learners to pursue pathways to future careers through an open system of micro-credential badges.  

States like Georgia are leading the charge.  Since 2015, under the leadership of State Superintendent of Schools, Richard Woods, the Georgia Department of Education has been committed to leading the Nation in use of open standards, open source technology, open education resources, and free educational resources to create personalized learning pathways for the next generation of Georgia learners.  GA DOE will begin this work with a focus on computer science and computational thinking and will expand to all other subjects.  They are developing partnerships from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and leading education foundations to establish a micro-credential pathway from K-12 to military enlistment/training, employment/occupational licenses, and postsecondary learning.  When complete, Georgia will become the first state in the nation to implement scalable policies to support personalized, competency-based learning.  

Project Management 101, 2.0

To paraphrase my brother Ted:

• "Nothing exists unless it's written down.  Oral communication is the enemy.  That is the essence of project management.  Everything else is a detail."

Good project management comes from an innate discipline to intermediate between the real-time world and the planned world by writing things down.   The exact format, process, and tools used should be appropriate to the project complexity and size.

There are, however, some essentials which I use use every time.  Here is my checklist for each project I am involved with:

• Step 1, set up a shareable folder for working documents.  I use Google Drive.  The support for real-time collaboration is unparalleled. 

• Step 2, create a spreadsheet.  Again, I use Google Sheets now.  I used to always use (and love) Excel. 

• Step 3, create a tab for People and for Tasks.  

• Step 4 (for any formal project), create a project charter and sign contracts (where appropriate).  A contract is an agreement between organizations, typically, although it can apply to individuals.  A charter is typically between the people involved with the project.  A charter can be used by both formal and informal projects to write down the key information needed to start a project successfully.

• Step 5 is where project complexity begins to create real variance in approach.  For a simple project, a list of tasks and people may be all that is needed.  Often additional lists in the workbook can be generated for the specifics of the project.  For more technical projects, a threaded discussion with workflow like JIRA and project schedule and resource tool like MS Project are often used.  

Fix, Don’t Discard MCAS/PARCC

This fall I had one on one conversations with many of our state's leaders and experts on the misplaced opposition to testing in general caused by some real legitimate mistakes in current public policy. Below is my analysis in the form of an argument.

Whereas:

1. As enacted in 1993, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) was initially intended to support a comprehensive portfolio of state and local integrated assessment types. Whether the Board picks Measured Progress or a PARCC-developed test to serve as the G3-8 + G10 state summative assessment, the basic structure and name of MCAS remains the same.  PARCC is a more modern, computer delivered assessment. PARCC items are more challenging and College and Career aligned than MCAS incorporating the higher order thinking skills testing opponents purport to value.

2. There is a growing opposition to state summative assessments such as MCAS/PARCC due in part to the fact that the current structure fails to meet dual expectations for accountability and instruction.  In addition, many parents and teachers correctly object to the loss in instructional time and unfair use of assessment results to put down schools and districts serving students in poverty.

3. With that said, State summative assessments such as MCAS and PARCC are essential to school and district accountability; focus school resources on student proficiency and growth; and establish the imperative for state involvement in districts like Lawrence and Holyoke. Elizabeth Warren, the Mass Business Alliance for Education, and the Rennie Center all agree that the MCAS-accountability system must be improved, not discarded.

4. Urban educators and families correctly object to the use of status data instead of growth to hold schools and districts accountable.  CPI and other metrics that consider status (scaled score or % proficient) unfairly bias public opinion and housing patterns away from schools that serve students in poverty, although those schools are frequently better in terms of SGP than schools serving fewer students in poverty.  Professor Jack Schneider of Holy Cross School of Education has written about the negative impact this has on the society and the importance of utilizing multiple factors before drawing valid insights from the data. Damian Betebenner, the originator of SGP echoes this approach.

5. While SGP is valid and essential in school and district accountability it is mostly a distraction in teacher accountability.  Fewer than 1 in 5 teachers can have SGP calculated for their grade and subject, the SGP data is very “noisy” at that low N, and it fails to account for the systemic approach (after school tutors etc) that are critical, but out of the direct control of the teacher.

6. MCAS does not deliver timely nor instructionally significant results.  Spring testing does little to prepare teachers for fall instruction.  Summer mobility and cognitive regression means that the students in front of a teacher are not well measured by last spring’s exam.  The item distribution is insufficient to create skill-level profiles for students, but much more than needed through sampling for school and district level results.

7. The overreaction to MCAS have resulted in an extended test administration that typically runs for 3 weeks to administer a test that should take 1-2 days, disrupting instruction and schools go into “lock down” mentality.  Some schools overreact in test preparation as well, although the vast majority of that work is exactly what the students most vulnerable students need.

Therefore:  Part of the solution is to split MCAS in two distinct components.  Whatever direction the state takes with regards to PARCC, the policies surrounding assessment need to acknowledge that the same test cannot practically be used for both accountability and instruction.  The Legislature should direct DESE to implement a greatly abbreviated spring assessment used exclusively to generate SGP for school and district accountability and a fall, locally-administered, state-coordinated assessment designed to produce skill-profiles for each student to inform instruction.

Students change over the summer.  New kids enroll.  Many kids regress, some accelerate.  Differentiated instruction and personalized learning requires a detailed understanding of each learner's mastery of generally accepted skills.  The current MCAS and proposed PARCC assessment design does not produce skill-level reports, nor is the information timely, nor complete for the students assigned to each teacher.  Teachers need and families deserve educational support for the “zone of proximal learning” not just the middle of the group.  Embedded diagnostic assessment tools like Kahn Academy, 10 Marks, IXL, ALEKS, DreamBox, etc provide teachers with the information they need to differentiate instruction without endless additional grading and disrupting students from time on task learning.

It is time for the Commonwealth to lead again.  The current debate between a growing extremists movement from both the left and right and a moderate middle that wants to retain common sense high and specific expectations for all students is a destructive waste of energy.  We are better than that.  Again and again Massachusetts has led the Nation with education innovation.  We need to fix MCAS, reduce testing time, stop penalizing urban districts for serving poor students, and focus on giving teachers and families the tools they need to ensure every child reads by 3rd grade, every middle school graduate is competent in Algebra and proficient in writing, and every high school student graduates with the core STEM, ELA and life skills they need to ready for higher education and careers.  Let’s end the destructive debate and get to work.