Are We Putting Our Students First?

It is common practice for most teachers to ask themselves the following: What skill(s) do I want to teach my students, how do I want to teach it, and, then, how do I assess it?  Answering those questions is part of the planning process, a process in which students should definitely be involved.  In a recent article I read called "Knowing Your Learning Target" by Moss, Brookhart, and Long, it suggests that "unless all students see, recognize, and understand the learning target from the very beginning of the lesson, one factor will remain constant: The teacher will always be the one providing the direction, focusing on getting students to meet the instructional objectives" (66).  If the teacher is the one always providing direction, then students aren't actively involved, and thus aren't learning, because they are just focusing on the words of their teacher and are too busy figuring out what they are learning and why they are learning it.  As I was partaking in discussion this week, it was suggested that to really involve students in their learning, there should be whole class learning targets for which the teacher creates and shares with their students and then student created learning targets that specialize learning even more for them.  In order to have students create their own learning targets, they first need to really understand the teachers, so that is where open dialogue is really key.  Teachers need to explain to their students why what they are learning is important and how it can help them in the real world.

While I and many others can attest to the fact that no two students are alike and deserve varied learning targets, instruction, and assessment, the state of Pennsylvania does not seem to be on board.  The Keystone exam does not embrace students as individuals; rather, it is one form of assessment that assesses the same standards for every student.  I have recently learned that, that kind of assessment is an industrial/behaviorist (i/b) model of learning an assessment from the article entitled "The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture" by Lorrie Shepard.  According to Shepard, with that kind of assessment, students are given specific standards for which they must master at a given level with each student taking the same kind of test.  Well, that just seems unrealistic and unproductive, and the results of the assessment would be seriously flawed.  In today's society, people engage in discussion, they create and design, they problem-solve.  How can the state give our students an assessment that does not (a) align to students individual learning abilities and (b) does not align to the real world?

As a result, education needs to move beyond an i/b form of assessment and, instead, embrace a social-constructivist (s/c) model of learning and assessment.   With an s/c model of learning, learning is "authentic and connected to the world outside of school" which makes learning more interesting and applicable for students, as well as motivate them to use the skills they are learning in real world settings (Shepard 7).  In order for teachers to impart s/c type of learning in their classroom, they must create assessments in which students are illustrating higher order thinking skills and are problem-solving.  And a good way to get students to the point where they are critical thinking and problem-solving is to engage them in discussion.  There is tremendous power behind socialization.  Students need to "become accustomed to explaining their reasoning and offering and receiving feedback about their developing competence" (Shepard 10).  When students socialize with each other, they develop strong convictions due to their critical analyses; they learn how to defend their own beliefs and challenge others;  and they learn when challenging others beliefs how to provide solutions to the problems they deem present with their peer's beliefs.  This form of learning is authentic and real world applicable, which is nothing like the Keystone assessment.  So the question is, how should the Keystone assessment be altered to embrace an s/c model?  Should the test be abolished altogether and leave the learning and assessment up to each school and their teachers?  To help drive our answers, we need to think about what's best for our students, and I can't help but think that right now, the state of Pennsylvania is not putting our students first.