ASSESSMENT AND THE LIBERATION OF LEARNING
Dr John Taylor picks up the baton of assessment reform from Dr Steffen Sommer in the race to address the goal of wider educational change.
Assessment 3.0: a means to an end
In the September edition of ITM, and in his white paper in May, Steffen Sommer makes the case for focusing on reforming educational assessment as a way of achieving wider educational reform. He called his goal ‘Assessment 3.0’. I entirely agree that we need significant innovative change in our assessment system, and for the reason he gives:
If you want to effect change in the system of teaching and learning, the best lever to pull is the one marked ‘assessment’.
The case for reforming assessment is therefore as much a means to an end as it is an end in itself.
The EPQ and project-based learning
I have been working in this space for much of the past 20 years. I was one of the founders of the UK-based Extended Project Qualification, or EPQ, and I was a project director for Perspectives on Science that developed an innovative AS Level in the History and Philosophy of Science. Two decades on, the EPQ, with its emphasis on project-based learning and assessment is now recognised by universities in the UK – and increasingly around the world – as a really great indicator of student potential.
Ditching the exam
The key moment in that development came when it was suggested to us that the course should be assessed not by means of a written exam – something we had assumed would be mandatory for an AS Level – but by means of a written research project. This small pilot programme became a prototype of the Extended Project Qualification, launched in 2009, and which is now an established feature in the curriculum of international schools as well as in the UK, with around 50,000 entries annually.
Getting off the treadmill
The reason that a shift towards 100% internal assessment of projects (with external moderation) was so significant was because it opened up a space within the framework of nationally accredited qualifications for a different type of learning.
Our aim was to create a course which would equip students to ask their own questions, allowing them to learn through a process of research, critical reflection and final presentation which would lead them to find answers for themselves. The degree of freedom which was provided to students was necessary if learning was going to escape from the dreaded ‘teach to the test’ treadmill.
Better learning for the future
And so it proved; in a series of studies, it has now been shown that students who perform well in EPQ (and in other comparable programmes that emphasise independent learning, such as the IB’s Extended Essay) are thereby better equipped for study in higher education, a setting where a capacity for independent learning is more or less a prerequisite for success.
For myself, the journey over the past 20 years has been one of gaining a deeper appreciation of the sheer power of this very simple idea: students learn better when we let them choose.
Beyond written project work
A second crucial step was to widen the frame to include multi-modal assessment. When EPQ was formally launched in 2009, students were given freedom not simply to choose what titles to write about, but whether they wanted to explore their ideas in some other medium, whether it be art, design, poetry, dance, engineering or even cake baking.
Listen to: Project Learning That Works
It takes a while, in my experience, for teachers and students to appreciate that all these modes of outcome are equally valid but again the point is obvious once grasped: what is being assessed is the quality of engagement in a process of extended questioning, research, creative response and expression of ideas, a process that is not intrinsically bound to be expressed solely by writing.
Widening the age-range
We have now widened the frame still further by opening up smaller scale versions of EPQ for younger children, so that they can access this powerful and rewarding mode of learning and begin the journey towards becoming independent learners at any stage in their journey through secondary education.
Whilst the Foundation Project Qualification (FPQ) (accessible to students around 13 years old) and the Higher Project Qualification (HPQ) (often taken by 14- 16-year-olds) are less well-known than EPQ, they are now beginning to attract increased attention as valuable settings for promoting the type of learning that Steffen Sommer and I both believe to be sadly absent, or at best only marginally present, in contemporary school systems.
One of the more intriguing new possibilities is to utilise HPQ as an outcome for learning journeys within specific subject areas, whether that be History of Art, Scientific Investigation, AI usage or Architecture. Why not teach students the skills they need to begin exploring a subject discipline for themselves, then give them the freedom to choose their own preferred topic within which to develop and manifest those skills?
A timely call to action
I am delighted therefore that Steffen, from an influential podium, is elevating assessment reform to the top of the agenda. The potential for wider transformation of teaching and learning as a consequence of boldly unshackling assessment from the constraints of synoptic written examinations is considerable, and his call could not be more timely.
Dr. John Taylor is the Director of Curriculum, Innovation and International Education at the Cranleigh Group of Schools
Listen to John’s ideas on the Big Think podcast. :
The Big Think: Future ready project learning – the route to developing creative, flexible and innovative learners
FEATURE IMAGE: Rawpixel for iStock
Support Images: Thank you to John and Cranleigh School and to hayleigh b on Unsplash
